Myriad shadows writhed in the chill night air of the Citadel courtyard. Enemies were everywhere, but the certain knowledge that he would have to fight the hordes every step of the way elicited neither surprise, nor confusion, nor even the slightest trace of fear.
Step by step, he descended the great staircase. Gunfire erupted, waves of bullets flying from enemy barrels like swarms of angry insects. He wove his way between them, blade flashing into his hand as other opponents began to rush the stairs. Each clash was over as quickly as it began: one, then another, and another. Steel shrieked, and ash-colored automatons went rolling lifelessly down steps they had just ascended.
But something was amiss. A person―persons?―who should have been there with him was not.
Did I always fight alone?
Just as he felt the memory might be drawing within reach, a bullet grazed his ear, as if bent on preventing him from recollecting. He paid the injury little mind, simply turning to face the next incoming enemy, blade quick to send it flying.
The initial sense of unease, of dislocation, was growing.
These things I’m fighting. What are they?
Their armor was fashioned from some kind of lustrous dark metal. As he continued to cut his way through the endless ranks of empty, soulless suits, it occurred to him that they shared neither hue nor design with the magitek troops he’d known in some distant past. A black haze much like daemonic miasma emanated from their surfaces, an eerie aura like that of some ghostly apparition. Most disconcerting of all was the smell from their weapons, a thick, acrid stench of gunpowder. Niflheim’s infantry had never used weapons like these.
Members of the horde continued marching up the steps, weapons firing wildly. Over and over again, he dispatched them with warp-strikes, a seemingly endless cycle of attack. He heard the thud of defeated foes falling, as well as the clatter as they tumbled back down the stairs. That, too, was different, not the same sound that defeated MTs made. The only thing these new foes seemed to share with the empire’s automated infantry was an obnoxious degree of persistence.
A flash of red, then another. Half a moment after he saw the muzzle flashes, the unmistakable report of firearms resounded in his ears. But they were too slow, he thought dismissively, and their lack of aim made them little threat.
Where the hell am I?
It looked like the Citadel courtyard, but there were many small differences. The color of the place was wrong, or rather, it didn’t have any color, just cold streaks of monochrome gray. His unease was transforming into alarm, into the distinct sensation that this world was not his own.
He pivoted on his heel, suddenly determined to confirm his suspicions. A few casual swipes of his weapon downed the enemies behind him, and then he was vaulting back up the steps he’d just managed to descend.
The memory returned abruptly. Ignis. He was nowhere to be found. Neither was Gladio or Prompto. