Chapter Text
“Tch!”
Letting out a groan, the King grazes the ground with his fingertips, boots sliding against the pavement, bracing against the impact. His other hand tinges with residual energy of a weapon once brandished, expelled now to conserve power.
He peers up through his eyelashes towards a looming villain. His breath is haggard. He faintly recalls calling, “Quickly! Get them out of here! Make sure they’re safe!” over his shoulder, willing his frame to its full height against protests from every fiber of his being.
His range of power is smaller than he would have otherwise liked—when was the last time he’d allowed it to get this small?—but he supposes it’s sufficient. It has to be.
The field pulls in farther until it’s seldom more than a faint blue aura just inches from his body, fixing him in place. The King lowers his eyelids, teeth gritting, white-knuckled fists balling at his sides.
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“Currently breaking: The ‘King of Heroes,’ the Arm of Lucis, ‘sustains massive injuries’ in latest battle, but will be back to work immediately, our sources say. Eyewitness reports and videos posted to social media platforms offer a closer look of the battle; within them we can see the King limping away from the scene, with some even claiming to see leg braces and a cane.
“Despite an increase in altercations recently, the aging hero—who has just turned fifty—is still ranked number one in popularity polls.”
Noctis’s fixation on the television set betrays his disquiet, more than his features allow. Sensing it, Ignis—who’s been watching wordlessly from the kitchen—comes over and flicks the screen to black as the newscaster lulls the broadcast into commercials. An equal part gruff and hesitant clearing of the throat brings Noctis back into the room, gaze flicking to where Ignis then sets down the television remote and a simple breakfast.
“Eat.” The command is more abrupt than Ignis perhaps meant, and he clears his throat into the back of his hand as he turns back to the kitchen. “You’ve already risen late.”
Eyeing the meal, Noctis accepts it impassively, shoving the undesirable parts to the side and eating the meal in small portions.
As he eats, his eyes gravitate to the remote left on the table. Finding little interest in that particular object, Noctis moves to the next, set beside it a little ways. It’s a smooth trinket gifted from his father: a teal stone sculpted into the silhouette of a whimsical creature he’s never been able to place.
“It’s a good luck charm,” his father had said, pressing the cool token into Noctis’s palm. “Take it with you wherever you might end up.”
He’d been in an accident, he remembers too, a child whose quirk had just manifested. At the time, he hadn’t thought it to be that big of a deal, but everyone else had. They just wanted to know whether I had my father’s quirk or not, he’d told himself then, eyebrows furrowing as bruised hands gripped at bed sheets. In the present, his hands tremble around a metal fork.
When his father came to visit him after that accident, the room became much quieter, and Noctis was able to relax some. His father was a man of kind eyes, something that Noctis was told he lacked.
Getting up with a start, Noctis let his utensils clatter from his hands, scooping up his bag from the side of the table.
“I’m ready.” The statement comes with little inflection, and Noctis swiftly makes his way across the room to the exit before Ignis can say anything. “Let’s go, Ignis.”
“Hey, you alright, buddy?”
Noctis doesn’t offer much besides a brief sideways glance towards Prompto, who leans into his view from his side. “Yeah,” he says, a listless knee-jerk answer. “Is there a reason I shouldn’t be?”
That response throws Prompto for a loop. There’s a dumbfounded silence, and even with the low murmur of the students that thinly line the hall, Noctis can hear his friend slow to a brief halt. Even still, Noctis defiantly keeps up the pace, eyelids lulling closed as one hand slings his book bag over his shoulder and the other rests lazily at his hip.
“It’s just that—I was watching the news and—”
Prompto’s words are quick. Breathless, even. But his earnest yet hypersensitive concern is transparent. Noctis can almost feel the heat from the flustered crimson that colors Prompto’s cheeks.
“And what?” Noctis’s hissed interjection comes as a dare. A dare for Prompto to finish the thought, to say what they both—and likely everyone around them, with their prying eyes—already know.
Noctis doesn’t quite know which outcome he’d prefer. That uncertainty draws out the harsh frustration from the lowest timbres of his voice, which trembles against the unfamiliar exertion.
Prompto bites back his line of questioning, frame wilting in skittish guilt.
“I, erm.” He’s scratching at the nape of his neck now, forcing a laugh to his lips. “Saw an ad! Yeah! An ad for the university, and with finals and entrance exams right around the corner, I was wondering how you were holding up!”
Once the bulk of the diversion has gone more or less smoothly he visibly languishes, sighing as he stretches. “Ah, who am I kidding. Someone like you has nothing to worry about. You got an official recommendation—” Noctis winces at the inflection that Prompto gives the word, “—for the Heroics Track at U.A., didn’t you? I’m so jealous.”
“Mm.” Noctis would be the first to admit that this would not be his preferred topic of discussion, but it’s preferable to the initial trajectory. They quietly and easily fall back into the rhythm of normal conversation, meandering from schoolwork and video games, to their plans for the weekend as they traverse the halls to get to their homeroom.
It’s an unlikely pairing, as many of their peers point out, especially as they come to the end of their high school years. The ‘Prince of Heroes’ and the Quirkless. Noctis Lucis Caleum and Prompto Argentum. It seems unlikely that they’ll end up in the same University, much less the same career path, come the end of integrated schooling.
“How’re Ignis and Gladiolus?” Prompto asks suddenly, eyeing the wrapped meal set on Noctis’s desk. It’s only in seeing it there that Noctis remembers that he’s forgotten to prepare a lunch that morning.
Noctis approaches it as the pair rounds the corner into their classroom, picking it up from the bow at the top. Heavy.
“They’re fine.” Noctis answers, peering at the lunch through the cloth and silencing Prompto, who seems more and more conscious of the questions he’s asking.
Prompto has only met Ignis and Gladiolus on occasion; briefly when Ignis picked him up from the school when it was bad weather, or when Gladiolus would pull Noctis from their routine visits to the arcade for training.
Noctis settles the boxed lunch underneath his seat, noting with a scrunch of his face the suspiciously vegetable-like scent that wafts in his direction.
Ignis is a youth prodigy a few years Noctis’s elder who boasts quick mastery of his quirk (which Noctis has never seen firsthand but never feels inclined to ask about), enlisted by his father’s hero offices to be Noctis’s future lead sidekick and strategist. Gladiolus, on the other hand, is the son of his father’s own lead sidekick; his quirk is largely based in raw strength, and while Noctis is a hero-in-training, Gladiolus has been tasked with the physical training that the job more or less requires.
Noctis slides out his chair and sits casually, pulling out his phone to boot up a game of King’s Knight. Across the desk, Prompto is withdrawing his books from his bag, jolting when he remembers a forgotten assignment. He mutters to himself as he straddles his chair and sets his notebook down on Noctis’s desk, and for a few moments, he’s scribbling furiously.
“What about you?” Noctis asks eventually, filling a respite in the conversation. His eyes routinely switch between Prompto and the city on the other side of the window, having grown easily tired of the repetition of King’s Knight.
“Hm? What about me?” Prompto asks, not quite peeling his eyes from his work yet.
