Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Fantasy is a big word, wouldn’t you agree?

Understandably, it, in general and for most people using it, encompassed a many things — Gods, for example, or a magical Crystal that, like a certain sword handed out by a wench in a lake declared you royalty, or perhaps a magical school called Hogwarts.

There were many things you could name to fill in the gap that fantasy left in the mind of people.

Therefore you would expect that in a world with true and alive gods, people and the gods too, for that matter, would be acquaintanced to the idea of fantastic things to happen.

And perhaps they really were—

Just not to the fact that someone but them could perform these miracles with but a small gesture. Or in this case to a golden masked man riding a monstrous four legged beast through the sky, magic flying from his hand as though it was the most normal thing you could do early in the morning of an especially warm summer day.

As such, it was truly understandable to see god Bahamut, the Draconian at loss when a bellow of something along the lines of “Expel-ill-armors” flung his godly tight grip around his favorite sword open. The sword, hardly of a comfortable size for anyone but a god, plummeted down to Eos with nothing but a gentle spin to it, the hilt waving a cheery goodbye to its former owner as though it was alive and already contemplating its future in freedom—

But perhaps we should start at the beginning, hm?

Chapter Text

The beginning, in this case was only a little bit earlier, though there, the concept of time in itself was not quite as measurable as a human mind would prefer it.

You could hear the sound of a heavy drape falling, echoing in the distance when Mister Harry James Potter, whom we from now on shall simply refer to as ‘Harry’, stepped upon the scene.

Not that he knew where he was or what was happening, mind you. Indeed, this very lack of information lead to the first words coming out of said Harry’s mouth to be a question.

“Where are we?” asked Harry and though he spoke quietly, his question echoed with the force of thousands of voices, all tied up into one.

The Welthund, which by happy stroke of circumstance appeared together with Harry, loomed over the young man as it replied with a whisper that may as well have been the din of eruption in the silence of the night, WHERE THIS IS? IT DOES NOT MATTER, HARRY, FOR BEHOLD HIS MOMENT! SURROUNDING US LIES ALL OF ETERNITY. WHATEVER CAN WALK, MUST WALK THIS LANE OF WHICH WE HAVE SEEN THROUGH YOUR LIFE NOW BUT A SMALL GLIMPSE. WHATEVER CAN HAPPEN, WILL HAPPEN AND IT WILL EVENTUALLY PASS US BY AS WE WALK UPON THIS LANE. EVERYTHING, MY DEAR HARRY, IS FATED. FATE IS EVERYTHING AND EVERYTHING IS NIHIL.

Harry gandered up and down the apparent ‘lane’ of eternity; it stretched as far as he could see in either cardinal direction. On the first glance it looked black, but when he looked closer, he could see that it was indeed every colour he could imagine — And galaxies, stars, entire universes?

With a shake of his head Harry straightened up, turning back to face the enormous Welthund, who, now that he thought of it, didn’t look all that tall anymore — Or had he himself grown? He shook his head again. What did it matter?

“What will await me here, in this my new reality?” asked Harry.

It was a strange question to ask, as usually nobody knew what would come next in life. Sure enough, people could predict based on experience and all the other factors that took influence on this or that matter; but here, Harry was wholly out of his element and he rather enjoyed the idea, no matter how terrifying the prospect of the future may seem.

The Welthund regarded him with curiosity, its bright golden eye in the centre of its head finding focus, before its wet snout gently touched to Harry’s shoulder in a gesture of comfort and it said with its inhumane voice, THE MOST SUPREME CHALLENGE YOU CAN FACE, HARRY. IT WILL BE YOUR MOST ULTIMATE TEST OF COURAGE, OF LIFE, OF ALL THINGS YOU CAN THINK OF BECAUSE IT WILL REQUIRE YOU TO DECIDE IF YOU CAN LIVE THE LIFE YOU HAVE CHOSEN.

It felt like a real challenge too — All over again — Could he defend the life he chose to live?

Nobody was there to mock him, nobody was there to mark him with this or that attitude; and so Harry smiled the smile he learnt to smile, brazen and almost Socratic in its nature and he said, “Bring it on.”

The Welthund showed rows upon rows of teeth as it barked a laugh that might as well have been a misfiring engine, or a landslide going down a mountain — But strangely enough, Harry rather liked the sound.

“You will be my companion?”

The Welthund nodded its head, the black, thick and wooly fur spreading a rather enjoyable smell that reminded Harry of Hagrid’s cabin, Hogwarts’ beeswax candles and petrichor.

“No matter where I go? No matter how long it might take to get there? No matter what I will do on the way?”

NO MATTER, agreed the Welthund amicably. AND I PROMISE NOBODY, NOT I, OR ANYONE SHALL JUDGE YOU, NO MATTER WHERE YOU GO, WHEN YOU ARRIVE, OR WHAT YOU WILL DO ON THE WAY; THIS IS PENANCE ONLY YOU CAN UNLEASH UPON YOUR SELF.

Harry nodded his acceptance — He could not understand, yet, but as far as things went, that was all right. And so his feet began to carry him along the lane, the direction, oddly enough, seemed without consequence. He hummed a small tune as he went.

After just a couple of steps, Harry’s eyes began to steer from where he was staring ahead: He looked down and knelt, gently touching his fingers to the surface of the lane.
It was warm and soft to the touch, felt intimate and for shame, he wished he could dive deep into this feeling and enjoy himself for however long he was permitted!

He breathed an audible sigh when suddenly a thought struck him: How would he go about going where he could go, if he were to wish to go somewhere?

Harry voiced his question as he stood up, straightening out the suit that was as black as the lane upon which he stood, save for the gilden buttons, the crowns stitched from gilden thread and the symbol of having mastered his own death just above the leather girdle.

NOW THAT, said the Welthund, IS INDEED A GOOD QUESTION HARRY.

It said nothing more as it sat down next to Harry, its eye calmly observing him as if they had all the— Well, eternity probably has all the time in the world.

“Would you tell me?” asked Harry a little stiffly and after pretty neigh a heartbeat, he added quickly, “Please?”

WELL — YOU JUMP, OF COURSE and THEN, the Welthund said happily, its tongue out of its snout as it made a sound that reminded Harry distantly of one of these very fat flies that could be found in the early summer in most any other room in most abodes, hitting a window over and over again before it finally would find the way outside, YOU ARRIVE.

“I jump,” repeated Harry, spittle flying from his mouth when he made a mockery of the sound the Welthund’s mouth had spawned, “— and then I arrive? Just like that?”

YES, JUST LIKE THAT, HARRY — WHY DON’T YOU GIVE IT A TRY?

The suggestion was made with such eager a tone that Harry was half a mind to take a step back. He mulled the idea over: Could it be a trick? He glanced towards his companion, who attempted to look quite innocent, which was quite unlike anything Harry ever had seen in his long life before, as the canine teeth filled snout of a hound and especially a hound with one eye did not allow for much innocence.

What did it matter, he thought, life, in itself was a risk! Yes — He could do it! A jump, that was easy, wasn’t it? Just bending your knees a little and then hop and you jumped.

“Well, I— I guess I’ll jump then,” said Harry with unsure tone. He slightly bent his knees in preparation of jumping when he suddenly stopped. He straightened up again, asking, “You are sure about this?”

The big golden eye in the centre of the Welthund’s head rolled at him while a snort blew warm air into Harry’s face.

QUITE, drawled the inhumane voice, amusedly. YOU DO KNOW WHERE YOU WISH TO GO, DON’T YOU?

Harry rubbed his chin in thought before he replied, “Yes, I suppose so. A vague idea of somewhere should be good enough, right?”

The Welthund stood up and with eager wags of its two tails it said, JOLLY GOOD! DO GO ON THEN, completely ignoring Harry’s question.

Harry hesitated again. It was like ripping off a band-aid; he supposed, doing it quickly would be better, but the anticipation of the short pain that would sting and burn, especially when said band-aid was plastered on a very hairy patch of skin, was what made people delay the inevitable: Eventually the band-aid would have to come off, just as Harry eventually would have to jump — And here, he would want to argue, was he himself the very hairy patch of skin, called Harry and he rather wished for it to not hurt at all when he would rip off the cosmic band-aid by jumping into the unknown.

He bent his knees a little, again, full of conviction that now he would jump and then —

Chapter Text

Harry actually jumped.

It surprised himself; he had not expected himself to jump. He believed in himself, of course, as most any other man should believe in himself, but, so truth be told, there was a mighty difference between believing you can do something and actually doing it.

Harry, who ever would be denying that he actually screamed, saw the Welthund follow with a bark of utmost adlubescence and then the lane was gone and he fell and fell and fell —

Until the dark of whatever was filled with distant lights everywhere, with dazzling light above and with heat radiating from said light, so warm that Harry felt, or rather imagined that this might be how being a chick sitting under one of these heat lamps might feel like.

Soon Harry noticed that he was not falling anymore, but rather was he floating, or, something akin to what he imagined floating might feel like — He never had been weightless before, after all and even the Levitation Charm applied to him had had a certain feeling of being under someone’s spell. So yes, he was afloat and that, so he reached the conclusion, could only mean that he was in space —

This conclusion, after a few glances around, found a solid basis within his mind as he noticed that indeed nearby him was a sun, bright, hot and very close.

SPACE? MARVELLOUS, said the Welthund without any sarcasm whatsoever, just after appearing beside Harry, paddling gently through space with motions you might just see with any other type of dog if they were to jump into a big enough-sized body of water.

Harry snapped his fingers, which, so he noted only after he had already opened his mouth to speak, curiously made a sound in the vacuum of space, — And now that he thought of it: how was he breathing? And how was it that he was slightly sweaty and not, well, freezing into a solid block of Harry?

“As if possessed by a manmade god,” Harry yarned his idea, as though the memory of it had happened a lifetime ago, of when he had burned himself alive, of when he had embraced the death of part of himself—

The Welthund, paddling just now slightly below Harry’s head —or was it above?— wagged its tails before his face, asking, ARE YOU WALLOWING IN SELF-PITY? PLAYING GOD FOR A FOOL?

Harry nodded absently, a cumbersome feeling of blame settling in his guts as he thought of dying, of seeing old Harry Potter in a casket, of the idea of never being again—

The Welthund whipped its tail into Harry’s face, beating the two appendages with something that suspiciously seemed like glee left and right on both cheeks and then once more for good measure.

BETTER NOW?

Harry would not admit it, but yes, he felt better. He, with stubborn calmness forwent answering; these memories and he assured himself that it was just like that, were of a different Harry, an older Harry to whom he referred to as Harry Potter, who had lived a life full and stuffed to the brim with untold amounts of events. He was not that Harry Potter: He was the union of all the best things this old Harry Potter had achieved and procured in his life; he, the new Harry was the manmade god that had possessed Harry Potter, growing inside of him until the idea, the concept was ripe and fully formed! He was new, fresh and alive —

He looked at his hands: Pale, young skin with golden mist dancing over it to it. He smiled, only to have his face shift into a frown, thinking: What did this all mean for him and to him?

Harry fingered at his girdle, grasping to the warm wood of the wand that had been made just for him: Schnitter. He decided that he would find out what it meant on the way; the word ‘god’, after all, could have a many meanings.

But returning to the matter at hand, namely where he was:

“I suppose,” he muttered as he counted the beads on the wand with his fingers, feeling out the runes carved into the wood, “I knew, roughly enough, where I wished to go, but not the when.”

OUT OF CURIOSITY: HOW DO YOU FIGURE?

“Well,” said Harry. “I suppose this here is the perihelion apsis of Terra, if I remember my terms correctly and that means,” he paused, his eyes darting left and right as he thought on it, “and that means I am at the third of January. Terra however is at another date.”

The Welthund made a noise of understanding, sounding quite similar to an underwater detonation, before it returned to paddling circles around Harry’s form, often enough disappearing when it came before an especially dark patch of cosmos.

Harry drew Schnitter; the thin fabric of reality buckled under the looming presence of the tantric might he called his own. It seemed that this reality was not comfortable with such power. Indeed, if the universe was a pond and reality the surface resting upon it, then Harry’s magic was the stone, thrown in by a careless child to rip it open and disturb its peace.

ARE YOU PLANNING TO SUMMON YOURSELF TO THE PAST OR FUTURE THEN? NO?

“How does one even — No, nevermind. I need to think and for that I need to be comfortable. And then we can think of a plan!” said Harry; he waved his wand and behind the arc of parting particles was weightlessly dragged a still-forming massive wing-back chair transfigured from cosmic dust and some chips of ice that luckily were just flying by in form of a small comet.

Now that he was sitting, having a firm idea of where up and down was, he needed only to figure out how to get himself out of space.

The city of Lestallum, foremost of the towns located in the Cleigne area became in most recent time a bustling, modern town of tropical climate: and while it was home to numerous street food joints and restaurants, marketers and musicians, the prosperity introduced by the energy harvested from the meteorite which years ago crashed nearby, did not only attract common people, eager to live a more comfortable and secure life, but also hunters and outlaws.

In Lestallum, most of the humbler folk, scavengers and those that did the odd-jobs living from day-to-day knew of a certain tavern with beds and glasses so dirty you might just catch a disease so deadly even daemons would not wish to turn on you — This tavern, located in what might have been a bunker, was managed by a disfigured porker called Crassus ‘Droller’ Vulcanus, who, thinking himself a proper innkeeper, demanded to be addressed as one — Hence why his tavern was called the Hypogean Inn.

It has been remarked before that band-aids, while certainly useful, could be a pain to remove. This quality was not unique to just band-aids. Indeed, Crassus, the innkeeper knew half a dozen guys and at least a handful of women that fit the bill of being a right-down disgusting sort that lingered without paying their tabs well beyond their welcome every few nights when he called for last orders —

Tonight was the third night after pay-day, meaning it was exactly working up to be such a night:

“Last round,” hollered Crassus.

He kicked against the near broken jukebox, rattling the old thing from where it was stuck repeating the same refrain over and over again. It skipped two and a half songs and suddenly began playing a rather dirty, chorus version of a lullaby.

Crassus stared at it before he shrugged and returned to cleaning up for the night.

There was a clatter of bottles and the scraping of chairs being moved over the metal floor.

“Have ye ‘eard, Droller? Furtis gave word there’s parked some fancy car’s on the upside near the Cup Noodle® truck, jus’ waitin’ for sum’one ta take ‘er fer a ride.”

It was the only remaining female customer, salt white hair and old enough to suck bread instead of chewing it who spoke as she leaned to the counter, her breath driving Crassus to suck in air through his mouth, lest he would see what became of the soup he had eaten earlier.

“Aye, it’s a b’uty,” slurred a ragged man from the table at the far side of the room. “It’s ter bad Droller’s ter fat ta drive.”

Opposite of said ragged man was slumped another man, older and with pepper black hair, grease stains and black oil blotches on the worn denim clothes. He shifted in his drunken sleep upon hearing noise beyond the normal level of the Hypogean Inn.

Crassus threw down the dirty rag with which he just finished wiping a glass on the counter and glowered at the hag before him. He kept her with his gaze fixed, but turned his head towards the drunken man, asking, “Insomnian?”

“‘s shiny ‘nuff ta be,” said the old woman, grinning wickedly at the disgusted look on Crassus’ face as another waft of rotting stench reached him. “Niffs ‘ve got pairs of eyes on it too.”

Crassus visibly worked the information in his head over before he shook his head, blue hazel eyes glancing towards the small window that supplied the room with somewhat breathable air. He pressed a button underneath his counter, causing the ventilation to spring alive, blue light flashing as it began to sirr.

“Pay up yer tab Potor!” he called after the drunkard who was about to half stumble and half crawl up the steel staircase leading back to the surface.

“Wha—?”

“I said: PAY UP yer tab POTOR!”

“Yeah, an’ I said: Wha—?”

Laughter rose up, causing Crassus to throw dirty looks left and right.

“Stop laughin’ ye stinkin’ heaps o’ dualcorn dung!” he yelled, which caused the patrons to laugh even louder.

“Stop laughin’ or y’all be payin’ yer tabs now!”

Dead silence followed.

“Jus’ what I thought,” grumbled Crassus as he went around the counter to clean off the remaining tables. “Now, pay up yer ragin’ Anak b’fore I throw ye out meself — Oughta tell yer wife!”

Hastily a handful of Gils were thrown at the counter, clattering and rolling off the edge to the ground.

“Astrals!” said Potor with a grumble before he dragged himself up the steep staircase, pushing open the steel door and disappearing through it. The hag followed quickly behind, leaving with muttered words.

