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Gladiolus had always been a light sleeper. It was something that had been drilled into him at a very young age so that he would always be aware of any suspicious activity that could possibly harm the Crown Prince.
Thus, he found himself waking up in the middle of the night. Blearily, he blinked the sleep out of his eyes, trying to determine what had awoken him. He looked around the tent: everyone was fast asleep having been spent from a long day of travelling, and completely at peace (though he grimaced slightly when he realised that Prompto was drooling all over a totally exhausted Ignis). Stifling a yawn, Gladiolus scurried outside as quiet as a mouse, not wanting to disturb his friends should there be no danger.
The night air was refreshingly cool. Gladiolus could feel the last of the sleepiness being washed away from him as he stretched his limbs out. He scanned his surroundings like a hawk, his eyes having long since adjusted to the dark (it was unwise to turn on his flashlight, lest he inform any enemy that he was awake). Nothing. Tonight the wild was as peaceful as his sleeping friends. So what had woken him up?
Whirr.
He looked up abruptly enough to give himself whiplash; the sight that met him was terrifying enough to make his blood go cold and his face fall in horror.
Airships.
Niflheim airships, no doubt carrying dozens of Magitek soldiers.
Seven of them.
And they were all heading straight for the camp.
Gladiolus wasted no time. He burst into the tent, and starting vigorously shaking Noctis while shouting at the top of his lungs: “WAKE UP! WAKE UP! WE HAVE TO LEAVE RIGHT NOW!” The others bolted upright at that and wasted no time in shaking the sleep off as they started rolling up their mats and gathering their belongings. “What’s going on?!” Noctis demanded, running outside to dump their supplies into the trunk of the Regalia.
“Niflheim forces!” Gladiolus called out, pointing them out in the black sky. “There’s too many! We can’t possibly stay and fight!”
“We’ll drive somewhere more isolated,” Ignis announced, his tone unusually flustered as he slid into the driving seat. “They’re still at quite a distance from us, so as long as we drive with the headlights dimmed we should be able to lose them.”
“That’s pretty dangerous,” Prompto commented, helping Gladiolus to disassemble the tent. “We could easily crash.”
“It’s our only option, I’m afraid. Hopefully, there won’t be anyone else on the road, though that’s unlikely at this hour.”
“All right, that’s everything,” said Gladiolus as he threw the folded up tent into the trunk before slamming it shut. “Now get in!”
***
“I wonder how they found us,” thought Gladiolus aloud as the group was setting up the tent having driven far enough to lose sight of the enemy.
“I wonder why there were so many of them,” Ignis added, hammering down the last peg. “Usually, we get ambushed by one, or even two, airships. It’s not like them to come in such large numbers…”
“Well, either way, we lost them,” said Prompto as he rolled out their mats inside the tent. “Let’s all just get a good night’s sleep.”
“Yeah, I’m with Prom,” Noctis yawned, shuffling inside where he curled up into a ball and closed his eyes. The two older men were about to follow suit when suddenly they heard a familiar sound.
Whirr.
“How did they find us so quickly?!” Prompto cried out as he poked his head outside. The airships were indeed back and were flying to their very location.
Nobody had an answer.
***
“Forget the tent!” Noctis moaned when the car finally rolled to a stop in a completely foreign area. They weren’t even sure where they were exactly, so they hoped that their pursuers wouldn’t either. He jumped out and quickly opened the trunk to take out his matt, which he flung to the grass along with himself. “Let’s just sleep here.”
“I’m with Sleeping Beauty on that,” said Gladiolus as he grabbed his own matt. “We’ve put a lot of distance between us, so we should be able to get enough rest to figure this out in the morning.”
Ignis tiredly rubbed at the dark bags under his eyes before nodding wordlessly. He was beyond exhausted, having driven for most of the night as well as the whole day. He opened the door–
Whirr.
And promptly shut it again, sighing while burying his face into his arms folded on the steering wheel.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me…” Prompto groaned, throwing his hands up. “We just got here – wherever here is! How could they have found us already?!”
“I don’t know,” the bespectacled man mumbled into his arms. “We’ll just have to keep driving.”
“Maybe we should just try to fight them?”
“Are you kidding?” Gladiolus cut in, as he trudged over to their prince. “There're seven enemy airships after us, armed to the teeth with high-tech weapons, and no doubt they’ve got at least one or two monsters ready to let loose on us too; not to mention the fact that we’re tired as hell.”
He pulled Noctis upright who refused to cooperate. “C’mon, Noct. Time to go.”
Noctis gave a pitiful moan as he shook his head violently. “Wanna go sleep…”
“You can sleep in the car.”
The younger man sighed deeply before he pushed himself off the ground with his bodyguard’s assistance. He sleepily walked to the car and moved to jump in when without warning his foot slipped and with a short yelp he fell on the hard ground. “Noct! Are you okay?” Gladiolus asked, rushing to his side. However, from Noctis’ position he could see underneath the Regalia, and was met with an astonishing sight: “A tracking device.”
“What?”
“Ignis! There’s a tracking device underneath the car! That’s how they’ve been finding us, and why they came in such huge force!”
Ignis quickly joined his prince on the ground, inspecting the device. “This is indeed the culprit,” he confirmed as he set about to begin removing it. “The question is: how did it get here, and when?”
“Maybe when we stopped off at that diner this afternoon?” Prompto offered. “Nobody was watching the car, and maybe a spy or something planted it; we are wanted men, after all.”
“You’re probably right, Prompto,” said Gladiolus. “I suppose we’ll just have to be more careful in public.”
“We should probably check the car every time we leave it unattended,” Noctis added.
“It’s a wonder this didn’t happen sooner,” Ignis muttered darkly, sliding out from underneath with the tracker in hand. “We’ve been far too careless. Someone tampered with our vehicle, and we didn’t even notice. If it had been a bomb we would all be dead by now.”
“Relax, Iggy,” said Noctis softly. “We couldn’t have known, nor could you have known. What matters is that we’ve learnt our lesson, and we’re all still alive.”
“You’re right. Apologies, I’m just tired, I suppose.”
“So what should we do with the tracking thingy? Should we leave it here?” Prompto wondered aloud.
Ignis smirked rather maliciously as he took out their map. “I have a better idea…”
***
“Yes! Yes! Kill them all!” Ignis cheered on maniacally as the four men watched the Magitek infantry get absolutely annihilated by the Catoblepas from the safety of the Regalia a good mile or two away. They really should have expected the blond to have something like this planned considering that he had been smiling fairly creepily the whole time he had driven them to the Catoblepas’ habitat, but they had to admit that placing the tracker on the monster had led to a most satisfying ending since it had wiped out a chunk of the Niflheim army.
“Y’know, suddenly I don’t feel like we’re the good guys anymore,” Gladiolus commented.
“Speak for yourself,” said Noctis as he looked on at the scene with a rather smug expression. “They disrupted my sleep. They deserve a most gruesome death.” Prompto slid away from him a few inches at that.
“All right, we’ll leave now,” said Ignis as for the final time that night (or morning, rather) he fired the ignition and drove away to a secluded spot not far away.
Everyone scrambled out of the car, their bodies aching with exhaustion as they lay down on the bare grass, not caring how dirty they got, and snuggled together for warmth (with Noctis sandwiched between Ignis and Prompto, and Gladiolus curled up next to the gunner), not bothering to take out anything.
They were far too tired to care.