“What are you planning to do for University?” Noctis rephrases, tone edging dangerously close to being offhand. “You haven’t mentioned anything since our counselor meetings.”
“Oh, I, uh.” Now Prompto’s fiddling with his brightly colored mechanical pencil, a nervous red across his cheeks. “…I put down U.A. for my first choice when I heard that you’d be going, but my counselor was quick to shoot that down. I didn’t really know many schools for Quirkless, so I ended up just putting down whatever he recommended.”
Universities these days are ranked almost solely based on their Heroics departments, and even outside of that most flashy and obvious profession, they serve and are advertised to the Quirk-using majority of the populace in their other curriculums.
“I was mostly looking into support programs, but in all honesty, general studies probably seems more realistic.”
“Hm.” Noctis hums in approval, eyes falling shut as a smile pulls at his lips. “Support would suit you. You’ve always been good with machinery.”
“You think so?” If there’s a lift in Prompto’s voice, it’s a faint one.
“Yeah, I do,” he assures. “You made that crossbow in workshop last year, didn’t you? You should come take the U.A. entrance exam with me. Might as well try, no?”
Prompto seems apprehensive, but eventually agrees, if only to end that particular thread of conversation. He startles when the authoritative voice of their homeroom teacher commands him to turn forward, panicked eyes darting to the incomplete assignment before him. He shoots Noctis a glare, scooping up the paper and complying, frantically scribbling even as class starts.
Even in a society that reveres heroes, shedding the costume is all it takes to dissipate that reverence.
At the crossing signal of a crowded Insomnian intersection, faces of passersby vanish into near nothing as they move in a blur to here or there. Noctis himself stays as anonymous as anyone, sitting on a bench formed on the side of a concrete planter.
He pays the crowd no mind, thumbing at his phone’s screen mindlessly. He swats at an insect buzzing annoyingly close to his ear, courtesy of the newly blooming flowers behind his head.
After getting bored of the same mobile game, he tries calling Ignis again. He’s tried a couple of times over the last hour, looking for a ride to his apartment.
As the tinny tone of the phone dialing rings in his ears, Noctis leans back in his seat, eyes traversing the immediate skyline. Where they aren’t reflecting the sky, buildings are plastered with advertisements alternating between brightly printed and digitized neon.
Noctis doesn’t grant any particular one much of his attention, until he rounds back to the large LED screen that dominates the center of the display. On it, a particular news story seems to be playing on loop. Looking closer, Noctis can make out his father’s name sprawled in red lettering on the ribbon underneath the newscaster.
Breaking Now: The Arm of Lucis, The “King of Heroes”, Permanently Injured in Another Fight?
Leaning forward in his seat, Noctis groans as he pulls his phone from his ear. (You have reached the voice mailbox of—) Ending the call, Noctis flicks the screen to black, pocketing the device before turning back to the screen.
While lacking sound to the newscaster’s parting lips, Noctis can glean what he has to from the recording. Next to the newscaster’s head plays a low quality clip of his father, costumed, lying unconscious in a crater of impact. Around him, a crowd of civilian onlookers peer down at him, varying levels of concern plastered on their faces.
The feed shifts to another video, this one of a closeup of his father’s face. Even compared to a few months prior, his hair is greyer, the bags under his eyes darker.
Noctis doesn’t notice that he’s grinding his teeth until a buzz from his pocket snaps him out of his mystified daze. The action of withdrawing his phone, accepting the call, and placing it to his ear is automatic.
“Hello?”
“Noct, hey!” comes a cheery voice on the other end of the line, clearly not Ignis.
“Ah, Prompto.” Noctis tries to inject some flimsy buoyancy into his own voice, an awkward smile forced to the corners of his lips. “What’s up?”
“Just got out of remedial classes,” he answers, an over-exaggerated sigh punctuating the admission. “And I was wondering if you’d be down to go to the arcade or something!”
“Oh, I, erm.” Noctis grapples for a moment with whether or not he’s in the mood, but remembering Ignis’s unresponsiveness, he supposes it’s better than the alternative. “Yeah, sure. You headed there now?” As he asks, he’s lifting himself from the bench, shouldering his bag.
“Mhm! I’ll see you soon!” A click signals the end of the brief call.
Noctis shifts his weight to one leg as he lowers his phone from his ear, typing a quick message to Ignis:
—Hanging out with Prompto. Don’t worry about getting me.
Arcades have always seemed to suit Noctis; in the darkened establishment, everyone minds their own business, granted the same powers and limitations in the confines of digital cabinets. Behind a glassed-in screen, one’s worth is measured in skill rather than their inborn quirk.
“It’s a wonder you kids still come. Arcades like this are relics of a bygone era.” The raggedy old man behind the counter takes the banknote that Noctis slides in his direction. Doing a once-over of the bill, he inserts it into a register that looks ancient enough to have been pulled from the era of his words.
“An era you’ve seen?” Noctis asks, an almost childlike lilt in his voice.
“Oh, no, one I’ve only read about in books,” he answers wistfully, leaning over the counter to place a roll of coins in Noctis’s palm.
Turning around and passing roughly half of the coins off to Prompto, Noctis makes quick work of weaving through the compact rows of machines. The arcade is dimly light by buzzing strips of neon and a few flickering florescent lights, its ceiling low; an enclave situated under stacked stores and residences. Confined to its small space, the place is brimming with electronic vitality; an untraditionally rhythmic symphony of stock audio cues.
He opts for a familiar shooter in a line of four, leaning down to insert coins into the slot before situating himself in the middle of the sizable machine, taking the game’s dual model handguns in his hands. His fingers blindly wander about the buttons and triggers on the guns’ bodies, scanning the sprawling instructions that lie printed on the console before him. Prompto easily follows suit on an adjacent, identical machine, shooting Noctis a grin as he poses flashily with his own pair of sensor guns, sending an intangible bullet through the game’s glowing, pixelated title screen.
Pouring hours into the game comes naturally, their fits of alternating laughter and frustration easily drowned out by the characteristic din of the small establishment.
Noctis’s arms lower as his grade for the operation appears in a circle at the bottom of the screen, a triumphant CONGRATULATIONS! wiping across in a golden gradient. Separating the guns from the formation he’d held them in for gameplay, Noctis reaches for another coin to feed into the machine.
Finding none, Noctis peers over to Prompto, who’s already stretching upward while a hand catches a drawled yawn. Noctis takes the cue to slyly check the time on his pocketed phone, quirking an eyebrow at a wall of white-backed notifications but otherwise ignoring it.
“Tired already?” Noctis teases, leaving his machine to stand behind Prompto. “Wanna head out?”
There’s another yawn from Prompto as a partial response. “Yeah, I have remedial classes again tomorrow. I’m… so dumb...”
“Then don’t offer to hang out next time, yeah?” Noctis says, a smile evident in his voice as he slouches himself over Prompto’s shoulder for a few steps before retaining his posture. “You have to work hard if you’re really going to take the entrance exam with me!” He crosses his arms behind his head as they close in on the exit.
Noctis finds himself squinting against street lights as he emerges from the relative dark of the arcade to the glimmering Insomnian nightscape. Behind them, he can hear the faint voice of the shopkeeper sending them off to the pavement.
It’s only once the layers of noise from the arcade are peeled away that Noctis takes notice of the incessant buzzing in his pocket, and it instantly becomes unfathomable how he’s managed to ignore it these past hours.
“Hello?” he answers, pressing the phone to his cheek and turning away from Prompto, eyes following the contours of gaudy, glowing advertisements.
“Where have you been? Have you been with Prompto this entire time? I’ve been calling you for hours, we were meant to have a tutoring session today, Noctis,” comes Ignis’s stern response, to which Noctis curses under his breath.
“Ah, yeah, sorry about that. It… It won’t happen again,” he says, evening his tone.
“Fine. You’re at the usual arcade, right? I’ll be right over to pick you up.”
Ignis abruptly ends the call before Noctis can affirm his presumption.
“Who was that?” Prompto asks from Noctis’s side, peering over his shoulder to glance at his screen.
“Ignis,” Noctis sighs.
“Wait—was he mad? You—you didn’t have to do something today, did you? What time is it anyways? How long were we even in there?” Prompto is quick to pull out his own phone, the illumination from it highlighting his widening eyes.
“It’s fine,” Noctis dismisses, before Prompto can get a word in edgewise. “It was just to study for the entrance exam, no big deal.”
“But—”
“You need a ride home?” Noctis asks, abruptly shifting the topic of conversation. “Ignis can drive you.”
“No, I, erm, I can get back fine on my own.”
Noctis pivots his frame to eye Prompto, whose voice betrays an uncharacteristic deflation of energy. “You sure?”
”Yeah.” Before the syllable is even fully formed, Prompto is already jogging past Noctis, throwing a smile over his shoulder as his arm pulls upward in a wave. ”See you later, Noct!”
“Uh, yeah,” Noctis mutters, half-heartedly lifting his own to wave back, taken aback by the brusque exit. “See you.”
After that, Noctis doesn’t see much of Prompto. Days and weeks pass quietly without so much as a text.
A strict regimen in preparation for the entrance exam—imposed by his father’s company, but more obviously by Ignis and Gladiolus—allows Noctis to ignore the silence from his phone.
In particular, it’s the mock fights, the “physical quirk training” that sees the most of Noctis’s energy drained. He stands on the opposite end of an athletic mat from Gladiolus, who is wielding a larger-than-life wooden sword. What Gladiolus raises against him doesn’t matter, though; his own Quirk makes it so that anything he brandishes will deal a devastating blow.
The bruises that litter Noctis’s pale skin divulge that he’s taken quite a few of those blows over the course of their intensive training, but gritting his teeth as Gladio lunges forward, Noctis phases around this one.
The action pulls a satisfied grunt from Gladio, who is quick to recover, and an increased rate of panting from Noctis, who is exerting the facets of his quirk more than he’s used to.
As he feels the field of his power begin to unconsciously constrict, Noctis forces his static field outwards, every minor pain of those within its vicinity absorbed. He feels the pain of the places where he had managed to land hits on Gladio, and he also feels the pain of a minor bump of a person a wall over.
These, Noctis is able to shrug off; no one has been too majorly wounded. What saps the most of his energy is the weapon willed into his hand to spar with Gladio, and the mere act of maintaining the field at this size.
Noctis is doubled over in an attempt to catch his breath when Gladio strikes; the evasive maneuver that Noctis pulls to warp away from a direct hit is sloppy, and it’s fatigue coupled with a swift kick from Gladio that eventually forces Noctis to his knees. Sweat clings to the extremities of his face as he withdraws the field, a sword of energy vanishing from under his palm.
Gladiolus is quick to loom over Noctis, and Noctis doesn’t look up, fearing what the broader man will have to say about the abrupt retraction of his quirk.
“I’m sorry, I just couldn’t hold it for any longer,” he breathlessly admits, only trusting his voice after a moment to allow his breath to somewhat regulate.
There’s a husky scoff from Gladiolus, which causes Noctis to grit his teeth and constrain his fingers to a white-knuckled fist pressed into the mat.
He can almost hear the unvoiced chorus of comparisons to his father, of whom Noctis is constantly reminded he is a disappointing replica.
Flopping his weight backwards to sit upright on the mat, he slings his arm over his knee. “Why do we have to do this, anyway? I’m already pre-accepted to U.A. It’s not like my results on the entrance exam are going to change anything.” Frustration warps his features, chagrin bleeding through a false, flimsy grin.
Gladiolus breathes a sigh, and Noctis can see in his shadow that he’s running a hand through his hair. He’s stepping closer now, but Noctis doesn’t bother to look in his direction, instead pushing a hand into his knee to hoist himself to his feet.
“Whatever, see you tomorrow, I guess,” he grumbles, walking across the mat to the door.
The centerpiece of U.A.’s campus is a rectangular skyscraper that towers over its particular ward of Insomnia. It’s constructed out of sturdy but reflective surfaces, mirroring the sky, the city walls, and the rest of the Insomnian skyline on its sides.
On the day of the entrance exam, Noctis peers up to its highest point, pulling his forearm in front of his eyes to shield against the glare of the rising sun. He stands in the steadily growing mass of clamoring, hopeful students at the University’s gate, awaiting the moment that they will eventually open, symbolically commencing the entrance exam.
He lowers his eyes when the sunlight grows too taxing to look at, diverting his attention now to scanning the crowd for a familiar shock of blond hair.
Noctis had refrained from texting Prompto on his own accord for weeks, deciding that Prompto’s radio silence was the result of business, or circumstances otherwise out of his control. However, that morning, he had caved. It was to confirm their plans for today; though they had never said so explicitly, Noctis had assumed that they would meet prior and go together.
Noctis’s phone informs him that Prompto has read his message but hadn’t responded, so Noctis had gone ahead alone, mostly as a result of Ignis’ insistence.
He finds the shock of blond hair he was looking for in a bowed head across the way, treading slowly next to a figure that towers over his meek frame. It's the stranger’s figure that piques Noctis’s interest, a head of unruly red-tinged-violet hair.
It isn’t long before a particularly eager person collides with Noctis’s shoulder, effectively knocking his focus off balance. The needed recovery time sees him stumble and shoot a glare forward, though he loses track of the faceless perpetrator almost immediately, as well as Prompto and the stranger.
Noctis curses under his breath. His attention gravitates to the phone that seems to weigh heavier and heavier in his pocket. Withdrawing it, he finds the home screen expectedly devoid of any notifications. Regardless, he flicks life into it, scanning the text conversation he’s left open. Most of it is normal, if a bit superficial, Noctis realizes; a systematic and simple volley of assurances that each friend was doing well enough in his own course of preparation.
Whatever, Noctis thinks, that’s not what I need to be worrying about right now.
Weaving his way through the crowd to reach its outskirts, Noctis shoots another glance to where Prompto and the stranger had seemed to be heading. Unshockingly, he sees nothing.