“No invoking gods down ‘ere,” rumbled Crassus after him.

The door loudly falling shut woke the hitherto sleeping dunkard. With bleary eyes he watched Crassus lift the chairs up to the tables, gloved hand wiping away drool from his mouth.

“Ye heedful, Cid?”

“Wha—? Closing time already?”

Crassus ignored the question with narrowed eyes, placing the last unoccupied chair on top of the dirty tables, before he hurried back to his counter, picking up the Gils.

“The fancy car — It yers, ain’t it?”

Cid Sophiar stretched, yawning a positive reply.

“Niffs be havin’ eyes on it,” said Crassus. “Anyways, ye makin’ good on repossessing that Regal-whatsitcalled? Drivin’ fancy cars fer fun—” He stopped speaking, a series of blinking lights belonging to a phone halfway hidden from sight to anyone but the barkeep, drawing his eyes.

He cursed only to gasp as if the air was punched out of him when a second set of lights began to blink violently in red, a shrill alarm joining in with the rhythm of the light.

Despite his size, Crassus was quick when his body deemed it necessary. He stumbled forward, pilfering through the filthy rags, glasses, packs of cigarettes and half-emptied cans of Elixirs until he, with a victorious cry found a small shining metal disk. He turned it over, pressing his thumb to a hidden button that anyone but him would have trouble finding.

Cid Sophiar all but sprinted to the counter, drunkenness gone at the shock of seeing the silvery disk. It was a design he had grown accustomed to seeing.

“Is that—?”

Cid Sophiar laughed with what seemed to be disbelief when he saw Crassus nod, wide eyes with pale complexion.

“Oh, y'are serious? Now? Fuck! Why?”

The alarm flared for a few long moments before the steel door burst open, thundering against the concrete wall. There was a sign mounted to the exterior. It read ONLY FOR MEMBER.

Chapter Text

A little earlier, a couple of streets down from where the Hypogean Inn was located at, four as tourists disguised Niflheim reconnaissance patrol members were waiting impatiently, ill at ease with the broadly grinning Cup Noodle® vendor about to serve them their third steaming hot and preferably not spicy cup of Cup Noodles®.

"Well?" demanded the youngest of the four 'tourists' rudely.

The Cup Noodle® vendor peered with slightly fogged up glasses at him before replying, "You cannot hurry these things — A good cup of Cup Noodles® requires patience. It is an art onto itself, to heat the water just right, lest we destroy the true flavour of our patented, Cup Noodle® Behemoth Round broth!"

He made some quick adjustments at the heating element until the orange display showed the black numbered temperature he was waiting for.

"Almost! Gentlemen, almost! You have tasted our Glimmering Zu Egg Cup Noodles® and our Karlabos Carapace Cup Noodles® and now, finally, you will taste the most superb Behemoth Round Cup Noodles®! Are you prepared?" he asked at last.

"Well — It's— It's food, isn't it? It's a cup of noodles, with different flavour than the others before," commented the dirty blonde of the four. "I doubt it will be all that different."

The one to his left, broad shoulders with a birthmark upon his big rootlike nose shrugged listlessly.

"It sates the hunger, which is good enough for me," he said.

The fourth of them with raised eyebrows though asked quite eagerly, "Is it genuine Behemoth Round?"

The Cup Noodles® vendor pursed his lips at the comments of the two men before him, before he turned with an aghast look to the oldest of the four, who was questioning the quality of the product.

"It most certainly is," said he. "The Behemoth was felled a fortnight ago by Lestallum's two foremost hunters; it was then butchered on the spot by their companion, Lestallum's master butcher and the meat was prepared immediately for the maturation process. This Cup Noodle® cup is one of the first we are offering with the unique flavour of Behemoth Round!"

"Never had Behemoth before," admitted the fourth, again with raised eyebrows.

The Cup Noodle® vendor poured the hot water into the cups and gingerly stirred the contents of each, taking care not to break the noodles, before quickly placing a lid on the cups.

"Only a moment or two, now," announced he happily.

A few glances were exchanged between the not all that touristy men.

"I—" began the dirty blonde, glancing over his shoulder towards the other side of the street where he could make out a store. "I'll get some Amber for us, won't be a minute." He did not wait for his comrades to reply, whispering a hateful, "May the juggernaut take him," as he went.

"Rude!" was exclaimed by the cleary appalled Cup Noodle® vendor. He shook his head as he checked the timer. The nerve of some people!

"What of it? Now — Are they ready? We already have wasted too much time here!" retorted rootnose angrily.

A car drove by, blowing its horn as it passed just as up the sidewalk a couple of dogs went off their leashes, running as quick as the wind and doped up like a Bulette spooked by fire.

The three remaining 'tourists' as on cue looked to the side, watchful eyes searching first the face of the driver and then the license plate. The dogs went past them, nearly causing them to stumble.

Legerdemainist for a hobby and royal sympathiser by conviction, the Cup Noodle® vendor quickly added some inconspicuous white powder. It was nothing dangerous, oh no, never— Merely a pinch of dried Mandrake's leaf.

He called them to attention, handing out the cups with slight a smile. After they left towards the parking lot, the Cup Noodle® vendor spent some time staring after them. Then, glancing at the clock, he began to quickly clean up the stall.

At approximately the same time, a little bit farther away atop the mountains of Zoldara Henge the Oracle, Queen Sylva Via Fleuret of Tenebrae, who until then never had much business communing with gods or divining the future beyond her ceremonial services to the people, found her gaze drawn to a muddy and warped reflection of the bright moon in an especially dirty wet spot that had happened to come into existence due to a leaky hose one of the gardeners had trouble fixing up for the sylleblossoms.

She took one look at the reflection, gave a small warbled scream and hurried forward, falling with her royal dress into the mud. From the distance people yelled for her and guards were rushing towards the gardens, but the Oracle had no mind for anything but what she saw—

"Need to give warning," she stammered. And when the first retainer finally reached her, kneeling down next to her, she demanded with trembling voice, "Call the Lucii! The calamity is headed for Insomnia! We must warn them!"

Moreover, about at the same time as the Oracle spotted Fate giving a jaunty wave with the middle finger through the dirty puddle of water in the famed royal gardens of Tenebrae, King Mors Lucis Caelum sat on his throne, his hand clutched to his chest.

Time was drawing close for the old king and he knew it well enough: The crystal's draw on him was getting stronger by the day, luring him with promises of rest, of seeing his forefathers, of becoming the strength needed for the future generations of Lucis Caelum.

"History may judge me however it wishes," the King's words on the matter of the consolidation of the Wall had been and he would stand by them, until a wiser man may take over. Until then he still had to battle with the paperwork that came with being a king.

"Your Majesty—"

King Mors' head turned to find a member of the Crownsguard with a big phone in hand, sweat on his forehead. His breathing was erratic, as though he had ran all the way to the throne room.

"Lieutenant?"

The Crownsguard stepped forward, almost eager to hand over the massive phone.

King Mors stared at it before accepting the call.

He listened, he whispered a few questions and then he ended the call. He stared at his hands, a shiver wrecking through them. Then he turned to the Crownsguard.

"Lieutenant— Spread the word: henceforth the Kingdom of Lucis is preparing for a state of calamity! Go to the catacombs. Use the emergency transmitters: Enlighten our people!"

Perhaps this was the chance to prepare the wise man himself? His son would need all the practice he could get, as indeed soon he would become King—

As the Lieutenant bowed, with quick steps retreating backwards, King Mors hurriedly added, "— And call the Prince and all the Crownsguard to me."

"At once, Your Majesty!"

King Mors sat quietly on his throne, waiting for the alarm to sound. It was almost like the juggernaut of war was again returning to Insomnia. Or perhaps it never had left.

The Cup Noodle® vendor left in a hurry towards his home, eager to get away from the eventually returning 'tourists'.

As he passed over the plaza, his eyes were drawn skywards by a scream of sheer fright.

Before he could think of it he looked up, seeing a woman lean out of her ripped open windows, her arm raised up into sky, pointing at—

His jaw dropped. There was a golden-red bright light, just next to the moon.

"Ifrit's Pit!"

He quickly fished for some Gils to use the public phone, scrambling so as not to drop them with shaky hands; he hastily went to the phone, attempting to remember the number he wished to call only to come up with utter gibberish. With oat he returned to stare at the growing light for a second or two and then legged it, away from the plaza, dashing past the merry band of 'tourists' staring wide-eyed at the light above while clutching their bellies as though they were about to give birth.

At present time at the Hypogean Inn, drawn weapons were aimed towards the staircase.

"Expecting anyone?" asked Cid Sophiar over the shrill alarm as he pulled a gleaming knife from inside of his denim jacket to complete the pistol in his other hand.

"Crassus! Crassus! There's a light—"

"Is jus' the Cup Noodle boy, Fortis," said Crassus with a grunt, lowering his suspiciously glowing rod.

The Cup Noodle® vendor quickly stepped down the staircase, nearly tripping over his own feet. He grimaced as he stepped into the full brunt of the blaring siren, asking "— So you know already? Do you? It's absurd, I say— "

Cid eyed the young man with critical eye before he lowered his pistol, the knife disappearing back to where it came from.

"Stop babbling, boy," said Cid. He turned to address Crassus. "Can you do something about the—" Cid gestured around, hinting at the sound of the siren.

Crassus nodded and hurriedly went back behind the counter to fumble with his self-crafted electronics. After a minute it went quiet, the power of most electronics dying except for the violently flashing lights.

Cid meanwhile secured his pistol, quietly staring at the ground, as if he was deep in thought.

As soon as the sound died, Cid spoke up, "Where is it — What's it look like, boy?"

"Might 's well—" said Crassus as he procured a dark-brown bottle from down under the counter, placing three small glasses next to it. He filled each of it to the brim, easily ignoring the dotted line that indicated to where they should be filled.

"— Leiden Pepper's Spirit," he said for explanation and downed the contents of his own shot glass quickly.

Cid eyed the bottle for a short moment before he picked one of the two remaining glasses and emptied it without further hesitation. He knocked the glass back down while eying the bottle again, a gleam of appreciation shining on his face.

"It's a golden-red light, just next to the moon," said the Cup Noodle® vendor as he walked up to the counter. He picked up the glass and sniffed at it. He grimaced but quickly downed it only to cough violently afterwards.

Crassus' fist went down on the counter, causing the young Cup Noodle® vendor to jump with surprise. The glass dropped from his hands to the ground, bursting asunder.

"— Means we've got jus' a couple o' hours— Maybe less!"

"Six! It's another meteor isn't it? Please— Crassus, do you think the Astrals will help?"

Cid guffawed derisively while Crassus huffed a snort before he demanded, "No invoking gods down 'ere!"

"What?"

Crassus shook his head as he filled himself another round into the small glass, downing it quickly. He then began to fumble with the electronics again before he replied, "The Astral are either dead or they dun' care—"

"— Should they care, though, it'd be 'cause either of the Lucis or Fleuret bloodlines are affected," agreed Cid resignedly.

"Why— Why would you say that?" asked the Cup Noodle® vendor with shell-shocked voice. "We were made in the imagine of the Astrals and the Oracle—"

In younger years, Crassus too had been raised with the stories read from the Cosmogony; it was then and must be still, a book people put too much faith into. As a boy already, Crassus' rebellious mind sprouted the seed of doubt and he would feel strange when confronted with these utterly devoted people, believing in the infallible nature of the Hexatheon. Here now too, he encountered a wall of stubbornness projected by the boy he'd seen grow into a young man. The sensible thing to do would be to let him have his belief, he knew but Crassus was neither sensible nor nice—

He none too gently interrupted the boy, saying, "Yer faith in a power 'bove yerself is the one great curse ye can inflict upon yerself, boy! Ye can, of co'se, pray all ye want to the Six, — Yer Astrals, that they may come 'n save ye, but I won't — I won't lay meself at the feet of some ideolised beings, 'owever divine they be—"

"Then do what? Wait and die?" asked the Cup Noodle® vendor snappily.

Cid snarled at the young man before ripping the bottle out of Crassus' grip, taking a long and deep swig before he belched loudly, nearly throwing the bottle back to the counter.

"Today Eos will change— Meet this event as ya see fit, boy!"

Crassus pocketed the metal device, his glowing metal rod thrown up to lay against his shoulder. His shirt, a few sizes too small, strained against the movement. He did not find need to comment any further on Cid's words.

"Let's go Cid — Ain't got much time!"

Chapter Text

Above the streets of Insomnia, formerly Prince, now Prince Regent Regis Lucis Caelum paced before the throne of his father, the question of the 'Why' still lingering unspoken in the spacious throne room. The Crownsguard were on their knees behind him, awaiting the first orders of the newly inaugurated Prince Regent while in the distance muted the sirens wailed their warning through the Crown City—

"One cannot lead by standing still," said King Mors with something akin to the gallantry you might find with young politicians who are still eager to prove their own worth to the world and themselves, before continuing with great oath, "A king pushes onward always, accepting the consequences and never looking back."

"Why now? You have more experience with these matters, Father! What if I make a mistake and it costs the lives of thousands, or worse—"

King Mors heaved himself out of his throne, swaying slightly before he stood firmly. He looked sternly over the Crownsguard before he stepped to the side. With small gesture and a small smile of paternal pride he beckoned his son to climb the few steps up to the throne.

"The road ahead may be rough, the journey upon which you are set by birth may be tough and the experience you are to make may be bitter — But they are stepping stones, my Son, to becoming a great King—"

Prince Regent Regis felt the urge of throwing his hands up in disgusted exasperation at hearing once more a phrase that sounded like a mantra, if repeated often enough. He resisted barely as he walked up to the throne. He stared at his father before he glanced warily at the throne: it suddenly looked so very imposing to him.

With gentle but firm hands King Mors pushed his son to take seat.

The moment he took seat Prince Regent Regis began envisioning himself the fate of the people outside the Old Wall; akin to the blood dripping, shapeless horror of the dream that recurred every few nights where he was felled by the sword of a friend. He blinked and the moment was gone. He took in this feeling of what he could only describe as power as he overlooked the whole throne room. Then he looked skyward and through the tall windows he could see the distant scarlet plume twinkling with mad designs of providence at him, like the tale of god Ifrit gifting a splinter of his fire to mankind.

As a father King Mors leant close to his son, speaking almost with a whisper, "I shall care for the Old Wall and Lucis' last line of defense and you, Son, shall care for the fate of our people."

King Mors stepped back and with small a nod to his son, he walked out of the throne room, his personal guard upon his heels.

A sudden doubt seemed to blossom within the young Prince Regent: What was the right course to take? Were the lives of the people beyond the Old Wall less important to the Kingdom of Lucis than the lives of those secured within the Crown City?

He searched the bowed heads for the only one he called friend within these halls—

"Clarus— Where are you? Clarus!?"

A Crownsguard, standing out among the mass lifted his shaven head, looking up to the throne and the young Prince Regent sitting upon it.

"Your Highness?"

Prince Regent Regis breathed quietly with relief upon spotting him.

"I need your help," he said.

"— Anything, Your Highness."

Calling the car Cid was driving them with anything but fancy would cast obloquy upon it and it would draw the ire of all the car enthusiasts out there to whoever was uttering these words; or to use a different selection of words: It was rather beautiful, even if it was an endless pit for petrol.

Nobody, however, was listening to the chatter of this petrol force, generating ten hundreds Garula units of power! Instead they were staring up into the starry sky, most likely imagining their own indescribably hideous deaths upon coming into the acceptance that contrariant to their faith perhaps the gods would not be there to help this time around, or so Crassus thought as they sped past.

Crassus, though was not wasting thoughts on hopes he perceived false: He kept his eyes firmly affixed on the golden red dot of light just next to the moon, his hands gripping tightly around the glowing rod. There was no denying that the light grew bigger within one moment to the next.

Cid was driving with speed considered not all that safe for night time, speeding past the Kelbass Grasslands when suddenly sulphureous smell filled the air. The pestilential miasma of daemons, blackish scum, began to manifest above the lands. First there were only shadows, like pernicious fog creeping down the mountains and hills, through the undergrowth and the grass—

"Keep drivin'," said Crassus urgently just as Cid, upon sniffing the biting smell of the impending daemonic spawning, floored the accelerator pedal.

The rolling dreadnought swayed slightly when a gargantuan fist belonging to an Iron Giant burst from the road, as if the supposed underworld itself was torn open to make way for its hordes to befall Eos.

