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Ignis was the first to notice something amiss.
It was early morning and as usual, Noctis was the last one of them to get up, a grand total of twenty minutes before they had to give back the keys of the trailer they rented for the night. Gladio and Prompto have already returned from their morning jog and showered, bags neatly packed on their side of the trailer, while Ignis had to shoo a somewhat awakened Noct to breakfast.
Which meant, he had to finish packing Noctis’ clothes if they wished to remain on schedule.
On another morning Ignis would have brought back Noctis by the neck to do it himself and leave him with nothing but a sandwich to eat on the road, but that would entail being late to their meeting with the manager of the local station for the hunt he promised to them yesterday. Ignis wasn't willing to let their tardiness tarnish their image, or worse, allow the manager to post the job offer on the billboard before they could claim it.
That was when his hands found the shirt.
By all means, Ignis had cleaned and ironed many of Noctis' fancy shirts. This one was pitch black, with thin stripes on the front and golden buttons where the royal arms imprints made the light bounce. That specific design had been deemed 'kingly' by Noctis when the seamstress manager had submitted the model last Autumn, and he had turned to simpler designs for his own suits. The similarities to King Regis's own dress suits were undeniable indeed.
Why would Noctis bring such raiment for the trip? He wondered, caressing the unique softness of the fabric with his thumb. He couldn't remember seeing it during the many previous occurrences where he had to pack Noctis' bag since the beginning of their trip.
"Five minutes left, Iggy!" Gladio called from outside.
"Only two needed!" He quickly folded the shirt and carefully put in at the bottom of the bag where he hoped it wouldn't be stained by the dirty fatigues his prince would undoubtedly shoved in there.
By the time he stepped out of the camper with bags in hands, the shirt was already gone from his mind.
***
It only struck Gladio a few weeks later.
Somewhere in the middle of the desert between Formouth Garrison and Hammerhead where - Astrals helped them - they were wandering by foot, an Imperial ship fell upon them. Instead of the usual armada of random soldiers and the handful of snipers, a metal beast full of sharp edges loudly dropped in the sand.
"This one is new," Prompto's cheerful comment was immediately followed by the sounds of a gun being reloaded.
"Careful. Let's assess its abilities before we charge forward."
"Come on, Specs, we fought tons of those before!" Still, Noctis remained on the side, sparkles of magic already dancing around his fingers.
True to Ignis's foretelling, the robot wasn't anything like the many MA robots they were used to fight. A surge of electricity pinned down a spamming Prompto to the hard ground, and before Gladio could even cross the distance to crack an elixir on the blonde, something hard sent him flying.
It took a minute to catch his breath. Whatever that thing was, it had a nasty punch in him. Stars crossed in front of his eyes until a wave of utter freshness cleared his aches away. He crawled back on his feet to notice Ignis had managed to drag Prompto far enough to be considered safe and was cracking an elixir over his head.
Immediately he eyes found Noctis. Back straight like an arrow, frown deep, but the anger he usually bore on his face whenever one of his friends ended up hurt was absent from his face. He raised his sword in an unfamiliar move and…
Zipped.
The following minutes, something alike fear viciously viced around Gladio's core.
From a young age, Gladio had been familiar with warping. There was the Kingglaive's style of course, with movements obviously planned and thought by the logical mind of a mere human who was rented a magical ability from the Gods. And then there was the Lucis Caelum's style. With warp strikes achieved in the span of a breath, flow so natural it showed the world how that magic was theirs, and only theirs, to have and to be. He had trained with people using it. He had trained himself to use it, too.
Nothing he had witnessed before could match the performance of that day.
In a flash Noctis existed and then was no more. No afterimage left behind. Even the swinging movements of his strikes seemed to be forgotten in the void from where Noctis zipped in and out. One microsecond the blade was in Noctis’ hand; the next buried deep in the cogs of the robot's legs. He disappeared, only to drop from so high in the sky Gladio hadn't been able to track and puncture the thing's head.