So Noctis turns back to the screen of his phone, still illuminated with the same text conversation. He types and sends a simple message:
—you here?
He scrolls up and down the conversation absently, his gaze splitting time between the screen and the mundane scene before him. Just as the announcement comes that the gates are opening, tinny over the speaker system, Noctis flicks down to the most recent message of the conversation one last time.
There’s no response, but there is another simple notification that Prompto has read the message.
Noctis frowns at the screen, but finally abandons the endeavor of contacting Prompto before the examination begins. He flicks off the screen and slides the phone into his pocket, joining the flow of students being funnelled into the examination rooms.
The first part of the entrance exam is the written portion.
And to Noctis, it’s the part that seems the most pointless.
Noctis is a student of average aptitude. While he has never quite been an honors student, Ignis’s tutoring often put him closer to the top of his classes in high school. He couldn’t say he saw the point of trying to strive for the best of his ability there, either, but with a seemingly fixed outcome here, Noctis can’t even force himself to care about the consequences besides a potential stern lecture from Ignis if his score is lackluster.
For the first few parts of the exam, Noctis diligently, if a bit robotically, does as is expected of him. He yawns as the proctor—a slight-looking woman with a quirk that allows her to know if anyone dares cheat—eventually stands up from her desk to writes on the blackboard that there are ten minutes left to finish that particular section.
Glancing back down to the paper, Noctis frowns and presses his cheek into his raised palm as he realizes that he’s left more than half the questions unlooked at. He lowers his pencil onto the paper in the margins, scribbling mindless doodles there.
Whatever, he concludes with a frustrated furrowing of his eyebrows after the pressure he’s put on the pencil tears the paper. He sets the pencil aside and closes his test packet, crossing his arms over it and setting his chin into the space made by them.
His eyes wander to the window; the sun, while still rising some with passing hours, is settling close to its highest point now. Noctis squints against the direct sunlight for a moment but soon abandons the effort, turning his head forward again. His gaze traverses the backs of the heads of students that sit in front of him; seemingly normal-looking kids, not unlike himself, bent over and writing with purpose.
Noctis doesn’t know if he’s jealous of their commitment. Surely that commitment comes backed by outside pressures, few but potent gazes following their every move. Even in high school, Noctis had been well-aware of the ways kids whose families circled their star children’s careers like starved birds of prey acted when faced with a high-pressure situation like this.
Noctis’s were more abstract: a father whom Noctis knew more as an archaic reflection than an actual man. The specter’s pressure should be more influential, Noctis knows that much.
As his head sinks deeper into his arms, the proctor’s voice rings over the silence: “Time is up for this section. Please put your pencils down and close your test packet.”
Noctis lifts his head as a chorus of groans comes over the room, passing off his own booklet listlessly. The next section is the last: the essay.
Noctis barely gets past reading the prompt. What, to you, does being a hero mean? What is the importance of heroes? He doesn’t have an answer. They’re just a staple of society, something that was worthwhile and novel at one point but is now just continuing for tradition’s sake.
I don’t know.
Noctis frowns at his writing, gritting his teeth at his own admission. He’s quick to scribble it out, beginning again on the next line.
Being a hero means forcing yourself into a faceless hole that society has made necessary. A ‘hero’ isn’t a person; they are an action figure, a caricature of a definition of justice found in history’s comic books, video games, and movies.
The hero role doesn’t need a specific set of strengths, or a specific kind of person. It’ll take whoever is dumb enough to want to fill the role, eventually chewing them up and spitting them back out.
Noctis writes his response slowly. He lets his pencil linger for a moment as he dots his final period. In that moment, that silent moment, his face contorts. Then he slams the test booklet shut.
He stands wordlessly, pocketing the pencil and taking the packet, walking up to the front of the classroom. He places the test before the procter, a languid, “Finished,” being his only vocal response. He either nods or hums in affirmation of each of the concerned questions that the proctor poses before she gets distracted with the behavior of another student.
Wordlessly dismissed, Noctis pulls the classroom door open, walking out into the hallway with a relieved breath. The hall is eerily silent, which Noctis supposes should be expected, with other tests in progress.
Without the slightest idea of a better way to fill the downtime between the end of the written portion and the beginning of the practical, Noctis decides to wander. He walks down the length of one of four hallways on each of the building’s sides, lined with seemingly innumerable classrooms with identical entryways.
Before long, he reaches the stairwell at the end of the corridor. The building itself is tall and narrow, meaning that the stairwell stretches pretty far up and down. Curious, Noctis leans his head over the railing, first looking down. Faint voices echo from the lobby, assuring Noctis that this place isn’t completely devoid of life. Turning his attention upwards, Noctis finds quiet vacancy.
Lightly gripping the painted railing, he rounds the corner to ascend a couple of floors. They all look the same: quiet halls lined with classrooms. He doesn’t stop until he finds a level that looks vastly different. Silent, still, Noctis finds it in a sterile hall lined with plain walls and doors with no windows. There are signs above them, but they only reveal that the rooms are laboratories, and that they’ve been numbered.
Stepping out from the stairwell, Noctis runs the pads of his fingertips across the pristine white walls until he reaches the closest of the doors. Hovering his hand over the doorknob, Noctis notices the faint whir of machines on the other side, a cold sound that sends a chill down his spine.
Just as he rests his palm on the cool metal of the handle, his chipper ringtone blares out into the silence.
Jumping to pick it up before someone catches him, Noctis presses it to his ear.
“Hello?” His voice is harsh with anxiety, just above a whisper.
Rather than a response, he’s greeted back with a mechanical dial tone. Lowering the phone from his ear, Noctis frowns as he reads the notification that pops up in its place: Missed Call from Unknown.
Before he can think too long on the odd occurrence, he hears footsteps from behind him, rounding the corner. He’s quick to put some distance between himself and the door, just as the person speaks.
“Finished with your written exam already?”
Pivoting on his heels, Noctis can feel himself relax as he finds that the voice was Prompto.
“Ah, yeah! It was easy,” he says, a bit of a put-on cocky laugh punctuating his words. “What about you? When I left, everyone was still in their rooms.”
“The heroics exam is longer, I think.” Prompto shrugs. “We didn’t have an essay or anything, supposedly they’re mostly just looking at the practical.” He gestures to the lab door that Noctis was just standing at. “These are some of the testing labs for the Support Department, we take our tests in there.”
Noctis’s gaze follows Prompto’s gesture to the nondescript door, feeling his lips curl into a smile as he realizes just how ungrounded his concern was.
“So, what are you doing up here, Noct?” Prompto asks, head quirking to the side.
“Bathroom,” Noctis says, eyes cast down the hall. He doesn’t mind whether his thin excuse is believable, and he pulls his attention quickly back to Prompto as he remembers the concerns he’s left unvoiced.
“Is everything alright? You haven’t texted.”
“Ah, sorry, Noct. I was busy. Apparently my parents paid for a special summer prep class for U.A.’s support track, so I was doing that for most of the summer.”
“What about this morning?” Noctis presses.