The daemon barely was manifested in solid form when the humongous sword sailed at them with clear intent to cleave the car with them inside in half, a mephitic smell blowing from its mouth as the Iron Giant roared its senseless rage.

Cid evaded it with the experience of a seasoned driver, grunting as he strained to keep the car from veering off the road.

"DO something Droller," said he with clear demand in his voice, a glance into the rear-vision mirror revealing the Iron Giant sprinting after them, faster than he expected it to do.

Crassus' flexed his grip on the rod in his hands, demanding, "Open the feckin' 'ood then!"

As soon as the hood was gone, Crassus' whipped the rod over his shoulder pressing a small button on it. He aimed vaguely and when he released the button, blinding elemancy-charged lightning burst from the sphere-shaped adamantite tip, surging at the daemon. It hit the Iron Giant square in the face, slowing it down enough to allow the car to gain distance.

Upon spewing its charge of elemancy the rod made the pitiful whining and whistling sound that electronics usually made when they died a sudden death.

Crassus gave a surprised, painfilled yelp as he felt the rod heat up. He dropped it into the footwell, grunting something intelligible as he noticed a faint smirk on his friends' face.

"Blasted magitek!"

Then Crassus smiled. "'Least t'was only one daemon."

Cid did not take his eyes off the road as a deep rumble of discomfort raced through his guts. "Don't jinx it!" he demanded.

The Oracle, Queen Sylva Via Fleuret of Tenebrae jumped in frightened surprise when the phone she had been staring at for the past hour suddenly rang. For a moment she hesitated, thinking of all the dire consequences that may lay waiting for the world, the people on it and herself too, before she picked it up.

She listened, she nodded to herself and then vocally agreed to the Prince Regent Regis' plan before she rang off.

It turned out worse than all what she managed to imagine.

"Prepare the Oracle's Trident ceremony," said she with urgency in her voice as she stood up. "I— I must commune with the gods!"

Immediately the two retainers who, with badly disguised panic written all over their behaviour had waited impatiently for orders to be given, jogged off.

At a later time, down in the canyon of Taelpar Crag one Cid Sophiar trudged through the dark, down a path that was known only to him and Crassus, as far as he knew; still his modified pistol was held loosely in his hand as you never knew where a daemon or fiend might show up.

It was muddy and there was a stiffish breeze breathing the taste of the most recent rain along the much scarred walls of Taelpar Crag. The enormous rifts, choss and shale that were the result of the battle of two gods, made for a dangerous path through it.

Crassus was ahead— He had sprinted like a barrel rolled down-hill, something which Cid might have found amusement in if not for the fact this very well may become his last trip with a friend out into adventure.

Buffeted by wind Cid arrived at one of a dozen near-identical gaps that which was marked by a single displaced, shrivelled Wedgeleaf Draba that even when alive had been nothing more than a piteous sight.

As soon as he stepped into the unnatural darkness that was thrown upon the entrance like a shroud, he was dazzled by the blue-tinged light of the ancient Solheimian technology. It didn't last long, as Cid was quite used to the rooms and knew how navigate his way through the traplaced ruins without ambling into this or that snare.

Almost mournfully he stepped around the pitfall filled with Beta Ziggurat daemons. He remembered, with exact the right amount of gloom mixing with joy imbibing him with a rhapsody about the very first time they had went to explore the ruins.

But then again, this was no time for sentimentality.

Cid ran his fingers alongside the wall to his left. He quickly found what he was looking for and pressed his pistol with its cylinder to the spot; the charge of elemancy in it allowed a glyph of blue light to shimmer alive immediately.

The cubic segment of the wall slid backwards, revealing smooth stairs, which Cid hurried down. In the distance already he could hear the shuffling and prowling of his heavy footed friend, who most likely was in search of one tool or another.

"So— How are we?" asked Cid as he entered the vast room laying the end of the staircase. He slid the pistol back into the holster at his belt.

The room's walls lined with metallic tables were clean, unlike what you might expect to see with someone like Crassus, which was to say, he was not a person to inspire much trust into the hygienic standards of any establishment he was a working part of.

Cid strode past a massive metallic beast sitting on its legs in the middle of the room: Thick cables ran towards it. Fiery red, glacial blue and sulphureous yellow veins ran over its whole surface, clearly depicting it as Solheimian magitek. He'd seen enough of this technology already to know that it was well beyond his own scope of understanding and most likely far beyond what the people of Lucis would be able to achieve in the foreseeable future.

"Jus'—" the sound of metal clinking and clanking followed by a curse interrupted him. "Jus' 'bout ready — Couldn't find me ersatz; ye kno', Cid, now's ta last chance ta back out, 'cause no night's perfect for treason, but if there ever be one, then 'ts this!"

Crassus spoke as he wobbled over, big pearls of sweat were running down his forehead, cheeks and chins and wetness seeped visibly through his once-white shirt.

A rush of cold raced through his veins, but Cid scoffed at his friend saying, "Backing out? We're all 'bout to die — Maybe — Treason is just a matter of the date then, isn't it? If we succeed it's patriotism."

"'ts a big 'if'—"

"Ya found it! Ya repaired it! You oughta know if it's gonna work, don't ya?"

Crassus shrugged as if he did not quite agree with that assessment, causing his shirt to ride up his belly, revealing ungainly, chalky white flesh.

He wandered over to where the cables came from. The ersatz rod of which he spoke before in his hands was used to hit against the cylinders that stood hidden underneath a table. His face lit up when the sound it produced was hollow.

Cid flinched visibly. Even the common people of the Kingdom of Lucis who in their entire lives rarely came into contact with more magic than the Old Wall, knew that hitting a cylinder possibly charged with elemancy could be considered a bad idea.

For a moment Crassus hesitated but then he unplugged the cables; with a hiss the vacuum left behind by the transferred charge was filled.

"A gutter engineer 'n a proper royal—"

"Quondam," interjected Cid with a halfhearted mutter.

"— Mechanic 'bout to save the day," finished Crassus, chuckling weakly.

After scratching his belly, he continued, "Let's git this bu'tiful magiteknological beast runnin' then."

To return back to life the very reason the apostatical Solheim had been reduced to nothing but distant words in badly recorded history: godslaying warmech — Cid's unease pitted itself against the anticipation of finally seeing all the hard work Crassus had invested pay off.

Cid took a few small step backwards until he felt the tables press into his glutes as Crassus fished out his silvery disk, inducing the process of starting up the beast. Mechanical sounds rattled and a few moments later the warmech was alive. The workshop it was stood in began to vibrate under the force of the roof's cubic blocks shifting like magnetic dice until the night's sky was visible.

In the famed royal gardens of Tenebrae Queen Sylva Via Fleuret waved her Trident of the Oracle in soothing patterns, swung it high with unyielding strength and brought it down with gentle care. She was staring muzzily skywards whenever her movement allowed, daring to hope that this or the next moment the Astrals might answer her plea, plucking the approaching end from the sky like a ripe fruit from a tree.

The strangely iridescent metal of the Trident was almost glowing with invocated magic, a highly valued feat, as it showed that indeed the line of Fleuret was blessed by the Draconian. Yet, being acutely sensitive to the fettle and mood of the people, the Queen knew that strangely this blessed power too augured in her servants the sort of apprehension you might come to feel upon hearing that a Behemoth Tyrant has decided to nest in your backyard.

Suddenly freezing mist seeped from the Trident suffusing the heather, uncountable tiny particles dancing like cold, pale fireflies in the air. Her breath fogged, yet the Oracle barely took note of it, her eyes too drawn to the flickering light of the approaching calamity in the sky.

Several hundred units behind, the retinue observed the spectacle with the aforementioned apprehension, their position with all the care of servants of the line of Fleuret chosen behind the infirm Queen Mother sitting next to the smoldering embers of a warming fire.

Daemonesque creatures and two legged humanoids suddenly began dancing madly like possessed shadows through the mist only to shy away when a bursting bright light flew through them not unlike you might imagine a meteor to burn through the atmosphere only to explode against an invisible wall—

The bleary eyed Queen Mother leaned her head almost curiously closer upon spotting the fascinating spectacle, clapping her wrinkled hands happily when the light passed and a humanoid shadow climbed into view, standing with triumph pose. It was as though the shadow puppetry from days gone had returned to the world.

"Mad," said one of the servants quietly.

He quickly shut up when the Queen stepped back into view, the Trident in her hand parting the mist as if it was foam atop the ocean.

"The Astrals have spoken!" declared she with the type of fervour reserved for lunacy.

The scarlet light in the night sky flickered, shrinking until it was but a small dot much like any other star was just that. To the people watching it must have seemed as if it had been listening to her affidavit.

Chapter Text

Somewhere in the orbit of the not-quite satellite only referred to as 'the Moon', brilliant stars sparkling in the distance in ways rarely anyone ever saw them, a man and his companion stared towards the not-quite spherical planet before them.

"Well," said Harry. "This is not Terra. So much about that plan."

The furry flank of his companion stole the view for just a moment before the him orbiting Welthund paddled out of view.

Harry's hand returned to gesturing casually towards the planet before him, as if it was the most normal situation he could find himself in.

There was a faint, harsh and strangely bony sound of agreement coming from said Welthund.

I KNOW, rumbled the inhumane voice contentedly. IT HARDLY LOOKS LIKE IT.

For some strange reason the fact that this was not Earth as he knew it hardly worried Harry.

After all, after traversing eternity and then jumping into another reality, this might as well just be a fantasy to mock his thoughts of how logic and harmonic rules might apply to the very fabric he was floating in.

OH! WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAT—

Harry turned his head upon hearing the exclamation, just in time to see a metallic glint in the distance appear, zooming with quite the velocity towards them.

Oddly, a light breeze, if Harry would have to choose a word to describe the feeling that his skin was tingling with, grew around them as the metallic glint came closer. It crossed the distance from where it originated to Harry's position in just a few heartbeats, leaving in its wake a vapour trail of cosmic dust and ice. Then it passed them by, wings of metal, sharp and pointy ends fanning out as it came to a stop before the planet. It looked as though it was blocking the way, disregarding the fact that space was vast and there was no certain path leading to where you wished to go.

MY, said the Welthund. WHAT A VERY STRANGE CREATURE.

"Talk about the pot calling the kettle black."

But then again, now that Harry was able to see it up close, he would have to agree. He fingered at his girdle for his wand.

The Welthund rumbled a huff, butting its wet snout against the side of Harry's head.

"Well — I won't have some strange Transformer-esque thing-y stop me from getting something solid underneath my feet."

Harry drew his wand as he stood from his wingback chair. His face barely missed the Welthund, whose flews drew up its snout to make a mockery of canine grin as it completed once more the orbit around Harry. The chair fell back into the dust it had came from, floating yonder with some invisible current. Immediately Harry began to float up-side-down again.

PERHAPS YOU OUGHT TO REASON WITH IT? BEFORE SOMETHING DRASTIC HAPPENS—

Harry smiled the brazen smile he had learned to smile in death. He felt the feather of adventure under his soles, teasing him with the sensation he knew it would entice long before it came to be.

"What? Afraid — No? I think that sounds like a challenge my dear chap—"

The Welthund barked a laugh, crushing sounds like gravel in a tumble dryer rolling from the depth of its maw as Harry turned to look at it.

IF I FEAR, THEN I FEAR FOR YOU, HARRY.

True enough, adding to the lightness with which it was spoken— Not even magic could disguise the manner and nature of this Welthund visible in its eye. It lived for one reason, with one purpose and one alone and that was Harry and as such a mere glance into its one round and golden eye, revealed to Harry all he wished to see in it: A gilden mask upon his face, gilden eyes glowing underneath it.

He touched to his face and felt the warmth of the mask that was similar, familiar and yet different enough. His fingertip traced between the eyes a small, carved symbol. It stood for all that was life, he knew.

"Just another play on a different stage," said Harry with mirth lacing his voice. He turned to look back, suddenly struck by a thought. "Say, my dear companion — Are you averse to being ridden? I'd not ask under any other circumstances, mind you— It's just I always thought the hero ought to ride upon his sturdy companion, friend and steed into adventure."

A roll of the golden eye was his reply, but then the Welthund lowered itself just slightly into a dignified bow, allowing Harry to comfortably climb onto its back.

BUT, PRAY, DO NOT CALL ME 'ROCINANTE', was muttered with a roar of a tsunami making landfall as Harry swam with a decent breaststroke until he reached his mount, swung itself onto the back, the pitchblack, coarse wooly fur making for a comfortable saddle as he shifted back and forth.

"I shan't," promised Harry as he commanded his black wand, Schnitter, like he would wield a sabre into battle, pointing it towards his glorious entry into adventure. Sparks exploded from the tip of the wand, giving colour and celebratory shine to the enthusiasm that was thick in his personal atmosphere.

He stopped himself, leaning close to the head of the Welthund.

"Are you ready?" asked Harry.

The Welthund nodded slowly.

Harry straightened up again. He wielded the illusion of a sabre once more in fashion of a commanding officer and cried, "Until death, all is life!"

Pressing his feet into the flanks of the Welthund, the amused steed surged forward like lightning striking a tree, tearing it asunder into uncountable flaming pieces of wood, only here now instead stardust burst from the wooly fur, trailing it behind much like you might imagine a cometary tail reaching through the firmament. It charged through space like a shooting star leaping through the sky, its gigantic paws plunging deeply into the fabric of reality, pouncing left and right as it jumped ahead.

On the hollow base of a mountain, on an island not that far off the shore of Galdin Quay, a pair of red and tired eyes, crusted with glassified sand peeled open after centuries of dreamless slumber.

Being without a body, the eyes were hovering just a few inches above the basalt prisms that were reaching out of the ground as they stared up into the blue sky. A radiant nimbus was surrounding the eyes, as though uncountable tiny lightning arcs were dancing along an invisible copper frame.

The eyes blinked, which in this case meant that they were there and then they weren't for just a brief moment.

There was a blazing light as fulmination struck out of the clear, blue sky.

It raced down, zigzagged through the air until it touched upon the ground, splintering scraps of what might have been a copse once.

Thunder cracked and enveloped by a deep blue corona of plasma an ornamental staff materialised from thin air. The staff soared out of the sky; its sharp and pointy end pierced into the basalt columns and with a mighty groan forced them apart.

Vibrations travelled through the mountain, while the horned horsehead atop the staff swayed in and out of a lonely puffy cloud. Some power was in the air; a faint smell of what you might imagine licking a flask of elemancy might taste like was accompanying it.

Moments after, lightning surged like one endless stream from the near-cloudless sky, down into the horned horsehead.

With every single movement to and fro the basalt columns that formed the mountain edged farther apart; some along the rim began to lean dangerously.

Had the pair of eyes cared to blink once more, they might have spotted bordering their vision the lonely skull of what might have been a human once hobble and wobble off the edge of the trembling octagonal prisms. But the eyes did not blink. Thus, they did not see the skull shudder at the edge; it was a shame that the eyes did not blink, for they might have spotted Fate giving a jaunty wave with the middle finger through the dark and empty eye sockets of said skull as it finally disappeared down the scarp.

Instead the eyes looked at the staff, seeing a tall hand of coalescent lightning grasp around it.

There was a hot gust of air whirling around the mountain. Strange buzzing filled the air, it sounded like a hive of Brutal Bees was in a frenzy, aquiver by the elemancy awash.

There was a light green flash of light and when it was gone, the eyes too were gone—

In their stead the Fulgurian, god Ramuh hovered with wafting beard and robes made from thick black thunderclouds high above the mountain's base, eyes cast heavenwards. The carpet of black clouds swathed the peak of the mountain.

Meanwhile down in the ancient Solheimian ruins buried deep in what had become known as Taelpar Crag, not unlike an ant, with the inherent stubbornness that would overcome near any hindrance, the whirring and clanking beast climbed the walls vertically, out of the ancient Solheimian ruins. It was large and monstrous, yet almost looked divine reflecting the light with its shiny hull, though—

"What are ya grinning for?"

Crassus' face strained to grin more broadly in reaction to the reproachful question. It was a terrifying sight. Cid barely resisted the urge to grimace.

"Cannot 'elp it," said Crassus barely comprehensible, as due to his stretched open mouth. "Me baby's walkin'!"

As soon as the warmech left the ruins, the cubes began to shift and move to close the gap, startling Crassus into impatiently hurried motion. He grabbed his ersatz and the silvery disk, pressed them to his chest and made to dash towards the only door only to run into the still gobsmacked Cid peeling himself from the table he near-sat on.

"C'mon!"

Cid grunted, shoving the fat man to the side, saying, "C'mon— What now? Where to?"