Baffled by the mesmerizing sight, the three of them stayed at the edge of the battlefield. Which, in insight, was a good thing, as Noctis suddenly popped out of nowhere the most terrifying, godlike sequence of strikes he had ever witnessed before. Only to repeat it merely a minute after, effectively finishing their mighty opponent.
Back from his blackout, Prompto cheered.
Gladio remained with cold fear in his stomach long after they had settled camp for the day, unable to shake the feeling he had glimpsed something belonging to a different realm.
***
Prompto was the last to understand the lingering uneasiness between his shoulders.
It was in the way Ignis seemed to stop for a moment when Gladio asked about Noctis not-so-new dress-shirt. They were low on cash, so for the very last hunt before they could rest in the hotel Noctis had to dig through the very last piece of cloth that wasn't entirely filthy. Hence, the extra fancy shirt. The strange pause in Ignis demeanour kept occurring whenever he noticed wearing that particular shirt, which happened quite frequently after that, since Noctis had seemed to adopt it as his 'chill before bed' outfit.
"It's soft." He had shrugged the question away.
It was in the way his body fazed in and out of existence on the battlefield, nothing alike the somewhat playful technique of warping he had crafted for himself.
The lenses of his camera often caught a red-tinted glint in his friend's lost stare during campfire. Prompto had jokingly pointed it out once, asking if Noctis was praying or something, since the gods appeared to be listening to him.
"Like hell I'm calling them now, I'm way too exhausted. Must be a trick of the light."
It wasn't a trick of the light.
***
Ignis was worried.
They reached the Leville late in the night. By some miracle, the receptionist allowed them in their usual room despite their incredible state of grim. It was no surprise for the lot of them to drop half dead on the blissful mattresses after a long shower, which Noctis did, but not without hazardously throwing on the nightstand a few trinkets from the abysses of his pockets.
Really, the ancient key of Mythril should have picked his curiosity but it wasn't before the next morning Ignis questioned its existence. Where Noctis would have procured such key?
"That? Izma gave it to me last time we were at the Maldecio Headquarters. I think it's supposed to open the big gates we found hidden in the dungeons."
"Like in Costlemark?" Gladio had asked over his burger. "And you didn't think of sharing that kind of important intel before because?"
"Pretty sure I told you, big guy. Weren't you with me, anyway?"
For all he recalled, Noctis had never met Izma alone. Gladio might not have been with their prince, however, Ignis had never left his side the previous times they have visited the place. Izma, he was sure, never mentioned secret places to investigate, let alone provided the key to access them.
Yet, the next time they went to greet the woman, she inquired about how the investigations went anyway.
***
Gladiolus learned to carry fear in his back pocket like others would carry their phones.
He didn't dare to bring the subject to Ignis, in fear the other would laugh at his face, but Gladio was pretty damn sure Noctis' magic made him glitch.
One morning Gladio would see him getting out of the tent in the comfortable clothes Noctis used as pyjamas, to find him fully dressed in the chair by the time Gladio had finished filling up his mug of coffee. He hadn't seemed to understand Gladio when the man had confronted him.
Whenever they reached a hotel lobby or a camper, there was always a small time frame where Noctis, no matter how carefully he tracked him, appeared to be gone. As if he had just fazed out from existence. As if the strange wall of unknown magic of the hidden temple of Pitioss was swallowing him up again.
Noctis had come back from those ruins alone and unscattered. Since then, Gladio had never seen him being scared for his own life ever. As if that emotion had been stolen from him.
Or had he discarded it away himself?
***
The sky opened wide, forcing them to slow down, and stretched the forty-five minutes drive into two hours of slow pacing. By the time they reached Hammerhead, Ignis had let out a long sight of exhaustion. Once the ignition was cut, the four of them remained in the car in silence for half a minute. Without the radio on, the sound of rain falling on the roof of the car became incredibly louder. It felt as they were suddenly caged within the Regalia, stuck into their own tiny pocket of an estranged universe.