“This morning?” Prompto cocks his head to the side. “What do you mean?”
“I sent you a text and it said you read it, but you never answered.”
On cue, Prompto pulls out his phone, pressing and swiping a couple of times before turning the screen around for Noctis to see. “I did, did you not get it?”
Noctis blinks at the screen, fumbling to take his phone out of his pocket. Opening the text interaction, he notices a new message at the bottom:
—i’m here, but the support exam has an earlier call time than the heroics one, sorry i forgot tell you! (×﹏×)
Noctis is taken aback, staring at the message for a few seconds in disbelief. How could I have missed that? Was service bad? He dismisses it, saying, “Yeah, I guess I didn’t get it until just now.”
Slipping his phone back into his pocket, he abruptly remembers the mysterious stranger from that morning, an unanswered text. “Hey, I think I saw you with someone this morning. They didn’t look like a student or anything, who were they?”
“This morning? Where?”
“The front gate, where the crowd was.”
Prompto thinks about it, pressing a forefinger to his lower lip. “I don’t remember. Maybe it wasn’t me?”
Noctis purses his lips; he guesses he was far enough away that he could have been mistaken. “Yeah, I guess so.”
Prompto nods and seems satisfied, quick to change the subject.
“I was just headed to the practical. You don’t happen to know where we have go for that, do you, Noct? I have to get there and then back here to get my tools.”
Noctis thinks for a moment, and frowns with the realization that he doesn’t know, either. The heroics kids were probably all going to move in a mob after the test was over, but Noctis can’t recall anyone mentioning a specific area.
“I don’t, but I should probably head over there soon too,” he says. “I heard voices down in the lobby before, maybe someone down there can point us in the right direction?”
For the practical exam, each prospective student is issued a U.A. athletics uniform. Unlike the high school athletic uniform that Noctis had gotten used to—a white t-shirt emblazoned with his school’s insignia and a pair of loose-fitting shorts—the U.A. gym outfit is a body-hugging two piece outfit of a bold blue, red, and white.
Zipping the top up to just below his clavicle, Noctis can’t help but wish he had kept up more with Gladiolus’ training. Looking down at his chest, he hears echoes of Gladio’s teasing words: What, too embarrassed to show your scrawny body?
Noctis huffs as he scoops up his plastic water bottle from the bench beside him, walking out into the hallway that connects the small locker rooms to the main building of the University’s gymnasium complex, where the practical is going to be held.
Prompto parted with Noctis a little while ago at the entrance of the building, citing the need to get his things back in the Support labs. But scanning the increasingly dense crowd that’s forming in the hallway and in the main gym, Noctis was expecting to see Prompto back here by now.
Joining the fray in the gym, Noctis rolls up the sleeves of his outfit to rest at the middle of his upper arm. The gym has been cut off by a temporary wall, onto which a screen projects the letter intervals of the students’ last names and where their testing locations are. Right in front of that temporary wall is a relatively small stage, an empty podium standing in the center.
“Sorry,” Noctis mutters to the faceless air in front of him, brushing past other students to get a better view. He doesn’t expect a response to his underactive pleasantries. And he doesn’t get one, at least not directly.
Sometimes Noctis curses his hearing. From behind him, he can hear a whispered scoff, and a curious-sounding voice chime. “Is that the kid who left right after the essay was given out? Isn’t he the Arm of Lucis’ son? He got pre-accepted, didn’t he?” Giggling punctuates the questions. “Yeah, that was him, wasn’t it? I guess it does make sense for the son of the number one hero. Pretty normal-looking though, don’t you think? I guess I expected more.”
A third voice comes in, lower. “Be quiet, he’s right there.” There’s a swift silencing of the small chorus of laughter, and Noctis grits his teeth. “Plus, his dad’s gotten hurt pretty badly lately. Must be hard.”
Noctis is more purposeful in his walking now, keeping his head down.
“He’s walking away—oh, shit, did he hear us?”
Noctis finds that the words settle easily in his mind, without much of a ripple. His teeth unclench and the shadow of aggravation lifts easily from his features.
They’re not sentiments that he’s unused to hearing. It’s just that it’s been a couple of years since the last time he has. The public becomes much more interested in the children of high-profile heroes come three specific occasions: 1) when they’re born, 2) when their parent gets hurt, or 3) when their parent dies.
Plus, he shouldn’t have been surprised that people now recognize his face. The University releases a list of people in their pre-selection pool around the time a class graduates, and is easily accessible online for those curious enough. Sure enough, given his parentage, Noctis’s face is plastered front and center. He’s just going to have to get used to it.
Unfortunately, the buzz has only been magnified with the addition of that second category of press coverage. It’s clear that the news stations are waiting for him to mess up, to give them a story.
Microphone feedback over the speaker system pulls the crowd’s gaze forward, to follow a flamboyant man donning doctoral regalia. Underneath, he wears an outfit of eclectic taste, pointed boots punctuating each step to the podium.
”Hello and welcome. I am Dr. Ardyn Izunia, President and a professor of Heroics here at the University.”
Noctis quickly recognizes the name and face; when he was a child, he vividly remembers it plastered on the popularity rankings next to his father’s. The pair traded places between first and second on a near-weekly basis, until one day an injury knocked Ardyn Izunia out of the public eye and off the charts without a word. Noctis can’t recall his hero name, but he does recall a nickname—”The Immortal.” How ironic.
“I welcome you all here as prospective students of our University, and congratulate you all on your studies and achievements thus far.” Dr. Izunia concludes his introduction to a wave of applause from the audience.
Noctis eyes him further, more curious than anything; the stubble on his chin, the wrinkles forming near his smile and the crinkles of his eyes. The wrinkles, at least, are near identical to those he’d seen his father have through leaked high quality footage.
“The faculty at each testing location will go into further detail, but I will explain the basics of the practical examination for you now, as well as the scoring and decision-making processes we use here at the University.”
Moving from his face, the next thing that Noctis notices is Dr. Izunia’s hair, a familiar red-violet, tousled messily to fall unevenly around his shoulders.
“The practical examination uses our state-of-the-art facilities to simulate a real battle between heroes and villains. Within each of the gyms listed here, we have created small cityscapes and placed within them robotic villains and human civilians to replicate a scuffle that might occur in real life.
“While they are programed to not deal fatal damage, they will not hold back when it comes to fighting back. Though this should be no cause for panic, our top-notch first-aid staff are on call, should the need for their assistance arise.”
Dr. Izunia steps away from the podium now, pacing to the center of the stage. His arms rise and fall with his voice, a seemingly paradoxical theatrical nonchalance seeping from every word, every movement.
“We will be scoring you with a points system tailored for your specific department, either Heroics or Support. Heroics students will be judged based on villian K.O. count, teamwork, and rescue; support students will be graded on their ability to aid the heroes in said categories, as well as protecting ‘civilians.’ Additional points will be awarded to both sides for minimal damage taken to the area around you.
“Don’t fret; we’re aware that this is an entrance exam, and many of you lack extensive traditional field training in either field. What we will be examining, more than the objectifiable points, is potential.”