"I forgit ta give Blinky the proper target!"

Crassus was in too much a haste to give any reaction to the blank face of his friend. He nudged his way past the old mechanic, fought with his own body for speed and with furious anger at how tired his legs felt made a mad, wobbly sprint out of the ruins. With the ease of the unstoppable mass of his big belly he went over the obstacles and traps of the ancient Solheimian ruin until the cold, fresh air and signs of the waning night greeted his face.

Crimson and golden lights fell with shallow mist much like a cataract down the bluffs above.

Back the path he had rushed down before, up the small serpentine trail until he was near-by the parking lot Cid's car was parked in, Crassus arrived just in time to see charred, smoldering daemonic residua fly through the air, landing with a wet thud a few paces before his feet.

His ersatz rod was aimed at it immediately and with a slight shudder of revulsion he noticed the smell of petrol coming from odd slimy fluids that were drenching the muddy earth where the daemon part was lying — Perhaps it had been a Black Flan?

A strange bubbling sound rose from the still smoldering piece of blob-ish meat. It foamed as it soaked up any and all liquid that which before seeped out of it and the rainwater too, growing quickly in size.

Crassus watched it with the sort of fascination that would force you to keep looking just as an accident was about to happen; the sound of stones being pushed as feets carried over the dirty ground was gaining momentum until hastened steps and laboured breathing announced Cid Sophiar's arrival behind him.

Just slightly out of breath, Cid wiped sweat from his brows as he came to halt next to Crassus. He was stood leaning bent forward, forcing breaths down his throat when he took note of the charred thing growing at a steady pace.

"'Blinky', Droller? — I-Is that a Crème Brûlée?!"

"Thought might be 'n Black Flan," said Crassus in reply while the muscles in his arms tightened, causing the fat on it to twitch. "Weren't they suppos'd ta be fire resist'nt?"

"Lightning too — Gives them extra oomph, y'know?"

Testing the suggestion made by Cid, Crassus fired a short stream of flames from the spiral tip of his ersatz rod. The fire hit the blob square into its foaming middle.

"Huh, yer right," grunted Crassus as the slimy foam began to shine a deep purple, strings of glowing amber reaching through it like fat grew through muscles. It expanded quickly and quite a bit too fast for anyone present's liking.

In the distance an explosion of sorts happened — Dull, with a metallic tinge to it and not quite like anything either Crassus or Cid could claim to have heard before blew like a choir of broken trumpets until it was replaced by a brutish squall rending the air.

"Sounds like ya puppy has found something to play with," said Cid idly as he swung his leg forward, kicking with precision against the still growing piece of blob. It flew with a wet thud against a boulder, ricocheted off of it and sailed into the saturnine depth of Taelpar Crag.

"Yeah."

Suddenly, muffled began the sound of the most-recent wireless advertisement of the Wiz Chocobo Post in Duscae to play, causing Crassus to snort and Cid to sport an inane grin.

"Really, Sophiar?" asked Crassus. He pressed his thumb to a glowing spot on the silvery disk. In the distance a figure rose from the ground, throwing reflections of the brilliant rising sun left and right.

Cid ignored the question as he jogged over to the parking lot, scrambling to open the driver's door to pick up the receiver. The grin ran off his face when he read the caller's number on the talkman installed in the middle console.

"Fuck—"

He hesitated to accept the call, but then his thumb, quite without Cid's conscious bidding, pressed the green button and a small voice began to urgently call his name.

"Fuck," repeated he quietly as he raised the receiver to his ear. "This is Cid speaking — What's shakin' Clarus?"

With slight a swagger to his movement like a Kingatrice prowling its territory and despite his visible state of exhaustion, Crassus arrived soon after, a proud look on his sweaty face. Behind followed his alive and miasma-covered warmech, clunky sounds of metal hitting stone resonating with every step.

"He— Did what?" spoke Cid with disbelief colouring his voice. "Son of a gun."

Crassus raised both eyebrows at the pale face of his old friend. His mouth moved, forming the words, "Who is it?"

Concurrently about a couple dozen miles eastwards, a not quite forlorn stray of a man swung himself giddily from one leg to the other, one hand outstretched in grasping motion, clasping in his hand the reflected light that which bounced off of the moisture on the edge of his eyelids as he rode the shoulder of a terribly vocal Red Giant.

Smoke was rising from the Red Giant when it left the shades of the canopy it was walking under, rays of the steadily increasing amount of sunlight peering over the mountains burning away at the protective miasma that wavered down the cavalier's feet.

"None of that now," said the rider with saccharine voice as he patted the daemon on its head, "we are almost there."

The sound of a car engine revving in the distance suddenly appeared, quickly gaining volume.

The man turned his head to look over his shoulder. He smirked briefly, before he gave a harsh clap to the head of his mount. The Red Giant once more groaned and moaned, but it offered it hands in a obsequious gesture. The man stepped onto the palms and was lowered to the ground where the mossy earth and grass died under his presence. He took a few steps until he was stood on solid asphalt.

The Red Giant whimpered guttural sounds as the growing sunlight tore away at it, the miasma that which before protected it suddenly ceasing to exist. Fetor filled the air.

"Thank you," said the man, a tight smile playing over his features, amber eyes glinting in the sunlight. He extended his right hand much like you might see the Oracle do to add to her spoken blessing, a crimson flare of magic flooding the street he was stood upon. Immediately a translucent sword flew from his palm, piercing the Red Giant's throat.

If daemons could show emotions, it might have shown surprise or some sort of expression of betrayal, but as it were, the Red Giant simply slumped forward, liquefied decay melting off of its form until it was completely gone.

Moments later the roar of the engine announced the arrival of the awaited car, headlamps defunct, windows open. The tires slowed with a squeaky sigh before the car came to a halt. In quick succession doors were opened and footsteps led four men before the hood of the car.

"Chancellor Izunia!"

With a chuckle the man waved away the military greetings that were performed, hand reaching up to tip up the rim of his hat saying, "Ah! My reconnaissance patrol! How have you fared in Lestallum? It has been an eventful trip, I gather?"

Clearing his throat, the oldest of the four said, "It was as you suggested, Sir — However — As it were, we were interrupted by— "

"— The appearance of the light in the sky," finished Chancellor Izunia tartly before he walked to the car. "I am curious, Officers. What do the people of Lestallum say about this light?"

"Frankly speaking, Sir — It is believed to be another meteor. As we left, word was spreading that the Oracle was communing with the Astrals —"

The door the Chancellor stood before was opened with brusque force. In the Chancellor's eyes amber was mixing with crimson as he spoke, "Ah, yes, at last, the venerable Astrals may once more save this world from its utter destruction. How convenient—"

He took seat in the car.

The four men wisely said nothing as they recalled the rage into which the Chancellor could talk himself, but instead were startled into motion when said Chancellor's head leaned out of the open window, calling, "Well? Insomnia awaits, or would you wish this chance to pass by unused?"

On the inside of the car the muttering words of the Chancellor could be heard by anyone sitting nearby, that is to say, nobody listened, "— For I much desire to see what the Lucii have earned with their treachery."

The four officers quickly returned to their seats in the car, three of them squashing onto the two seats on the back of the car.

"Sir?" asked the officer with a very disturbing tubercule for nose.

The car returned to life and with a roar of the engine they drove on.

Chancellor Izunia tore his eyes from the rear-vision mirror through which he before stared contemplatively at the man, thinking that perhaps over time man had mated with some less volatile subspecies of a Mandrake. He blinked with surprise: What absurd ideas his head still could procure.

"May I ask a question, Sir?"

"Do go ahead; if nothing else it may pass time," murmured Chancellor Izunia.

"Chancellor Izunia, are you not in the least concerned about the 'meteor'? Shall I perchance call for urgent extraction?"

The sound of what might have been air running out of a tire, long-drawn out and unquestionably wet interrupted Chancellor Izunia, whose mouth was just about to move for a reply.

The windows were open, the car was moving and yet the smell that creeped into Chancellor Izunia's nose was definitely more fetid than what he before had endured standing above the mouth of a daemon. It required his all so as not to choke immediately.

"Good grief," said he tonelessly while a collective attempt was being made at breathing as little as possible. "Are you quite alright, Officer?"

"Pardon me, Sir," replied the spoken to officer, youngest of the four. His face was shining in the colour of true embarrassment, much like an overripe Alstroom would glow red in the sun to ward off the predatory Hunters looking for their next meal on the road. With barely comprehensible gibber he tried to self-exculpate, saying, "Must — Must have been the Cup Noodles®. Won't happen again, Sir."

The youngest of the four went through some acrobatics to take off his jacket, folding it above his lap to prevent any more leakages.

Chancellor Izunia sneezed violently. He sniffled and sneezed again. "!" he said. "You know that I am allergic to dogs," he finished with a very wet growl.

A second and third figurative tire lost air—

A look in the rear-view mirror revealed both officers left and right of the Dungdevil slowly transforming into what could only be described as guilty-looking humanoid Gaiatoads. The officer in the middle said nothing. Apart from making himself as small as possible and avoiding the watery, murdering gaze that bore into him through the mirror, he did nothing more than sit and make a meek sound of defeat.

Chapter Text

The call he most recently received could be understood as a perspicuous reason as to why Cid Sophiar was not at all upbeat or thrilled at this very moment as he drove his Regalia off the parking lot—

Cid turned the car right as they left, as opposed to left, where, so was commonly known, the highest mountains north-east of Tenebrae stood their vigil over the planes of Leigne and the rocky fields of Duscae.

Crassus, while at first content to let the silence hang over them for just a bit longer, suddenly spoke up, saying, "So? What's the matter then?"

Cid grunted, his hazel eyes darting for just the fraction of a second to his front-seat passenger and then to the rear-view mirror, showing the reflection of 'Blinky' jumping after them with wide steps.

"I was told to return to the Crown City —" answered he brusquely.

"Ye were? But— " asked Crassus with stumped tone. A short pause followed before he remembered to finish his sentence, "— Why?"

"Politics."

When for a long moment no further explanation came, Crassus mused aloud, "Always thought ye'd be all sorts at odds with 'em poncy Lucii, but ye'd jump the chance to return." He eyed Cid from the side, clearly amused as he watched for a reaction, asking, "Am I wrong?"

In the distance the dazzling warm light of the rising sun presented the Disc of Cauthess like a place of worship from the rumoured days of old, standing proud vigil in the ceding dark of the night. The heat that which radiated off of the site cast mirages upon the air above it.

Cid adjusted the sun visor.

"You are not," said he with raucous voice, much like he usually sounded when he woke the morning after emptying half the barrels of Amber Crassus stored underneath the bar. "— Wrong, I mean," he clarified. "Grew up there — It's home, y'know? Even with Hammerhead."

Crassus laughed without humour, before his eyes were drawn by the twinkling golden light piercing through the red of the dawning sun. Resolution settled upon his features.

"Thought so: Yer a big softy in the end — Stop 'ere," said he, pointing his ersatz rod towards a verge of earth aside of the road.

"Ya sure? Droller—"

Cid's face was aghast, as if the demand to stop and the consequences it entailed was his fault. He hesitated, yet at his hands the car slowed down, rolling with slight a steer off the road.

Crassus heaved himself out of the car, just in time to see 'Blinky' arrive behind the car. From the look of it, it was still almost fully charged.

"Ye dun' need ta sound adust — It's what we worked on it fer, ain't it? Any place's the same if me little baby fails."

He turned around; his hand was waved over his shoulder, a mutter carrying the words, "Be seein' ye, Cid soon."

Cid's face felt slack, damp and cold, yet his shoulders and arms worked with all his strength against the sudden lack of lucidity that whipped around his ears. His mind was weary as he watched Crassus stroll off towards a dais in the distance.

Cid shook himself out of it. He turned his head to look at the road and then back to where he knew his friend to be. He called after him but halfway through his voice failed him, "G— Good luck— "

The air was heavy with unspoken words, or perhaps it was the humidity, the heat of the approaching summer day that lay pregnant upon the moment. Too soon the big form of Crassus was gone, swallowed by the solar brilliance announcing the new day's dawn.

With a tired look on his face, Cid engaged a gear. Thoughts played over his face; tiredness was replaced by a frown that quickly shifted into rage. With a snarl his fist went down on the steering wheel, again and again until he was breathing heavy, his short-lived fury spent—

Cid's head snapped up as the squealing sounds of wheels appeared, tread skidding against the road surface as they tried to gain traction, signaling a car approaching at high speeds. It drove off the street, was cutting across country, headlamps defunct; the moment the car broke back onto the street, it made an awfully comical jump, landing with a heavy thud of groaning metal. Of the left front wheel nothing but the rim remained; it spat sparks as it came into contact with the hard asphalt.

Cid squinted at the approaching car. It rocked for a moment, its right front wheel having laid down its life in service of its raging mad driver.

"What's up with you?" Cid muttered.

The car's engine roared in defiance of the vehicle's state, swerving left and right as it pulled closer with speed that would have any self-conscious Chocobo puff up before going red with envy. The car's destination became undeniable—

"Headed for me, huh?"

Cid tugged at his jacket until he could feel the current surge of his magitek pistol on the palm of his sweaty, hurting hand.

"The Niffs? Maybe—"

King Mors Lucis Caelum stood atop the Citadel, his personal selection of the Crownsguard close behind, their hands like shadows along the range of his back and on his elbows to keep him upright. He was overlooking his Crown City, his life's work and with small a smile he observed how it was bathed in warm colours.

In the distance the Old Wall was in alive and in motion, roaming along the rim of the city and the sirens wailed in recurrent frequency their warnings.

"Morning has broken," King Mors said with something akin to relief, the strength of his voice belying his true state of utter exhaustion.

The hand that which held his right elbow tightened just before a young, male voice asked, "Would you not like to be with the Prince, Your Majesty?"

The reply came quick.

"What the eye does not see, the heart does not grieve for — And for once, Cor, do call me by my name, would you?"

"Are you talking about yourself, or your son — Mors?"

"Leonis!" came the muffled voice of the second Crownsguard from underneath the triangular veil of metal that which covered his face, seamlessly going over into the uniform.

King Mors smiled, but with his mouth only.

"It's quite all right —" murmured he quietly.

A moving statue of the Old Wall passed by and their eyes met. It gave a small, fleeting movement of its head in resemblance of a nod towards King Mors and then it was already gone, wide strides carrying it through the Crown City's deserted streets.

The unnamed Crownsguard sighed with restrained exasperation. He saluted smartly with his free hand, saying, "As you say, Your Majesty."

The wind of a warm breeze snatched at the people atop the Citadel.

"I admit—" said King Mors with strained voice, "I have no words. But I trust you shall convey my feelings just as well — Won't you, Cor? You know what to do, when— "

King Mors turned his head slowly as his words failed him, taking care to keep his hands grasped firmly around the handrail. His dull grey eyes saw the calm, young face of his guard standing out among the other Crownsguard members, clad in their black and silvery uniforms, with masks and helmets to veil their identities.

The smile that which before was lacking substance, now reached up to his eyes. The crow's feet around his eyes wrinkled with affection. The smile that was returned was small but honest.

Cid looked around the car with a certain amount of agitation, coming to the realisation that the Regalia might not emerge from this encounter unscathed. He only had a few moments to decide —

He rolled the barrel of the pistol with his left hand clockwise. The barrel clicked nine times. He rolled the barrel counter-clockwise and counted the missing tenth click. He dropped it into his lap.

"Right then," said Cid as confidently as he could manage. He quickly changed gears, his right foot resting above the acceleration pedal. His sweaty palms squelched as he gripped tightly around the leather steering wheel.

By now the car was almost on him. He spotted glints of white teeth behind the fractured windscreen. He waited until the last moment, until he saw the wickedly grinning faces. It was a frenzied and utterly humourless rictus —

The moment the approaching car crossed some invisible point in his vision, Cid floored the accelerator pedal. At the very first moment nothing happened, but then with a lurch the Regalia moved backwards with spinning wheels skidding on the wet earth.

Cid grunted; an incomprehensible curse word slipped through his clenched jaw — He jerked the wheel violently, letting go the moment the dreadnought was turned. He gripped for his pistol, cocking the hammer with his thumb without thinking.

Just as he angled his left arm to provide an aimrest, the car drove into the fender of the Regalia. It crashed loudly: A hollow sound of metal folding against something hard was layered over the sound of the windscreen bursting open. Something sailed through it, landing with a wet thud on the Regalia's engine bonnet.