Until Gladio broke the silence:
"Seems like we will have to make a run for it."
Ignis made a noise of assessment and Prompto padded behind his seat, looking for his vest. He felt a strong head shoving the item in his palm and thanked Gladio.
Despite the concrete being elevated, the water had remained stagnant and the parking looked like a giant puddle, where every drop of rain crashed heavily and made ripples. It almost looked like the concrete was alive and moving. Distantly he thought about the spectacular shots one could make in such weather, with the right lense and settings.
"We're gonna get drenched," Noctis groaned from the backseat, opening his door.
"It will make the warm meal even more rewarding."
"Quit sounding like a mom."
"Mom is the world."
They downright sprinted to the diner and of course, Prompto didn't miss the occasion to lose his balance because, of course, he was the only idiot to lose footing on the slippery concrete, but fortunately he managed to land on his butt. The laughters from his friends reached him, although Noctis took pity and went back on his steps to help him get up.
Like a flash of a dream, the moment his eyes landed on the Regalia, all he saw was the bumped front, the myriad of scratches stretching like spiderwebs on the paintjob, the broken headlights. Under the rain, the black fumes spread towards the sky like haunting spirits.
Through the busted front shield, the reflection of Noctis behind the wheel looked far away in the distance with a grim expression and red eyes.
The daunting image was gone in a blik, replaced by Noctis worriedly staring at him.
"You good, Prom?"
"Yeah," he croaked. "Let's get in before Momma Ignis starts fussing.”
Like a bad omen, the image of the crashed Regalia would appear to him sometimes in the middle of the night, when restless sleep would lead him to wander at the edges of the haven while the others were deep into their own dreams.
***
Noctis always kept a picture in the inside pocket of his jacket.
More than once Ignis had complained to him about it. Not that he had anything to say about that kind of sentimentality, but he would have liked the photograph to be removed before said jacket was thrown into the laundry bag. Checking the pockets once more, Ignis retrieved the picture of the day.
Since, despite giving the picture back to Noctis every time and seeing his friend put it in his pocket with his own eyes, Ignis was bound to find a different one. Ignis would have thought it being an elaborate prank if Prompto hadn't looked so uncomfortable when Ignis had questioned him about it. Noctis had just seemed puzzled, as if he didn't remember the photograph being different the day before.
Today the glossy paper reflected the four of them posing on the royal boat. Which, they had yet to find the spare pieces that would allow Cid to lake the proper reparations.
He should have questioned it. In the privacy of his mind, he did. He wouldn't voice his perplexity aloud though, for he felt the four of them were walking over an unknown edge, and would plunge into the abysses, should they unveil the truth of this mystery.
He closed his eyes, put the photograph on the counter, and went back to separate the colours from his blacks.
***
The light couldn't reach the depths of the abyss surrounding him.
"I am not giving up."
He had managed not to slip off the kneeling statue when he had landed on it. With careful steps, he walked up to the very end of the beam.
During his last fall, he had noticed the glint in the dark, when the beam of his flashlight had crossed ...something.
He jumped.
The curved broken beams appeared below him, but he was slightly off and the soles of his feet slipped on the surface.
'Almost!'
He lost his last breath in the neverending darkness and took his first one when he landed back on his feet, right where he first arrived.
By Pitioss hand, reality wavered and universes overlapped for a moment. Realities crashed, moved to be one so one death could be forgotten, leaving in each other traces that could be erased. The anomalies moved once again every time Noctis fell into the unknown.
A world was saved, and circled back to a starting point.
Unknowingly, a woman understood when a god walked to her instead of a boy, allowing herself to hand over a cursed key.
On glossy paper, a scenery changed.
Grinning in victory, Noctis landed right and jumped towards his next destination.
Into the unknown.