Cynicism brings Noctis’s eyebrows together, forces his eyes to the ground. Quirks themselves, the powerful ones, have long been indicators of a person’s ability to rise through the ranks to prominence. Quirks, by their very nature as an inherited trait, are a cursed or blessed birthright. It has nothing to do with potential for heroism or morality; all one needs to make a name for themselves is the right heritage.
“Once the exam is over, you will all be treated to lunch in our dining hall, as the faculty and myself go over the scores of both the written exam and the practical. Based then on your composite scores, we will be making your admissions decisions, as well as placing you in a certain track should you be accepted into our University.”
The tenseness of the audience is tangible; even Noctis has to wonder how they can make such monumental decisions so quickly.
As if sensing the mood of the room, Dr. Izunia laughs. “We have a panel of admissions staff with quirks able to help our process be very quick and very smooth, without losing any of the depth necessary for these monumental decisions. No need to worry.
“Before we begin, I want to stress that despite the inevitable fact that only some of you will be accepted, we applaud the effort that you all have shown today and in your high school careers to make it to this point.”
Dr. Izunia smiles then, eyes crinkling at the edges.
“I wish you all the best of luck.”
To their credit, the staff works to dismiss the crowd to their testing locations in an orderly fashion. It does not, however, go as smoothly as they hope.
As teenagers are apt to do, there’s a mad dash for the exits. Noctis doesn’t make an effort to join them. Instead, he lingers back in the gym, leaning his shoulder against a wall, arms crossed as he watches the crowd.
“Noctis, right? I know your father. We go way back.”
Noctis doesn’t move anything but his head to look to where the voice is coming from. He’s just finished watching him give a sermon; Noctis doesn’t need a refresher on Dr. Ardyn Izunia.
“How’s old Regis doing? I haven’t heard from him in years.” Dr. Izunia doesn’t seem fazed by Noctis’s lack of a response, and as he continues, Noctis turns his gaze back to the crowd of students. “I hear he’s still at the top of his game. Good for him.”
Noctis feels a twinge in his stomach as he pushes himself off of the wall to begin walking to the mess of students. “Well, it was nice to meet you, but I have to be going now.”
“Very well. I look forward to seeing what you’re capable of, Noctis.”
Sparing one glance over his shoulder to see the President warmly smiling and waving only intensifies the sick feeling in his stomach, and Noctis quickly turns his attention back to where he was going. Weaving through the small gaps in between fellow students until he is adequately hidden from Dr. Izunia is easy. Once there, Noctis doesn’t make a particular effort to push forward or fall back; he’s content to be pulled along with the flow of the crowd until it eventually spills through the open double doors.
The voices of whom Noctis assumes to be student volunteers rise above the low murmur that takes over the crowd, attempting to corral the students to their appropriate locations. Doing a quick once-over scan for a familiar face but finding it absent, Noctis lowers his head and follows directions to the gym he was assigned.
Walking through the doors into the gymnasium reveals that the building’s outer appearance is deceptively small. On ground level, there’s a small reception area, with glassed-in display cases full of various athletic accolades, some free-standing and others built into the wall. In the middle of them, there’s a door that leads into a cinderblock-walled and wooden-floored run-of-the-mill school gym. A sign nailed above it distinguishes it as the University’s basketball court, with the other gym buildings being specifically designed for other sports.
The court, however, is not where the students are being ushered, printed signs pointing them instead in the direction of another door at the end of the room. On the other side, a dimly-lit stairwell leads down to a basement training complex.
The scope of the underground faculty dwarfs his father’s company’s private training complex. So this is the scale of the public heroics industry, Noctis thinks, eyes trailing over the skyline of a miniature training city, starkly contrasting against the bright white walls and powerful fluorescent lighting. Unlike the ones in the real Insomnia, the structures here are monochrome and sterile, intentionally or otherwise placing distance between training and reality.
Noctis wordlessly steps in line with the smaller group that finds themselves assigned here, just as the faculty member begins to speak from the front of the congregation.
“Welcome to the practical phase of your examination. My name is—”
Noctis’s attention ambles across the faces of those in line with him. Like in the written portion, their faces range from cripplingly anxious to confidently smug, but they all fix their attention dutifully forward. A group of faculty members make a perimeter around the students, and Noctis doesn’t focus back on the speaker until he makes eye contact with one of them, who shoots him a chiding glare.
“Among the villains we have placed in the field, there are three tiers of strength. The weakest are the most populous of them, and there are only a few of the highest tier of strength.
“The best plan of action to take here is not always fighting a villain straight-on. Like in real life, we expect you to assess the situation based on your strengths and weaknesses and act accordingly. As such, a villian K.O. and a civilian rescue can be weighed differently in terms of point value based on the specific circumstance.
“Teamwork is strongly encouraged, and each person who participates in an assist gets the same point value added to their own individual score.
“You will have ten minutes to earn as many points you can, and also to show off your quirk and athletic skills, from the moment the starting horn sounds, which will be five minutes from now. Please use this time to prepare.”
With a smaller group than the one that had gathered in the main gym, it doesn’t taken long for Noctis to finish his scan of those present to ultimately conclude that he knows no one here. No one pays him much mind, either, save for the occasional curious glance.
A few minutes’ time finds Noctis by the back wall, standing by a table of refreshments, sipping from a bottle of water.
‘Use this time to prepare.’ What is there to prepare?
Noctis’s eyes narrow as he peers over the bottle (which he’s stopped actually drinking from) to a group of students that had been staring him down. When they realize that Noctis is eyeing them back, they are quick to turn away. Noctis follows suit, gulping down the last of the water.
Dropping the empty plastic bottle in the waste basket by the entrance, Noctis lingers for a moment there, staring down his own reflection in the door’s window.
There really is… nothing, isn’t there? he thinks to himself, frowning. There’s no resemblance at all. We might as well not be related.
“Noct?”
Noctis jumps, glancing at the hand on his shoulder before whipping around to face the hand’s owner.
“Prompto, you scared me.”
“Sorry, buddy,” Prompto says, a sheepish grin forcing his eyes closed. “I wound up getting caught up in the lab and getting here late.” His eyes are darting around the room, never lingering on anything for longer than a split second. “What’d I miss?”
Noctis turns outward again, shrugging. “Not much. Just that there’s different levels of villains, and we all need to work together to defeat them.” Looking to the border of the model city, Noctis adds another detail as he sees a line of people filing into its streets. “Oh, and there’s ‘civilians’ that we need to save.”
“So, like a video game?”
“Yeah, like a video game,” Noctis affirms with a closed-lip smile and a breathy chuckle. “What sort of gadgets did you bring to help out?”
“The crossbow from last year’s workshop, a circular saw I made during the summer course…” Noctis watches Prompto’s profile as he takes inventory, ticking off each listed item on his fingers. “Oh, and the pair of handguns I made for the ‘written’ exam. It’s… It’s not much, but it’ll do.”
“Mm.” Noctis wonders if Prompto’s Quirklessness has affected his scoring yet. Or if the University even knows about it. If it wasn’t obvious before, it’ll soon become crystal clear to everyone that Prompto is fighting a losing battle, and judging from Prompto’s face, he knows it too.