Cid did not allow himself to blink as he was shook by the collision. Wide eyed, he shot twice; the muzzle flash blinded him but he heard the graunching sound of his charge piercing the glass, then a wet thudding slosh followed. Only then did he allow himself to look for what or who had landed on the bonnet.

It was a human, prone in a pool of its fluids oozing out of its body.

A human with black skin. Skin that was moving. It was the sort of movement you usually could find in putrescent carcases, where saprotrophic organisms and necrophagous maggots and carrion beetles would feast on the mortal remains.

"The Starscourge!" Cid said with a string of incoherent curse words following behind.

The black-veined hand of the dread Plague infected human twitched, suddenly moving towards where Cid sat rooted to the spot. It attempted to crawl over the bonnet, quite unsuccessfully.

With a horrible groan the door of the demolished car flew open, smashing against the Regalia. Out of the gaping hole stepped another dread Plague infected human, its head cocking left and right in a most twitchy, insect-like manner.

"Kill— Me—" pleaded the dread Plague infected human with moans of pain. Dead eyes stared at Cid through the windscreen of the Regalia.

"Please—"

Cid gripped the frame of the windscreen, pulled himself up until he stood and shot it in the head. He deincarnated a daemon. It was simple. Then fetor filled the air.

Cid breathed through his mouth as he watched how the black, morphed face dropped back to the bonnet, the body rolling away from him.

The other dread Plague infected, human-turned-daemon gibbered softly. Cid aimed his pistol, only to see it crouch down and in an instant it closed the short distance between them, black-veined hands gripping tightly around Cid's throat, garrotting him with extreme prejudice.

It was too strong to fight back. The knife in his jacket seemed useless.

A burning sensation spread quickly to Cid's head. Was this how he would die, he wondered briefly.

Cid's brain reeled with the thought.

The elemancy charged barrel still was good for a few more shots, yet his vision was fading quickly. Regis' reminder that elemancy was volatile under the best and dangerous to friend and foe alike under the worst circumstances rose to the surface from the depths of his mind. But that too meant, that in a time of crisis, they were good for drastic measures.

Why not, seemed the image of the Regis in his mind to say. What have you got to lose?

Cid took a big swing and smashed the pistol with its barrel upfront against the miasma oozing head. Pale blue sparks kindled in the barrel, crackling with ethereal power.

He repeated the motion with the energy of a person drunk with terror while perched on the rim of death.

At the third hit, unnatural cerulean light blazed up originating from where Cid knew the pistol to be. His vision was nearly gone dark, less so from the lack of air but rather from the strangulation of blood flow. His impending death was forgotten as he felt the bleakness of a winter's night caress his face—

His whole word was jerked downwards when the hands around his throat were forced away, fingernails scratching for purchase until they drew blood for just a moment before the explosion of the barrel split them finally apart.

Immediately Cid gasped for air, leaning backwards into the soft padding of the driver's seat. He coughed violently, but it felt good as it was proof that he was alive. He reached up, left hand wiping away the already melting soft rime on his face, while the right hand fumbled for a Potion only to find the stowage empty.

When he reached the dais, Crassus' eyes wandered over the scenery of lush grass and mountains in the distance, over 'Blinky' that with a slow trot was stalking behind and then with its arrival, his eyes were drawn heavenwards to the reason for him being here.

Crassus heaved a breath and went to work. He stroked his thumb along the rim of the silvery disk, causing a hatch to spring open on the belly-side of 'Blinky'.

"Stand, 'n dun' move," he ordered and lowered himself to the ground. He scuttled underneath the warmech and flopped onto his back. The disk and ersatz rod were placed in range.

Through the agony that was the leadiness in his arms, Crassus worked without so much as a grumble.

Changing the nature of the proper definition of what a target was to the warmech was indeed quite simple. As a matter of fact, it did take only exchanging a few cables to disable the wired programming of recognising only living matter of a certain type as prey.

"Marvellous! A true and alive piece of Solheimian magiteknology—"

The warmech stamped its feet as a warning at the sudden appearance of a man, while Crassus holding three glowing wires in his hands, flinched. Wild sparks, angry flames and tadpole-shaped droplets of ice formed as they came into contact.

"Sssshh—shut it!" said Crassus. "Can't ye see me workin'? Were ye raised on concrete? Ye ragin' Anak!"

"Oh? — Oh! How very remiss of me. Do please take your time as you obviously have weighty matters on your hands—"

"Yer crackin' wise at me?!"

Crassus looked up after carefully working the wires to where he wished them to be. As he moved, his shirt rode back up his belly again, revealing ungainly, chalky white flesh. He took in the awfully fancy dressed man with strange violet hair—

Said man's eyes were drawn to exactly what just was revealed.

"What yer lookin' at me gut fer?"

The man smiled a smile that looked as though a pair of hidden strings beneath the skin of his jaw were pulling the sides of his mouth upwards. He bowed his head just slightly, tipping the rim of the hat up with a single finger.

With a careless swat of his hand Crassus shut the hatch close. He flung his arms forward in an attempt to gain enough momentum to sit up and just as it looked as though he would succeed, the invisible hook commonly known as gravity pulled at him until he fell onto his back with a thud that reminded of wet leather being drummed against a boulder.

"Move!"

'Blinky' obeyed the spat order. It walked past the man and sat down on its hind legs.

"Zssttt," it said with a steam jet escaping from its front.

"Ain't got time ta bandy words," said Crassus as he fought to get up. He scratched some dirt away that clung to his sweaty skin and searched the ground for the control disk and ersatz rod.

"I shan't need more than a few," promised the man with pleasant tone. He bent down and picked up the disk and the rod. He weighed the rod with his hands. "Oh, perhaps a few more— What might the royal blood of Lucis say were they to learn that abound their kingdom are such elemancy weapons?"

Crassus huffed a snort. With movement quick enough to cause surprise for the man, Crassus snatched the silvery disk from his grip and pressed both thumbs into small indentations. He raised it skyward to where the falling star was and pressed his thumbs into both indentations once more.

'Blinky''s legs tensed much like you could see a Gaiatoad do before it would jump. It reared its body, whirring and clanking with every movement.

"Fancy words, I reckon."

"Quite—" said the man amusedly only to halt when suddenly a gargantuan shadow quickly came up from behind, zoomed past them and spread out over the fields of Leide.

They looked up and they saw the sky darken and felt the earth tremble underneath their feet. Nearby animals squalled in instinctual terror.

"Told ye," Crassus said with half a mutter.

"It occurs to me that the o' so blessed Astrals are taking their time on this fine early morning—"

"Fuck 'em — Don't need 'em. Got me baby 'Blinky' 'ere fer the dirty work."

"I'm afraid there might be some such law against that too."

Crassus stepped forward and slapped 'Blinky' on the back.

"Sic 'em!" he said and bolted to safety over the rim of the dais. He slid down the precipice and ducked his head as far between his legs as his paunch allowed.

'Blinky' blinked along the lines of elemancy crystals running in its hull. To the watching eye it seemed as though the frequency between the flashes was increasing at a steady rate—

The man's hat went flying when violently arcing lightning licked along the adamantite hull of 'Blinky', jets of hot air blew from the joints in the hull and an impossible audible trump of flames blew a concert at the earth.

"Gittaway!" screamed Crassus.

The dais was alive: its dust was awhirl and small cyclones danced around 'Blinky'. Across the earthen platform not a single pebble or stone remained rooted. The warmech jettisoned its front legs and with a shriek of stone the dais' surface exploded.

With an earth-shaking roar 'Blinky' shot up faster than the eye could follow.

There was a grand brilliant flash of crimson. The man toppled down the slope, his hat in one hand, the other holding a leg of 'Blinky'. His fall was accompanied by a mix of groans and cachinnation.

As soon as the vibrations in the earth around them lessened, Crassus unfolded himself and stood, his eyes searching for what the ears could hear: The almost deafening sound of the exhaust of 'Blinky' gaining height at incredible velocity. He quickly spotted the plume of white smoke heading upwards to the east—

"Yes!" Crassus said with a yell of hog-wild enthusiasm. "Leapin' Zu! Me baby's flyin'!"

"Might it be like this to live day for day into the future, in a world where no Draconian holds his swords above our heads?" asked the man quietly from where lay on his back.

And there was no question as to what the man was speaking about: Men taking their fates into their own hands. It would be a pursuit of knowledge that which once had been damned to Ifrit's pit, butchered by the thirty swords of the Draconian— Now though revived and invitingly open for all the world to see.

"There's laws 'gainst the sort of question too," said Crassus with a sneer.

Gingerly, the man raised the leg of 'Blinky' up to eye level and regarded it for a few moments before he jumped up. He clapped his hat on and proffered his hand.

"Yes, there is — Oh, but where are my manners? Ardyn Izunia, truly a pleasure to meet you, good man!"

Chapter Text

Just a few moments later atop the highest building of the Crown City

Muffled sounds of explosions suddenly pounded up from above the southern cardinal direction of the Crown City, quite out of view for those atop the Citadel.

Immediately after the explosions sounded, a flash of ultramarine light behind Cor Leonis caught King Mors' attention. It was the Crystal flaring its magic. A sharp pain began to stab in King Mors' chest immediately after the first pulse of magic left the Crystal, flaring spherically outwards to the Old Wall.

In quick succession thunderous sounds that you might imagine to resemble the footsteps of walking mountains shook the air, the earth and all the buildings of the Crown City too. The Old Wall was moving, quickly.

King Mors clutched his chest, just where the pain pierced through his heart with every beat. His breathing grew sluggish and his legs suddenly seemed unable to bear his weight any longer. He went slack in the hands of the Crownsguard, his head rolling backwards.

There then he saw the sky darken and in the dark, there was a thin line of blazing red as fine and slim as the sun breaching the horizon. Below, he saw his ancestors marching to battle what seemed to be a foe of great radiance; a whimper fled his mouth.

"Oh no, no, no, no —" he said and with it the façade of the brave King Mors ceased to exist.

Even looking at the Crystal that which spread the magic afforded by his own life force was better than seeing that. King Mors tried and failed to avert his eyes and realised that he would not see anything else until the end.

Suddenly, King Mors' vision shifted. He felt his feet lift off of the ground and he was almost gently moved backwards until his back rested against the Crystal's encasing.

He saw Cor Leonis' face; he was speaking with what might have been urgency, only to have his words drowned out by a droning rumble much like a thunderstorm would announce its arrival. Then the world shook and all went dark for the old king for just a short, peaceful moment.

King Mors suddenly thought himself no more kingly. Indeed, he thought nothing much but to destroy what was aggrieving the cradle of Lucis; it was as though he was a small part of many and all the weight his Ego had brought with it, mattered little when faced with the quick of the ancestors.

Remnants of the failing circle of protection still circled around him when the Welthund bared its canine teeth as it evaded the uncountable shiny swords coming at them in a hail of glinting metal. Slobber flew from its thick, hanging flews through the air, while its one single eye never left the enemy.

Harry was prone on the Welthund's back, his head hanging to the left of its massive neck, his right arm clutched tight to the long fur. He was panting and visibly a small runlet of sweat was dripping down the gilden chin of the mask until it disappeared in the wind. The glow of his eyes was absent in the mask.

The slobber hit Harry square on the mask, only to be whipped away by a strong gale when the Welthund dodged yet another volley of swords. They pierced through a thick, fluffy looking carpet of clouds, dazzling white and wet and cold and windy—

"Sodding Transformer!" said Harry, surly enough. A single eye opened underneath the mask, squinting through the eye slit.

UNTIL DEATH, ALL IS LIFE, parroted the inhumane voice of the Welthund, wafted by wind. LIVED ENOUGH ALREADY, HARRY? THIS YOUR BEST, YET?

Harry stared at their foe; there was yet another glint of a giant sword being readied to pierce at them, cutting through the air and the clouds like the sharp wedge of a spell driven by Transformeresque sorcery.

Harry narrowed his eyes underneath the mask, his right hand pulling at the fur until he was up-right. "Throwing a wobbly?" he grumbled.

Not waiting for a reply, Harry continued, "But you are right, my steed. You are right. Enough faffing about! Let us grapple with Fate, let us overcome it!"

As it heard the words, the Welthund chuffed a sound suspiciously close to a giggle.

Something blurred shot at them, followed by a deafening bang that rolled through the sky, tumbling like thunder just as a vapour cone began to mix with the disturbed clouds.

It all happened so fast, that this wondrous spectacle of life and all the mad things contained within would have ended there and then, if the idea of a simple spell did not just suddenly rise to the forefront of Harry's mind as though all along it only had waited for its one short moment in the spotlight to arrive.

It was a spell he had practiced with intensity in his youth, daring even against all hope to throw it against the most vile words ever uttered upon man, the death curse:

"Expelliarmus," bellowed Harry, his voice thrumming against the wild winds like thousands tied up into one.

Accompanied by the spell, a lofty, puerile feeling drew up the corners of Harry's mouth into his brazen smile. Though the still, mocking veneer of his mask showed nothing of it. It observed stoically, calm and without a single line of fret as the acromatic spell did stop the Transformer in its tracks whilst at the same time ripping open the engloved, clawlike hand.

The sword was flung from the grip. Immediately gravity in all its glorious splendour took hold of it and lured it down to the ground. Merrily, Harry waved goodbye with his wand, a spell on his lips, when—

A listless hissing and whirring reached Harry's ears.

In the known universe, or in this case you might consider this phrase to be only reflective of what Harry knew about the universe and the logical rules governing it to be true, there were only so many things faster than the speed of sound: light, for example, or in this singular case Harry's instinct.

In what felt like in an instant Harry became aware of a dangerous object approaching from below them, which meant neither he nor his steed would be able to see it before it was upon them.

Harry's eyes slid over their shell-shocked enemy; a miniscule flick of Schnitter performed without conscious thought was all he managed to procure before he saw the quite human eyes of the Transformer go inhumanely wide.

A short-lived, wild spell threaded hastily around Harry and his companion, only to unravel into uncountable shimmering particles of light.

But what spell Harry might have conjured with his theurgy mattered little, for immediately his vision lurched, the breath was driven from his lungs and pain bled through his ribcage. The hot, furry seat on which he was sat before was replaced by gales of wind pulling at him from all directions.

Harry free-fell.

SUCH FEELS LIFE, exclaimed the Welthund with a rush in its voice that resembled a blend of all the infernal sounds a pyroclastic flow might make upon breathing air for the first time. Harry was buffeted by wind, yet he heard it loud and clear. IT HURTS WITH DELIGHT, IS CHARMINGLY WILD, ALL-CONSUMING AND UNPREDICTABLE! IS IT NOT FUN ALREADY, HARRY?

The wings of the throne room's tall door flew open with enough force to rattle the free standing dark-stone columns decked with busts of all the former Kings of Lucis and even the altars of the Hexatheon left and right of the throne shook along.

With jogged steps Cor Leonis went into the now brightly lit room, lanterns and crystals shining their light against the dark from above; animated undercurrents of chatter among clusters of politicians and advisors alike pressed in on him, washed over him as he approached the throne. It seemed as though nothing was wrong and it was a day like any other day, except for—

Cor Leonis came to a halt before the stairs leading up to the throne. He fell down onto his left knee before the sitting Prince Regent, his eyes cast low. He gazed up and with as much a steady voice as he could muster he proclaimed, "Hail the King — The King is dead."

Upon a gesture from the throne, reluctantly the crowd fell quiet. The in vernacular black suits clad politicians of the Royal Lucian Council scattered like daemons would do when the sun rises up. Many of the present Crownsguard stood rigid, as though the announcement had frozen them.

"Cor, what are you saying? Father's fine, isn't he?"

Verily, the voice of Regis Lucis Caelum, now King did not sound as though he was in denial. And his face too, insofar you might be inclined to ignore the slight dark circles around his eyes and the pale complexion, was just showing honest confusion.

The kneeling Crownsguard did not offer a reply at first. Instead he presented the horned Crown of Bahamut and the Ring of the Lucii on the palm of his hand, as though they were nothing but innocent ornaments waiting to be picked up as the proof of kingship—

The Ring suddenly was gone from Cor's hand.

Coughing, a sound like charcoal cracking in the heat of a furnace hustled through the tall room; the sound was everywhere at once, loud and clear and no echo followed it. At the same time a statue-like man appeared as though he'd been just out of view before. Abjectly, he was amidst the altars, surrounded from all directions by the images of the Astrals, prostrating himself.

Cor Leonis was the first to notice the lack of weight in his palm. He blinked in what might have been surprise or confusion. He rose from his crouch, slower and slower until his movement was as slow as a snail passing a dry stone.

Strangely no other of the Crownsguard moved with more than the same torpid speed the man was bobbing his head up and down in sync with his gibbered chant—

Only the young King, blood of Lucis found himself able to move. He felt sweat prickle on his forehead as he stood up.

"Who are you?"

Black shoulders shrugged slowly and the very moment the man began to speak, the eyes of the Astrals shone colourful light upon him. Swirling smoke crept up the man's legs.

"Not a word rang out loud and shrill — The hall went cadaver-still."

"A Messenger?" asked King Regis with surprise. He noticed the appareance of the man. Recognition flashed through his eyes. "Ravatogh! Of course!" he added quietly.

However the man went on, uncaring of anything but the rhythm with which he spoke.

"Behold! Behold! Upon the vault — Lays dead and still the old King for naught."

King Regis followed the black hand that pointed skyward and he felt air move around him when he suddenly found himself staring down at the slumped body of his father atop the Citadel. He looked as though he was sleeping easy.

"A thing, a man, came in the hall — And bowed his head — And spoke with dread — O' King, thus began mankind's downfall."

The words of the man dragged King Regis swiftly back into the throne room. In a daze the King went past the alarmed faces of the slackened Crownsguard until he stood before the man, whose charcoal skin with jagged furrows was showing orange heat racing underneath the thin layer of brittle black.

"The son; he just stood there, goggle-eyed — With face pale and at heart terrified."

The man smiled broadly. His cracking skin made small noises and a faint runlet of liquid heat began to seep out of the cracks. When he lifted his arm past his head he plucked the Ring of the Lucii from thin air. It hovered above the palm of his hand—

"Know this, young King, for witness I've borne — The Sin of Lucis has reborn. Hark this, young King and do not mourn — To Lucis vengeance he has sworn."

By the rapidly dancing shades thrown upon the walls and ground through the guttering lights of the lanterns, King Regis found his gaze forcibly drawn to the glowing ember eyes of the Infernian's image.

Multihued gouts of flames rolled off from the man. The young King was vibrating with terror, his eyes pressed shut when he was struck unbidden by the memory of how awful his own experiments with fire elemancy had been. The infernal tempest roared in his ears, yet still he heard something akin to a voice speak to him:

"I am grieved for my sin, for I am a fan of man," it said with deep a rumble—

A soft clanking sound struck through the roaring noise of the flames and then it was quiet and when King Regis finally opened his eyes he saw the Ring of the Lucii laying innocently at his feet.

He picked it up. He swallowed the gasp of surprise wanting to escape him when the metal was biting cold to the touch. Almost it seemed as though he would drop it, but then, as though in trance, he began to put it onto his finger—

The image of Ifrit, the Infernian cracked, bursting asunder in a shower of embers and after it echoed the words, "Beware of the thirty sworded master of falsehood — This is my deliverance."

Suddenly King Regis found himself with his behind firmly back on the Lucian throne. The sudden sensation knocked his breath out of him; he watched stupefied how the people began to move with their normal speed again—

The Crownsguard quickly assembled in their battle formation before him, their weapons drawn and at the ready.

"Your Majesty, at your command?"

"What?" King Regis asked dazedly. He blinked and found the eyes of both Cor Leonis and Clarus Amicitia on him. He looked down at his hands and saw the Ring resting before his fingertip—

Then he remembered and his mind reeled with the effort. Sensibly, he knew, meeting a Messenger was supposed to be an auspicious sign. However he could not prevent his thoughts taking a different direction.

As though the invisible forces directing the fates of Eos were listening in on his thoughts with a wicked canine smile on their inhumane faces, it was then that disaster struck with all the grace and velocity of a Grandhorn stumbling upon its most favorite bush of Ulwaat Berries.

A tremor worked through the Citadel, whilst high above the heads of the King and his Crownsguard the adorned ceiling blew apart. Thousands of pieces of stone and glass plates began to rain down. Amidst the sharp edged pieces of black and white once depicting the history of the Lucii, fell a decuman sword through the gap—

"Protect the King!" cried Clarus Amicitia. As an afterthought he whined quietly, "Today totally sucks!"

Far in the west it came to be that at about the same time as the King was met with a certain warning, the mountain Ravatogh shuddered as though shaken by some invisible force. Puffs of smoke blew from uncountable small fumaroles splattered all over the furrowed body of the living rock.

It suddenly grew very still around the mountain. An adolescent Zu screeched, taking to the air with urgent beatings of its wings and then, in the next moment white hot air blew the fumaroles open, hurling stones and dirt through the air like projectiles seeking some invisible target.

The top of the mountain crumbled inwards and red bubbling heat glared at the sky with most eager malice.

The once-dead volcano Ravatogh erupted, the shockwave racing down the lands and seas.

Not quite as smoothly as earlier in the day, the Regalia was cruising along the straight and surprisingly empty roads of Leide. The car was cornering the bends as though it didn't weigh half a Behemoth and there on the inside was quite the vivid chatter among gleeful exclamations of joy about that very fact.

But it wasn't until the cassette player began to play one of Cid's personal cassette tapes that he woke from his blessedly peaceful slumber, cuddled to one of 'Blinky''s legs on the rear seats of the Regalia.

You might ask why he would be roused by this.

And you might be thinking: perhaps the cassette player has some odd peculiarities, much like you yourself remember some old electronic device to be rather peculiar about how it was to be handled, the toaster for example, that when freshly bought always had thrown the toast at you, but now was in need of a little stabbing with the butterknife to debouch your breakfast.

And you would not be wrong if you thought so, but it also wasn't the full truth.

Indeed, the cassette player required a firm hand; a slap and perhaps some cursing did wonders.

But, as it were, Cid Sophiar too had another reason to awake with a start: he was deeply self-conscious about the content of the audio cassette and he would be rather be spared the embarrassment of his friend finding out.

But, as with many things in life, when it comes to the crunch, you are usually a little too early, a little too late or at the wrong place.

"Cassettes? My, how tacky."

A click sounded.

" — Hrymir, In The Shadow Of Naglfar. A Wireless Audio Drama of the Ancient Era, as depicted in the Cosmogony by Bradham's. Starring Bellart Bradham, Bellart Bradham Junior and Madame Flora Bradham! Presented to you by Lestallum's Fallstar Foods and JM Market, the first and foremost place to purchase your gear for the wild days on the hunt!—" spoke a chilled, deep male voice.

When Cid woke with a start, he felt his heartbeat quicken the very moment he grew aware of where he was and what was going around him. He began to entangle himself from the tight hug his arms kept around the metal leg, when suddenly a clicking sound from the speakers made him freeze.

Static noise began to buzz and then the voice said, "Chapter One: The Horny Messenger Appears—"

"Fuck me," whispered Cid in horror. His face conveyed that exclamation quite well and not even the familiar vibrations of the Regalia gliding over the street could calm him.

Crassus huffed what might have been a laugh.

The simple reaction hastened Cid's movements into a frenzy. Finally he tore himself free from the leg. He shifted until he sat upright, reaching with his hands between the two seats on the front—

All the while quick and not quite placeable music played until mellifluously like the honey of a Killer Bee was deadly, a transmission of a female voice began to play, "This is Marita Marum of the first team of investigators dispatched to the side of impact of the miasma locus or as it is commonly called 'the Meteor of the Six' — I have assumed leadership of the base camp."

It was in this moment that a deft slap to Cid's wrist caught him off-guard. It wasn't Crassus' fat, calloused hand however—

"Hey!"

"Code of the road: driver chooses the music! Now, hush!"

"Yeah, shuddap Cid! 't jus' got started!"

"But this's my car," Cid muttered.

Cid looked at his wrist and then at the two men sitting in front of him. He absently rubbed the stinging feeling away, eyes darting from pillion to driver's seat. There was Crassus and—

Who was the other man?

Quick buzzing of static noise followed by ether voices speaking undistinguishable words filled the short pause the woman allowed to breath.

"The second team is still on-site and is expected to return within the quarter of the hour," the transmission of Marita Marum continued. "Although wafts of mist have been sticking to the air, we can see the Titan, once vast and unshakable, dwarfed by the meteor, lying crouched, in deep slumber; yet still quakes of his body movement shake this region with increasing frequency! Ah— It would seem my colleague Mr. Arva just returned."

Distant a formal greeting could be heard between the static buzzing, then a roaring and the sound of vibrations in the microphone followed.

Cid wrenched his features into a small smile; for if he saw Crassus sit in front of him, then surely his plan and his puppy 'Blinky' must have worked. This conclusion came so easily to him that he felt elated, the panic from before dispersing like Anak calfs upon hearing the roar of an engine nearby.

"Yet another tremor. Anew, every single one truly is a humbling experience, don't you think so too Ms. Marum?"

"Not all that long ago we were infinitely serene in the knowledge that the Astrals would hold their protecting hands for all eternity over our heads and now we see one of them brought to its knees. Humbling, yes, yes indeed."

Cid looked up into the rear-view mirror. He saw his blanched face staring dully at him. He snorted quietly at the terrible state of exhaustion visible on his face.

"Well, it seems to have subsided, still I wonder what engenders these—" said Mr. Arvum with some brightness in his voice. "No matter, no matter. Are you planning to leave soon, Ms. Marum? Could I perchance persuade you to join me for dinner before you leave? Or perhaps afterwards, once you return?"

As the Regalia drove on, enwrought by the scene he knew inside out, Cid glanced sideways, mouthing absently the text that was going to be spoken. He startled when he recognised the landscape he saw. He turned back, raising himself slightly off the seat.

Soft music was playing again and Cid knew soon the namesake of the first chapter would appear. Footsteps and the setting of plates, cups and cutlery could be heard.

"Almost home, huh?" asked Crassus cheerfully when he noticed Cid nearly standing in his seat.

With wide, watery eyes Cid stared into the airflow and on the spot wished he hadn't.

In the distance, there was a great flash of something bright, so hypnotising that it didn't seem like light at all. It was followed by a hollow sound of something heavy crashing. Immediately after, a pillar of dust shot into the sky and with it a shockwave raced across the planes, tumbling bushes, huts and trees in its way. Odd, Cid thought, the sound and the shockwave seemed to have their origin from someplace else.

Cid balefully glared at the fat rolls that made the scruff of his friend's neck. "Ya had to jinx it, didn't ya?" he asked.

Chapter Text

The plume of dust from the sudden impact on the far side of the star-shaped outer wall of Insomnia rose high, in a rather artfully sculpted column of black that stood out against the blushing red of the morning sky—

It was the last thing Harry saw other than the ground suddenly being very close to his face as his tall form crashed into below the rocky formations of the crown of a very mountainous island.

Harry did not tumble, flail or scream but with a mighty groan stopped dead like lead plummets straight through water to the ground. Not one iota of dust was raised into the air, as though all was solid rock and Harry was the sole moveable object atop it.

With gentle steps through the air the Welthund followed behind, giving the impression of a gargantuan black feather dancing in the smallest of a breeze.

"..."

THAT MUST HAVE HURT, said the Welthund lightly. It turned its big head to observe Harry with the one big eye, strangely an expression all agog with innocent curiosity on its canine face.

"You reckon?" Harry asked with strained tone. He did not sound hurt, but like in shock; indeed, the collision seemed to have shrunk him— The whole mishap was being quite stupefying. His body was tense and all the parts that should bend easily were stiff and heavy.

Harry looked around dazedly. Above was the thick carpet of thunderclouds through which he had pierced in the split of a second. Below, the ground was made of odd shapes. Harry spotted a lonely skull, oddly brown and quite human sitting on one such a shape, nestled upon a flattened tussock of hogbean. It was a morbid sight, the dark eye sockets staring at him without intent and as only the maxilla was present, it too looked as though it was smiling only with its teeth, all rotten and fatalistic.

Harry sat up, noticing a rip in the fabric of his suit. Underneath he saw bleeding scrapes and a laceration from where the attacker had impacted with him. He watched with strange fascination how the blood as though sped up crusted dry, turning to flakes of red and black ash. A not quite natural soft gale of warm wind carried them away, leaving behind unmarred, pale skin.

The shock forgotten, Harry scrambled to stand up, just as the Welthund lazily lolloped over.

"Well," said Harry. "At least we are finally down on Terra Firma again, huh?"

The Welthund hummed. YES WE ARE. AND WE ARE NOT THE FIRST EITHER, IT SEEMS, it agreed. Its eye lingered only for a moment on the skull before, with a soft butt of its snout the suit mended itself.

And just as the light-consuming fabric settled back in place, a sharp thunder cracked on top the reverse side of the mountain, rattling with perceptible vibrations through the bedrock.

Both companions turned to look.

"Thank you," said Harry absently.

YOU ARE WELCOME, replied the Welthund warmly; it seemed to suddenly remember something, the golden eye zooming skywards—

Harry on the other hand looked down at the skull and with a flick of Schnitter he summoned it into his hands. He felt something wet as the skull landed on his palms. He settled the wand in his girdle; turning the skull slightly, Harry saw a single squashed blossom attached to it. He shrugged.

"What do you say to me, bare grinning skull? Except that once your brain whirled like mine—"

Something cut through Harry's words. It was a strange sound, one he recognised but only insofar as that he had heard it before, without clear memory of when or where.

Swoosh. It may have been the sound of blades cutting air, swift and heavy, with a destination predestined by the fate of chance and for a short moment Harry thought it were his ears playing a trick on him. But there it was still. Swoosh. Louder, clearer and closer.

For just a split second Harry saw it: a dark thing that sped past his vision down from the skies and then the world shook and he was shaken with it. He saw the dark thing bounce where the skull had lain before and for a short moment he thought it might squash him but then the momentum was spent—

The Welthund watched impassively, the big golden eye seeing it all.

More columnar basalt fell from the sky, cracking into halves in the distance, cleanly split and smooth. They laid out a clear muster, showing from whence they came.

"Bugger!" said Harry. He looked up, skellying for more basalt projectiles. Finding nothing, Harry raised the skull up to his eyes. "You're one lucky fellow," he finished.

DO YOU THINK SO?

Harry looked up. The skull's reflection shimmered grotesquely on the gilden surface of his mask, whereas the gleaming eyes from behind the mask twinkled in a very familiar sort of way.

"When I synthesize the information of its fate into a picture of its future, perhaps not," Harry allowed. "They are dead after all. Been for a long time, too. Doubt it will change any time soon. But I came here, picked it up. That must count for something, right?"

The Welthund lowered its head in a dip of acknowledgement, its flews drawing up. The long and fluffy fur settled along the rim of its ears twitched when yet another thunder cracked violently on top the other side of the mountain.

As the following angry rumble subsided, Harry turned to look at his companion, his skin crawling with a certain feeling that reminded of a certain duel fought with all that magic had to offer.

Harry stared at the hogbean peering up underneath the basalt, all squashed and sad looking. "Might be imagining things," he mumbled.

I BEG YOUR PARDON?

A little louder Harry asked, "Do I imagine things, or is there some wizardry afoot?"

Black furred paws pawed at the ground in a manner that suggested that they certainly, if the owner was inclined to do so, could paw quite a lot harder.

YES, said the Welthund. Nebbily it added, DOES THE TERRIBLY FUNNY FEELING OF ADVENTURE PULL AT YOU, HARRY?

Harry simply nodded, a small smile hidden behind the mask. Adventure, he remembered, could come in many forms and here now it was tickling his ears with sound. It was as though he was a fish and someone had thrown him bait. Audible bait.

He tucked the skull underneath his left arm and set to walk.

As Harry drew level with the head of the Welthund, he said, "Let us then step ahead and pursue our flighty temptress—"

With insouciant air surrounding them, a soft glow of an almost tangible golden aura shining on and off in the light that shone with thick rays past the carpet of thunderclouds above, Harry and his new friend, the skull, went and the Welthund? The Welthund waited, taking one step for every hundred his small companion took.

The mountain was not all that tall, yet its base was wide, almost stretching enough to fill the whole island. To Harry, the most simple way to reach the other side seemed to be to simply climb it.

SAY, I MEANT TO ASK BEFORE, spoke the Welthund, WHAT DID YOU DO TO THE SWORD?

"What do you mean?" asked Harry with put-on innocence in his voice. He climbed the mountain's steep face with magic carrying his feet on invisible footsteps.

I SAW HOW YOU WAVED A SPELL AT IT, HARRY, replied the Welthund with a barking laugh that caused the sand to dance in hypnotic ways upon the prisms of basalt Harry walked above on.