“Do you want to work together?” Noctis asks suddenly. “My quirk is static, but if you can lure villains and bring the civilians to me, we can both get the points for them.”
“Noct, you’d really let me help you?” Prompto’s eyes are practically sparkling.
“Yeah, why not? Can’t hurt me at all,” Noctis says. “And you’re my best friend. It would only make sense. Plus, it was my idea that you come and take this exam in the first place.”
“Alright. If you’ll have me, I’d love to fight by your side, Noct.”
“It’s just an entrance exam,” Noctis wants to say, but the blaring of the starting signal cuts him off.
“Come on, Noct, it’s starting!” Prompto calls, already in a half-sprint towards the model buildings.
“Coming, coming,” Noctis answers, jogging to follow him.
Though by now everyone in their immediate vicinity has long lost interest in watching Noctis, he can, for the first time in a while, feel the suffocating pressure of having a powerful presence watching and analyzing his every move.
The opening moments see the surge of quirks otherwise barely contained by the invisible hand of the law and social expectation. Eager students run, scale walls, leap from rooftops, and sink below the surface of the ground—whichever their particular quirk favors—all to scour the field for their objectives, and of course, to flex.
Noctis follows on foot, trailing a bit behind Prompto, who slings a heavy-looking circle saw at his side and has handguns strapped to his arms.
Noctis’s eyes dart around, tracing the edges of monochrome buildings and blank street signs. And in that moment, as much as Noctis finds himself cursing the overexposure and flashy neon of the world he knows, he discovers that he hates a world devoid of it far more.
“Noct, incoming!” calls Prompto, prompting Noctis to follow his gaze to a towering hunk of machinery that stands in for a bona fide villain.
It rises to about the second story of the nondescript building beside them: a spherical robot with laser sight and mechanical arms, programed by the University to fight against potential heroes.
Noctis jumps aside to dodge a preemptive attack from the robot, scanning the battlefield.
A whole swarm of students surrounds the robot, which has a stenciled ‘3’ in the center, which Noctis assumes indicates its strength. Of course they’d plant the strongest villain at the front of the course. Even with its relatively small size, the group seems to be having trouble making much progress by means of damage; for each scratch or miniscule dent in its exoskeleton, the metal villain knocks a trainee out.
Smoke is already steadily seeping from the surrounding buildings, as both the heroes’ unbridled quirks and machine villains’ programmed powers are unleashed.
“Prompto! This isn’t worth it, let’s find another villain.” Noctis deftly maneuvers around the debris and ongoing battle until he closes the distance between himself and Prompto.
“We can’t,” Prompto responds, swapping out his own bulky machinery in favor of the handguns. Noctis stands at his back, accepting the crossbow that Prompto shoves hastily in his direction.
“What do you mean, we can’t?” he hisses. “Of course we can.”
“No, Noct,” Prompto insists, shooting at the villain. He lands a hit, shattering a protective layer of glass melded over the robot’s eye. Noctis hadn’t known Prompto was so good at shooting. Unconstrained now, a mechanical heartbeat surges lowly through the battle, a low vibration that is tangible even in the cacophony. “That’s the point of this. It’s a test.”
As Prompto swiftly reloads his guns, Noctis picks up the slack with the borrowed crossbow, albeit less adeptly. “What?”
“The test! Placing the strongest villain at the front will weed out a lot of people who don’t want to fight it. If my guess is right, most of the civilians are close. We need to stay here and fight this battle. A real hero doesn’t run away. That’s the point.”
“Fine,” Noctis concedes, gritting his teeth. He’ll save his questions for later. “I’ll lay my quirk’s field here. Once it’s set, I can make weapons and fight on my own. You go and look for civilians and bring them here, they won’t be hurt as long as the field stays up. Alright?”
Prompto seems pleased with Noctis’s answer. Flashing a toothy grin and throwing him two thumbs-up, he jogs backwards into the building behind them, shooting until the coast is clear and then pivoting on the balls of his feet to disappear into it.
Noctis groans at just the thought of how much energy his plan will likely exhaust, but nevertheless forces his blue energy field outward to encompass the villain. He doesn’t dare stretch his limits much further; he’s already breathing more heavily, heartbeat pulsing through his head as he picks up the pain from the other students who happen to be in range.
Thankfully, much of the buzzing swarm that had surrounded their target disperses quickly, giving up on a seemingly fruitless battle, just as Prompto had predicted.
With a clearer view of the situation, Noctis quickly assesses the quirks in play. The villain is a multi-limbed shell with laser-guided missiles, aiming from a red beacon made vulnerable from Prompto’s shot. As for the students, Noctis can see jet-pack feet, temporary liquefaction, ram horns, limbs that stretch far beyond what’s normal, and finally, a girl who can jump.
Noctis doesn’t pay their particular fighting styles much thought; he aims to use as little of his energy as possible, and his spoken objective is to protect the civilians that Prompto brings down from the wreckage. He couldn’t be less concerned with actually downing the villain, but with the progress being made, he is half-confident that the team assembled here can finish the job.
He uses the buzzing blue energy field around him to summon the smallest weapon he can think of, to at least give those watching a show of his quirk. A simple dagger materializes into his fingertips, and Noctis uses his forearm to wipe at the sweat collecting on his forehead.
He moves only out of necessity for the next few minutes, mostly darting out of the way of direct attacks when the machine decides to target him. He doesn’t see Prompto directly, but he can feel his legs get heavier as Prompto runs around to round up lingering civilians.
With Noctis absorbing everybody’s damage, they’ll be safe for the duration of the test.
Noctis maintains the field size for nearly half the trial; he banishes the dagger from existence as his first move to conserve energy, but soon enough the field begins to close in little by little as Noctis’s energy reserves dry up. As the time allotted for scoring points draws to a slow close, Noctis watches students from all corners of the model city hone in on the programmed level ‘3’ villain, weakened now after a prolonged struggle, looking to gain points for assisting.
“Attention, students: there is one minute left.”
The tinny voice comes over the speaker system to echo hollowly from the hard, smooth surfaces. It injects new haste into the movements of the students, the painted ‘3’ drawing them in like moths to a flame. Vision blurring at the corners, Noctis is almost tricked into thinking the battle before him, and the civilians behind him, are real.
He’s kneeling now, panting as his own quirk seeps energy from himself to shoulder the burdens of the others, instilling them with renewed vigor. The heartbeat that pounds incessantly in his head is quicker now, and Noctis can’t tell whether it’s his own.
The thirty-second chime comes as the barrage finally overcomes the villain, its metal body falling over onto the pavement. It’s still. An almost impossible quiet befalls the cityscape, as the students breath a sigh of relief.
Many collapse on the ground, others inspect the remains of strongest villain with pride, and still others cheer in small groups.
The heartbeat is rapidly increasing in tempo.
“Noct! How’s everyone?” From behind him, Noctis can hear Prompto’s approaching footsteps, but can’t muster the energy to meet his gaze.