"Oh yes. That." muttered Harry. "Well—" He drew the word out for a few long moments.

YES?

"I might have cursed it to henceforward only inflict emotional wounds?"

The Welthund threw back its head and laughed, long canine teeth showing entrance to an deep, endless maw. Like the plague was deadly, the Welthund's laughter was truly contagious; and as all neurologists knew Harry could not help but to chuckle along.

A SWORD THAT NO MORE CUTS THE FLESH BUT PIERCES TO THE SOUL? O' HARRY—

The Welthund sneezed in a very dog-like manner amidst incessant laughter.

PARDON ME, it said after a few moments, tongue lolling out of its snout while happily panting. I THOUGHT IT QUITE FUNNY.

"I rather doubt the Transformer will see the joke in it. But it is prudence, I say," said Harry with cheer. "For no matter how hard he hews and slews, it's but a useless tool of slaughter now."

PRUDENCE YOU SAY? The Welthund hummed in a tone that signalled understanding. PERHAPS IT IS — YOU DO EXPECT TO SEE HIM AGAIN, THEN?

Harry barked a self-deprecating laugh. He lifted the skull up and said, "Hear that? Like they don't know me inside-out." Addressing the Welthund again he added, "But yes. Yes, I do."

AND WHAT WILL YOU DO WHEN YOU MEET AGAIN? questioned the Welthund.

"Curse his shoes to be angry with him, perhaps," offered Harry. "We'll see, though, won't we? It would be a remarkable happenstance if he wasn't in a right state of anger just now. I would be."

By the time they neared the peak of the mountain, the air was laden with static energy just waiting to discharge. Indeed, all around the topmost columns of basalt dangerously varying electric fields caused sparks of raw power to crackle in the moist vapour of the clouds. A strange buzzing noise filled the air, so very close that it could be felt, rather than heard.

Harry looked around. He saw no farther than where his hands could reach. The bright of the beginning day was dimmed to a dull dark-grey, which insofar was natural as thunderclouds tended to be stuffed to the brim with water droplets that scattered the light attempting to pierce through. However, what was wholly unnatural to his eyes, was the fact that the clouds seemed to be alive with a will of their own completely untethered by the laws of physics.

"I can feel it," said Harry quietly as he drew his wand. "It's very close."

Immediately after Harry spoke two things happened simultaneously with all the haste of a situation had had waited to happen for quite some time already.

From above, like a creature of prey, a hand took aim.

And—

A soft vibration travelled through reality, like droplets of water dancing beautifically on top the membranophone of a rather impossible big drum. Its origin this outlandish event had in the gargantuan form of Welthund. The vibrations didn't change much in this reality, save for something only Harry would take notice of. Indeed, it was just the Welthund which seemingly quickened in all directions: It morphed, changing form. Its shadow though, betrayed this illusion.

At about the same time as on the island of Angelgard, not all that far off the coast of Insomnia a horse-headed staff was drawn up in preparation of attack, the Regalia arrived at its final destination.

It was Cid who, just as the Regalia complete with the motley crew driving it arrived at the gates, remarked with utterly calm voice that something very big and sturdy must have crashed there.

"Can't believe nobody's out here scouting," added he as they came to a halt before the opened, if deserted gates. Upon seeing the confused look Crassus threw him as they exited the car, he added, "That's a Crown City-rule, y'know?"

The engine went quiet with one last loud rumble. A second later the sounds of the Wireless Audio Drama died a sudden death. The doors clapped shut and left was only the lonely howl of a muted siren to disturb the silence.

"Here's the thing 'bout city-rules: they dun' apply once ye leave the city," said Crassus.

It would be interesting to note, that several minutes after the gaping hole that now marked the quite solid and massive concrete wall of Insomnia's outer defenses had been blown into existence, an enormous shudder could be seen causing the heaps of rubble to dance a twisted medley. The few Crownsguard securing the city that were not already dispatched to the catacombs saw it and legged it, away from whatever monster laying there trapped.

"Quite right." It was said with a sniffle.

"Izunia was it? Who are you anyways? A drifter? Never seen you before at his place," said Cid as he checked for his knife and pistol. His face went slack when he remembered the fate of his firearm.

"Aha! In a sense, yes. I am a man of impure heart still," Ardyn Izunia said, hand tipping up the rim of his hat. His eyes held a madid shine. "But let us not tarry. Why not go and explore, my friends?"

Cid mouthed the last word slowly. However before he could say anything further and with a grunted yawn Crassus threw his ersatz rod up his shoulder. He shoved past the arm that, in a flamboyant gesture waved towards the hole in the wall.

"Let's git this o'er with."

"This ain't some all git-out adventure!" said Cid weakly.

Ardyn Izunia shrugged as he turned to walk, a mixed look of consternation and perpetual giddiness written all over his face. "But why not?"

"We could go inside and leave it to the Crownsguard to deal with," suggested Cid logically.

He stared at everything but the hole in the wall. There was no reply and when Cid's head snapped up he saw that both men were already moving ahead, the rather cheerful Ardyn Izunia having easily caught up with Crassus' heavy trudge.

Cid looked blank. "It could be worse," he said without any conviction in his voice. A memory from earlier in the night suddenly made him crane his neck back to the car.

Cid leaned over the Regalia's door, awkwardly reaching into the footrest. He groped around until his fingertips touched the biting cold rod of metal. Upon contact a weak elemantic shock raced through his calloused fingers. He griped it and pulled back.

The metal was darker than before, showing, so Cid guessed, that the charge was almost fully spent. It now looked the sort of weapon you might use to reach and scratch where your hands couldn't.

Cid jabbed it forward a few times. "At least its pointy." he said. "It could be worse. Could be dull."

With barely a thought he threw the rod against up his miasma-stained jacket, setting himself to galumph after the other two.

The closer they came to the hole in the wall, the more often a faint grinding noise could be heard. The echoes travelled along the smooth wall, never fully dying, both present and absent to the ear. It was a haunting sound that easily found support by the reverb of the siren.

They arrived at the hole, a heap of rubble as tall as a Behemoth splitting in two halves to either side of the wall.

"See?" said Cid. "Just a hole. Nothing else to see. Let's go back?"

"'S small," Crassus grunted through a yawn.

"What?"

"Indeed, it is a remarkably small hole, compared to let's say what remains of the Disc of Cauthess and the crater, of course," said Ardyn Izunia.

"So what? Maybe it was a small meteor. Or it might could split? There are smaller shards all spread over the continent!"

"Or—"

Meanwhile Ardyn Izunia hummed quietly, a frown hidden barely by the rim of his hat. He stepped towards the pile of rubble, arm outstretched.

"Don't say it." Cid snapped. "Just don't say it! Okay?"

Crassus turned to look oddly at Cid. "Why?"

"Just don't Droller!"

"But—"

Cid hissed at him, waving his impotent rod. "No! Shut it!"

Crassus swatted the rod away with his own. "Look," he said. "Maybe's a whole nuther thang!"

"YOU JINXED IT—"

"GAH!"

They were interrupted by a pained scream. Both jumped, one with fright, the other with surprise. They spun around, weapons at the ready when the scream cut off abruptly.

Ardyn Izunia stood there, hands held to his head, the hat having fallen to the ground. It looked like he was trying to keep his skull from jumping out of his body. Along the skin of his jaw and temple thin crimson Lichtenberg figures spread as though a bottled-up thunderstorm was raging in the cage of his head.

"GAH!" he screamed again, a violent sneeze twisting it into a garbled spell.

"By the Pauperess — What's the matter with you?" asked Cid, while at the same time a rumble of hitherto unprecedented ferocity went through the heap of rubble. A trickle of small small stones began to roll off the biggest slab of concrete, rolling down like an avalanche in training.

Ardyn Izunia squinted. A volley of sneezes shot from his face. Tears began to stream down his cheeks. "I don't know!" he cried angrily as he tried to hold his nose shut with little success. He stamped a feet frustratedly.

"Uh—"

With a squeaky clank Cid jerked his rod away as crunching sounds drew his attention. He eyed the suddenly very alive heap of rubble, the rod pointed at it. "Fuck," he muttered and the others quite agreed.

Ardyn Izunia gave up struggling and the inevitable followed, whereas Crassus stared slack-jawed at the spectacle.

It wasn't that the slabs of concrete that slid off the heap, crashing to the ground with deafening sound were any more dangerous than the prospect of a meteor eradicating all life upon Eos. But quite like Cid was expecting, the shift of rubble worked itself into a wellnigh concatenation of circumstances, pulling along more and more rubble until the heap was only slightly taller than an above average, upright standing man.

It was as though all the ill-fated possibilities had just waited to converge into this moment to birth this situation, Cid thought as he stared with morbid curiosity at a clawlike hand springing free from its former tomb.

A trickle of blood was running down Ardyn Izunia's nose when the sneezing came to a sudden stop. He stared at the massive hand as he wiped the blood away with the back of his own. With a flick of his fingers he threw blood at the body that still was hidden under rubble.

"Ahhh— I could kiss you, my big friend," said he as he bent down to pick up his hat. A strange smile played over his face when he turned around to face Cid and Crassus. It was the sort of smile that instinctively made you wary of another person.

Crassus pointed the rod at him. He was jittery. "Dun' ev'n think 'bout it!"

Chapter Text

Similarly at the same time, somewhere in Tenebrae:

If you were to point out that the Fenestala Manor looked quite like a certain ziggurat, famed for its place and role in the biblio-historical events surrounding the Earthen city of Babylon, then you would be met with nothing but a polite look of faint interest by the Queen of Tenebrae.

Indeed, not at all bothered by the lack of knowledge regarding the outward semblance of her home, the Oracle sat in the Royal train compartment, her eyes following the hanging gardens in all their glory as they shrank to nothing but small green dots engulfed by warm light before they disappeared completely.

After some while the train stuttered and the Queen startled badly, her eyes finding new focus as she looked around for the reason of her sudden unrest. Her first glance she directed at her two year old son where he slept soundly. He did not stirr. Then she saw her own reflection in the fogging up window. In the background blurry things were passing by of which she usually only saw distant silhouettes from her gardens.

Queen Sylva Via Fleuret allowed herself a sigh as she saw the gaunt sadness in her reflection's face.

They yet had to hear a word from Insomnia and already some mutter of unrest went on among and through her retinue. She thought it understandable, for Niflheim surely would seize such weak moments with a strong hand.

The Queen startled when the train compartment stuttered forcefully this time. It did not cause her to jump off the seat but she still seemed ruffled by it.

Ice crystals began to form on the windows. The thin red-brown pipes pumping heat through the Royal compartment groaned their quiet protest at the sudden influx of cold.

"Gosh-all-tarnation," said the Queen. Her breath fogged white in the air before her.

There was a vague ray of light coming through the window, splitting into a spectrum of colours through the ice prisms that were grown into beautiful shapes upon the windows. At the same time, there was a remote sound of cracking ice from far beyond the train compartment; still it rang crystal clear with a heavy fate to the ears of the Oracle.

The compartment suddenly went very quiet and not even the steady rumbling and chuffing of the train was to be heard. The Queen shivered when she sensed a build-up of gelid power.

It wasn't always like this, she knew. As it was her duty as the Oracle to act as the medium of the divine will, cleansing Eos of the Starscourge, arbiter between gods and men, often, indeed, it was just a sharp whisper in the back of her mind that encouraged the magic to flow through her, nudged her into the right direction. Whereas at other times it would be a tickling along her back, or the heat of fiery ardor in her guts that would drive her to receive her suppliants with open arms.

Now, though, she felt nervous as the moment stretched out. She looked around searching shadows in every nook and cranny for some sign. But nothing suspicious seemed to catch her eye. Still she kept her hand on the Trident.

"Mother?" asked a thick, young voice through the frosty silence.

"Hm? Oh— Ravus, dear."

Bleary-eyed Prince Ravus Nox Fleuret sat up on his bench seat, the Coeurl-fur blanket falling off of his shoulders. He blinked slowly in the manner that only recently awoken children could, yawning with his mouth wide open.

"That is quite undignified," remarked his mother out of sheer reflex. She glanced at her son with a disapproving smile.

The Prince's mouth went shut with a snap. He nodded. "Yes Mother." A puff of white fogging air stopped dead before his mouth. "It's cold," said the Prince not without curiosity; the last word echoed in the compartment as though it was as large as the caverns below the Fenestela Manor.

The rainbow that fell into the compartment from the window flickered.

A sudden fear stabbed at the back of the Queen's mind; it was the sort of fear that reared a feral maternal heat inside her. Her hand gripped tight around the Trident, a shimmer of power racing visibly through the three-pronged head.

There was a knock at the compartment door; it sounded like two heavy pieces of ice being knocked together. The Queen surged to her feet, startling her son into drawing the fur blanket up to his mouth.

The tremble of her body did not reach the Queen's voice as she spoke. "Who goes there?"

In answer the door of the train compartment opened in a very peculiar manner. It looked like the door was there and then, briefly, it disappeared revealing nothing of the floor, the wooden panels and the dark wooden railing mounted atop them. It happened all very quickly: into the light coming from the window stepped a young, beautiful woman that seemed to look at them with her eyes closed and then the door was back as though it had never been opened.

To the Queen's eyes the woman was a not a woman at all.

Assuredly, there was, as though lit by a light the colour of a glacier, an unnatural soft aura surrounding these feminine features of the body before her. The soft aura seemed to enhance what was naturally attractive in a female body, but that, so the Queen saw, was where the similarities found their end.

With her face enshrined by silky hair, a frown twisting her porcelain skin, the voice that which she spoke with, breaking the coldness still clinging to the compartment was pleasantly comforting.

"Hear me and rejoice, o' harried Oracle. By the strange currents of fortune, what once was tilted, now has become straight," she said, taking a step forward.

"Messenger," acknowledged the Queen politely as though she was not pointing the Trident at her. "What leads you here? Is it urgent?"

The Messenger continued forward without concern. The Trident seemed to shiver with delight in her presence as she passed it, taking seat nearby Prince Ravus who was more curious than fearful.

By dint of effort the Queen lowered her three-pronged weapon. Best not aggravate the situation, she thought.

"A beacon, bathed in light called me hither. 'Twas the awoken soul of the Oracle."

There was a duo of soft, friendly yips and suddenly a pair of young dogs sat before the Queen, which, so very suddenly felt beleaguered by hopeful eyes. The fact that it was a genus of dog she had never encountered before was more confusing than their sudden appearance.

"You are here for me?" said the Queen as she sat down while the dogs shuffled closer to her feet.

They clearly wanted for her attention, which did not sit right with Prince Ravus. He quickly slid down from where he sat, the cold, the fur and the surprise forgotten.

It was not without visible reluctance that the Queen sat still and watched it happen. From the corner of her eye she saw the Messenger shake her head softly. The unease returned.

"You will excuse my liberty; but I am merely here for what must come to pass."

The Messenger opened her eyes and met the tired gaze of the Queen.

"Chaos hath spread and evil may fester upon its fertile soil," she said, sadly.

Whereupon the Queen's face went through a rictus. "The calamity? Only ever did I see shadows of it." She let out a shuddering breath and admitted, "I fear for the Kingdom of Lucis and our all future."

A few moments earlier, the split moment before the tall horse-headed staff could reach upon its target, a very potent force appeared from thin air, gripping the arm that was without solid form, with might that was almost tangible to the beholder.

Harry barely blinked at either the sudden appearance, or some sort of electric charge that surged through his limbs. It was an ambiguous feeling, full of nostalgia and warmth, yet an odd feeling of urgency accompanied it.

There!

Albus Dumbledore, purples robes sweeping down to buckled boots, high in dudgeon with wand in hand appeared in a whirl of his cloak where before stood the Welthund.

A language like thunder rumbled round the mountain while both Harry and the skull in his embrace stood silent. But whereas to the latter it was just its nature and it still glared with grave's cold malice at the happening, to Harry it was some sort of speechlessness that stole his voice as he by chance found a pair of red eyes glare down at him.

It didn't last long. A weak bubbling chuckle left Harry's mouth. "'Eye of the storm'," he said. "Never thought I'd see that metaphor literalized. And there's two of them."

The skull, though smiling its tremendous smile, was quiet and stared, almost hypnotized from its dark sockets.

"You shall not judge him," said Dumbledore, turning his head slightly to see Harry.

The language of thunder, of which Harry only understood the not-so-subtle undertone returned. It was spoken with clipped and short tone, grating on Harry's ears.

"He sounds angry— " said Harry, his voice tailing away when violet lightning fanned through the firmament its thin fingers. "Mightily so, I'd say," he added.

A transonic wave cracked and suddenly the staff became free of physical substance. Then lightning flashed and crimson rained. Harry squinneyed despite not wanting to.

"You shall not judge him!" Again, Dumbledore had not raised his voice, he did not even sound very angry, but Harry would imagine that the giant thundercloud of terror would have preferred him to yell, as the gravity of Dumbledore's voice was so heavy that the words lingered long after having been spoken. Like a trapped sound encircled these words the mountain, echoing off of invisible walls and suddenly warped was the path of lightning.

Dumbledore flicked his wand and the skull jerked out of Harry's clasp. It flew; Harry's golden mask shined brightly when by hand's breadth the lightning curved, surging after the skull instead of towards Harry. It connected with the skull and flickered out.

Dumbledore caught the skull in his left hand, a small sound of exertion leaving his mouth. The skull visibly vibrated, its dark sockets glowing a violent crimson as though a pair of murderous eyes had returned to fill what was before empty.

"!" said Harry only to be interrupted by the language of thunder. He growled, "Oh bloody well shut up!"

Harry swung his wand back and forth like you would test a sabre, cutting the air with sharp whip-like sounds. Blessed silence replaced the cracking of thunder. "What was that about 'judging'? And though he's but a skull: poor Yorick."

"I am sure your friend will be fine in a short while," said Dumbledore delicately as he looked intently at the skull. His golden eyes seemed to see more than the boney matter in his hands, while Harry thought he saw the eyes blink up at Dumbledore very briefly before they flickered out.

Meanwhile above their heads as though dragged by heavy winds, the storm's body shifted. It all happened without so much as a sound, as was due to Harry having spelled a blanket of silence upon the mountain.

When it seemed that Dumbledore would say nothing more in regards to Harry's question, Harry shook his head and went on. "At the risk of sounding a little childish, Sir—"

Dumbledore smiled and with a gentle turn of his hand sent the skull to float down to the basalt columns below him like a feather would glide to and fro' through the air. "You wish to ask: 'What now?'"

"Spot on," said Harry.

"In regards to the future? Or this situation? Well, either way: it remains, of course, wholly at your discretion Harry," insisted Dumbledore with a tone that was completely at ease with the situation. He elaborated further, after seeing Harry open his mouth, "After all, I shall be with you, no matter."

"Yes, I remember," said Harry, turning his head to look heavenward. There was this queer feeling of urgency again, driving his senses to ignore the blinding flash that filled the sky. He looked behind what the eyes perceived, seeing some semi-solid, massive hand punching through the air, ruthlessly seizing the chance.

Harry laughed at the shiver running down his back. The thrill of fear spurred him to jab his wand at the attacker, a string of magic spilling from his lips.

A jet of dark red light burst from Schnitter, zick-zacking in some obscure pattern through the air. It looked like a lind shield, if you were inclined to liken it to things of Terran history

"Oh my," commented Dumbledore idly from behind Harry.

The fist, of whatever substance it was made from, connected with such force that a gong-like sound reverberated from it, shaking the mountain. With loud groaning columns of basalt tore free and fell down the mountainside.

There was no sound when the first drew back and began to sail down anew, but a pressure, a feeling of doom still gave warning.

Quickly, as soon as the spell ran its course, Harry began to weave his wand through a very intricate pattern, painting golden threads of magic to the downside of the lind shield. Hurried they began to form the matrix of a great stave, covering most of its surface.

From all above a thin drizzle of rain began to fall, creeping even into the smallest crevices. Dumbledore seemed oblivious to the wetness that whipped at him, sneaking under his cloak and robe, whereas Harry simply ignored it.

"I recognise the design. This is one of the spells Loftur Þorsteinsson attempted to steal from the Rauðskinna, is it not?" asked Dumbledore over the noise coming from below.

"Attempted, yes," replied Harry while exhaling gustily, blowing small droplets away from the sheen of rain on his mask.

"Like many other terrible men, he was a student at Hogwarts once, set out to change the world with one wand, and a great many ideas —"

Harry shuddered at the tone. He suddenly knew what to do. He needn't buy protection with sacrifice of luck. This was his play, his role. Schnitter was his!

Dumbledore's voice trailed off as Harry tipped his wand to the stave.

Immediately after a hollow clinking filled the air. The mountain seemed to quake, like the last tremor wrecking through a dying body before it went dead-still. Only, it didn't.

Harry straightened up, clearing his throat. "I, err— It's supposed to do that." He hesitated, adding quietly, "I think."

"And yes, I know," said Harry. "The portrait of Professor Everard regaled me with tales of Þorsteinsson's 'exploits' whenever I was waiting for Hermione in the Ministry."

"Ah," said Dumbledore smartly. "Then you, of course, know that clever a ruse though it was, Loftur survived his mingling with the Kappas but not without paying a price."

Harry agreed. The price had been his death to the world; a fortiori, a steep price to pay for people that lived for their moments in the spotlight, even more so if one would account for the fabled Wand of Ages.

But this was different, was it not? Unlike with Loftur Þorsteinsson, Harry knew his companion to be there, always, and forever.

All thought and delay could not hide or prolong the change in nature of this moment; it was as clear as dew running down blades of grass on an early morning that the god of this mountain no longer sought to judge, but to destroy.

Briefly Harry wondered whether tons upon tons of basalt would bite like the uncountable sharp teeth of Kappas, when buried underneath, but then the thought was gone.

"Such risk is life," said Harry, smiling.

Dumbledore nodded then with a happy look, and turned to look with giddy excitement at how the remaining columns of basalt began to fall away like simple sandcastles being swept away by the steady ebb of waves.

"It's all at your discretion, my boy," said Dumbledore, golden eyes glancing sideways to Harry. "What say you?"

"I say," Harry said, taking a deep breath.

"Yes?"

Harry jerked his wand down. "Until death, all is life," he cried.

Chapter Text

In the waters east of Galdin Quay and south of Insomnia it came to be that there was afoot a terrible event of yet unforeseeable consequence; however as it was shrouded by the mad maelstrom of clouds conjured by one of the Astrals, the Umbral Isle was not to be seen by mortal eyes.

Nobody was there to observe the multi faceted stone columns tear free from each other and soar down onto the earth, burying deep the holy ground. It was a mad cacophony of destruction, orchestrated by chaos when prismal basalt split upon impact, jumped up and down and split again.

Nobody was there to witness a diminishing pair of cruel red eyes watch round the colossal wreck, and nobody saw how what seemed to be some odd kinetic accident propel a single piece of stone out of thousands, far beyond the range of the island until it disappeared yonder the sea.

Where before a world with a clear defined nature, with a cope of heaven from which rain and sun would touch upon the rich earth, and all manners of creatures roaming it had been the reality Harry had planted his feet upon, there now it all was dark with spots of glaring colours, stretching endlessly out, as far as the mind could comprehend.

It was as though Harry was drunk on Nepenthe, staring unblinking at the falling colours, racing past his eyes. Indeed, he too seemed to be falling; only he was falling upward, whereas everything else was moving all the other ways, as quick as light.

For how long he simply was without a care for anything, Harry could not say when he finally closed his eyes and took a step forward. With a rush and quite suddenly distantly familiar sounds appeared.

He opened his eyes and found himself standing upright on solid ground. It was a familiar lane, but with one addition.

"Ah? A bonfire," Harry muttered. "It better not be that bonfire."

But it looked like it, and there was no denying that.

Harry looked left and right, but found not a single soul or simulacrum of such; only the stone circle and the enormous fire burning away eternally in its middle. No, not eternally. It had gone out before.

But it was there, warm, flaring with life and apparently waiting for him, and whether it truly was that fire or just something he was imagining. Did it matter?

Around Harry a shroud of dark hung still, but the fire was warm and bright and it beckoned him to step closer into its shed radiance.

Harry stepped past the threshold, the thin circle of white pebbles on the ground that bordered the dark, that were joined by four tall boulders and smaller stones to which one could sit and lay against. On the far side of the circle a small stack of wood was piled up, and beyond that, there was the shimmer of a liquid surface reflecting the light of the fire.

He could faintly hear the chatter of all the mad people, the Kings and Queens that had taken to the insanity of the Elder Wand. It was all in his imagination, of course, but the feeling this place evoked in him was nothing if not nostalgic.

Harry kicked off his leather shoes and sat down at the fire, half expecting there to be a feeling of resignation to settle in. But there was no such traitorous thought coming upon him.

Instead, as Harry made himself comfortable an aged voice spoke from next to him.

"Angry shoes, Harry?"

Harry wiggled with his toes, the soles of his feet facing the fire. "No," he said. "I am just relaxing a tad." He eyed the new arrival. "Thought you'd come by sooner or later."

"And here I am," said Albus Dumbledore. He stood next to Harry, bending down to unbuckle his boots. "A curious place you have found here."

Harry looked about at the lights flashing past so quickly that it seemed there was nothing but darkness at all. It was a strangely mesmerising sight, one he would not mind getting lost in.

With a sigh Harry pulled off his mask and placed it in his lap, feeling unusually eccentric, as someone sitting down for eternity, even though he sensed he would be standing up again right away. It almost felt like in the back of his mind he remembered something, a cosmic ball of events, if you will, tumble down a plain, downhill road. Tumble, and tumble, and tumble, and so on, wholly unable to stop. And he wasn't yet sure whether he was on the road of said ball, or the one having put it into motion. Both perhaps?

"How was it then?"

No pathos, no talking around it, and straight to the point. That made Harry think all the more that something was afoot.

"I can't say," Harry said as he stared into the flickering light of the fire.

A serene "Curious," was all he got for a reply.

"Yes," snarked Harry back, glancing to the side where Albus Dumbledore was attempting to kneel down and find a comfortable position. "You were there with me. You saw it all. What do you think?"

But despite his snark, he drew his wand from where it dangled from the girdle; with a quite casual flick, a zafu appeared on the ground, lustrous burgundy-velvet quilted in a traditional way.

"How very thoughtful of you. Thank you, Harry," said Dumbledore pleasantly. He sat down, a soft sigh escaping him as he settled on the soft cushion.

There was an especially loud crack coming from the fire. A burst of embers shot off in the heat of the dancing flames. Out of sight, over at the stack of firewood a swirl of pale blue materialised.

"You are welcome — This here, I must say, after the past day this is just what I need." Harry blew a somewhat embarrassed laugh. "I think I am a bit rusty in regards to having an adventure. Me!"

Dumbledore folded his hands above his middle. "All things have their time. I would assume you still have enjoyed yourself, Harry. That is what the evidence so far suggested."

"I suppose," Harry said. "It was... what were my words? Right. Exhilarant, though short-lived and—"

At the same time, down below the inconspicuous spectacle of pale blue, a young man fell from thin air with a wet splat that sounded like something hitting water. He landed lightly in a heap of limbs. The colour faded slightly, tingeing the body into a gloomy aura.

Harry jumped onto his bare feet like a winded Jack-in-the-box would spring from its box. His wand was immediately at the ready. His eyes darted left and right, but only spotting the pale blue swirling light after he stepped past the fire.

"Curiouser and curiouser," said Dumbledore from next to his ear.

Harry would have to agree, but out of principle he said, "It is most curious, Sir."

"Why yes," said Dumbledore with a smile as he glanced at Harry, "it is. Look! You can see whence he came."

Upon hearing that, Harry, who was busy taking a closer look at the battered young man, looked up at the light. And indeed, there was a world of ruin in it, and from it a short-nosed dog suddenly jumped out.

The dog looked at the young man, then around, then at Harry, eyes narrowing with almost human designs behind them.

Dumbledore laughed. "Look my boy," he said, sounding oddly amused, "a dog."

Said dog barked, and Dumbledore promptly barked back.

Harry felt... felt like screaming.

Meanwhile

Unhurried, and completely unbothered by the chaos beneath it, a very particular piece of debris came flying from yonder the sea and past the Crown City Insomnia.

Said piece of debris seemed to ponder where to best 'go ashore', so to speak, swaying a little left, then right, when ultimately it was forced to give in to the lure of gravity and landed with a solid thud near the path a very upset man would take not a few minutes later.

That very upset man, as chance would have it, was one Ardyn Izunia.

Trudging along, Ardyn Izunia felt like screaming. All his fastidiously well-crafted plans, his ideas, the imagined possibilities of how to abuse this situation had been cast into disarray.

And most confusingly above all: he was happy about it! That felt all sorts of wrong, truly.

He looked around, in search of a chance to relieve some tension, when he spotted a small gleaming stone twinkle its luminal reflection at him.

On a whim, he went to pick it up, noticing it to be a statue made of black marble. He cleaned it with his hands and found the most odd looking dog stare at him with one golden eye. It blinked, he swore, it blinked!

"Where did you come from?" Ardyn Izunia muttered as he held the statue up to his eyes, and promptly sneezed.

"Gah!" Ardyn Izunia exclaimed, a surge of hate bubbling up with the next raging volley of sneezes bellowing out of his abused nose. He threw the statue away with all his might, frustration and anger giving it velocity, and stamped his feet in annoyance.

After a few minutes when the sneezing had subsided and the spray of snodder and blood was now a thick runlet streaming out of his nose, Ardyn Izunia stuffed his hands into his pocket and fisted around angrily in an attempt to find his cloth tissue or anything of the likes, when his hand suddenly encountered something cold.

Something cold and small; he pulled it out and looked flummoxed at the statue he had thrown away just a few moments ago.

"What?" he muttered, and looked toward the distant rocks in the grass where he had thrown it.

Not one to take being mocked, Ardyn Izunia gripped the statue tightly, breathed harshly through his mouth and went to look where it should have landed—

And there of course was to be found... nothing, and this time Ardyn Izunia screamed aloud instead of just feeling like doing it. In a fit his hand let go of the statue and it disappeared out of sight.

Half a second after Ardyn realised that the cold stone was gone from his grasp, he felt something more or less heavy sag in his right coat pocket.

With trepidation he stuffed his hand into it... and felt cold stone.

That just wasn't normal, even by his standards.

Then there suddenly someone hooted their car horn. Twice.

Ardyn glanced over his shoulder and spotted the Regalia, beaten, dirty but still an impressive sight, like a chromey behemoth on wheels. Inside two familiar men, of which one was waving what looked like a log.

"My leg!" exclaimed Ardyn, making haste to walk over.

"Hear him go 'My leg'?!" grunted Crassus mockingly. "It's me babe's leg!"

"Hush," said Ardyn and snagged it from Crassus' surprisingly strong grip. "Finders, keepers my big friend. Finders, keepers."

"It's me baby's leg!"

"Finders!" repeated Ardyn with a grin, pressing the leg to his body. "Keepers!"

Cid sighed tiredly as there before his eyes yet another stalemate-argument was going on. Gripping the leather of the steering wheel tight, he felt like just flooring it, but as he glanced over to the pair, he spotted something in Ardyn's grasp. "What's that?" he asked, giving a vague jerk with his head toward the hand.

"I don't know," said Ardyn candidly, glancing down at the statue. "But I shall endeavor to find out."

Crassus grunted, though it sounded like It's an effin' stone, not that he looked like he was caring much anyways. Crassus' deformed face was droopy, and though he clearly was looking, Cid had no idea how he did so with his eyes effectively closed shut.

Ardyn threw the leg of Blinky on the backseat, climbing in after it. He smiled at the incredulous look he received from Cid through the rear mirror. "Would you terribly mind if I were to impose on you for a little while longer?"

"Hammerhead ain't renting out no rooms," said Cid flatly.

"No, no, I mean not to ask for shelter, but for your companionship my friend."

"What?" balked Cid, immediately suspicious. "Why?"

Ardyn smiled capriciously. "I find myself interested in what else for an adventure you both may find yourselves in."

The tune of the most-recent wireless advertisement of the Wiz Chocobo Post in Duscae to play from inside the car.

"Not a word," said Cid angrily when Crassus snorted.

He picked up the receiver and went, ""This is Cid speaking — What's shakin'?"

There was a muted voice talking agitatedly.

Cid, looking slightly ill, feigned surprise when he spoke. "What? There was an impact at Insomnia?" He glanced at his compatriots. "~No ~~No I'm still on the way. Should arrive soon. Y'all right, right?"

There was some more talking.

"Great! 'Am fixin' ta drive by soon. Bye Regis."

And before another word could be said, Cid hastily slammed down the receiver onto the rather big phone, wedged between the seats.

"Fuck," he breathed and looked at his amused compatriots. "I hate you."