Luckily, Prompto didn’t seem completely concerned with an answer, as he is quick to become preoccupied with the actors, who gush about their heroism and strength. Noctis is left to struggle under the weight of his quirk, the fevered metronome pounding at his head so quickly now that the pause between each pulse is non-existent.
And then it happens. The fallen metal shell of the last villain detonates and Noctis’s vision goes white.
When Noctis wakes, he finds himself squinting against a single fluorescent light. He groans as he fights against his limbs’ cries of protest to prop himself up.
Stretching his fingers, he feels something cool in his palm: a small token, carved in the shape of a whimsical creature.
“Your father left that for you,” a voice explains, another adding, “He would’ve stayed longer, but duty calls.”
“Yeah, I know,” Noctis mumbles, a blanket response to both. “Thanks Iggy, Gladio. Tell him I said thanks, and that I’m alright.” Noctis swings his legs over the side of the cot, looking to the clock on the wall. It’s about two hours from the time the entrance exam was supposed to end at.
He breathes a sigh. At least he didn’t have to deal with the pomp and dramatics of the result reveal.
Standing, Noctis realizes that he is back in his street clothes. He pockets the trinket and presses past Ignis and Gladiolus.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Gladio says, catching Noctis’s forearm in his fist.
Noctis freezes, wrenching his arm back from Gladiolus’s grip. “Home. There’s no reason to stick around here.”
“Dr. Izunia wishes to speak with you,” Ignis says. “I paged a nurse to inform him that you’ve woken up. Shouldn’t be too long. Please be patient, Noct.”
Noctis pouts, but relents, sitting back down on the edge of the bed.
Almost as if on cue, Dr. Izunia strides into the room a few seconds later, a widening smile playing on his lips as his gaze lands on Noctis.
“Oh good, you’re awake! I came to deliver your results.” He speaks with the same theatricality as he did when addressing an entire room of people, even without the doctoral regalia. He pulls a large envelope from his jacket and extends it to Noctis. “I was going to just hand it off to your retainers, but I’m glad I get to deliver the good news to you directly. Here you are, Mr. Noctis Lucis Caelum.”
Noctis scoffs, taking it and tearing the top callously. He withdraws the letter only halfway, scanning his eyes over the printed text merely to humor Dr. Izunia.
“Your outstanding performance put you on the top tier of scores for both the written and practical exam. Well done—truly a performance worthy of the number one hero, the Arm of Lucis himself!”
Noctis doesn’t respond, passing the envelope off to Ignis, who looks like he’s about to say something, only to be cut off by Dr. Izunia.
“I know you must be tired. I won’t bother you for any longer. After all, I just came to deliver the good news in person. Congratulations, Noct, I look forward to seeing you this semester.”
Noctis watches the door close behind the President before turning back to Ignis and Gladiolus. Gladio is beaming, saying something about the effectiveness of his training regimen to Ignis, but Noctis follows Ignis’s icy glare to the back of Dr. Izunia’s departing silhouette.
“Congratulations,” Ignis says, once the door closes with the satisfying click. A certain stiffness weighs on his words, but there’s a hint of pride as he finishes his statement. “I’ve underestimated your abilities, Noct.”
“What, didn’t think I could pull it off?” Noctis quips back, a cocky, uneven smile pulling at his lips.
Noctis smiles as Ignis adjusts his glasses, visibly ruffled by the accusation. “Perhaps so,” he answers flatly, before returning a steely gaze to Noctis. “But take care not to let this get to your head. You still have many responsibilities and I can’t have you skipping out on—”
“Lighten up, Iggy,” Gladio says, peering over his shoulder to Ignis before taking a few steps forward to put a hand on Noctis’s shoulder. “You did well. We saw the footage; you handled the situation like a true man. You’re going to make a fine hero.”
“Yeah, I guess,” Noctis murmurs, eyes casting to the ground as the pad of his thumb grazes over the smooth surface of his father’s token.
“Your father told us to accompany you home,” Ignis says. “So if you’re feeling better, we’d better make haste before rush hour traffic.”
“Why don’t we go somewhere and grab some grub to celebrate first? I know a pretty good burger joint that’s not too far from here,” Gladio suggests, jerking a thumb over his shoulder to the window. “Besides, we’ve been here for ages. Rush hour is already in full swing.”
“Fine,” Ignis concedes, turning to Noctis. “Noct, is that alright with you?”
A loud buzzing from the phone resting on the table across the room interrupts Noctis’s answer. He walks over to it and sees a string of white text notifications.
—i saw the scores! whoa, dude, congrats! (^∇^d)
Noctis has to admit, he feels better accepting praise from Prompto than Dr. Izunia.
—when you’re feeling better, wanna go to the arcade?
—sure.
He types a simple answer before putting his phone away. Prompto has always been one to send long strings of text; Noctis, not so much.
“I’m not really hungry,” he says to Ignis and Gladiolus, heading for the door.
“Your father told us to see you home,” Ignis reminds him, his voice dutifully stern.
“Then wait for me,” Noctis says, “or tell him that you did. I’m just going with Prompto.”
Before Ignis can say anything else, Gladio takes him by the shoulder. “Sounds good. Iggy and I will get dinner, then.”
Outside, Noctis finds Prompto leaning against the wall, eyes fixed to his phone. When he notices Noctis, his face flushes red and he fumbles out an excuse. “Oh, Noct! I saw the President leave, so I took that to mean you’re awake, plus I just got your text, so I just waited, there’s nothing weird about it, promise.”
Noctis chuckles, clapping Prompto on the shoulder. “It’s fine. I’m actually glad to see you.”
Prompto visibly breathes a sigh of relief. “Me too.”
“Now there’s a shock.” Noctis says, words riding a breathy chuckle.
“Is it?” Even though Prompto’s tone is chipper, Noctis watches him deflate. “Well, I, uhm. Just wanted to thank you for letting me walk beside you for this long.”
“It’s no problem,” Noctis says, a pause in his voice, as he looks at Prompto’s face. It looks painfully marred across his nose and his forehead, but Noctis doesn’t remember him getting injured like that during the exam. “Did something happen?”
Prompto’s fiddling with his fingers and diverting his gaze, but Noctis can swear that he sees tears welling in them as they catch the light.
“Well, I, erm.” Prompto looks ashamed—guilty, even. “I… didn’t get accepted. I scored the absolute lowest on the practical. It hardly mattered how I did on the written portion. I failed. I’m sorry, Noct, I’m so—”
“What are you apologizing for?”
“You put so much faith in me, encouraging me to take the test in the first place and even going so far as to let me take it alongside you, only for me to not make the cut—”
“It doesn’t matter. You’re still my best friend, right?” Noctis is forceful in his exasperation, as if he’s stating the obvious.
Prompto seems hesitant to answer, and Noctis finds that he doesn’t know what to say to convince him. So, in place of words, Noctis wraps his arm over Prompto’s shoulder. “Either way, we still have the entire summer before we even have to think about school. Plus, you still owe me a rematch, so I’m going to take you up on that arcade offer right now.”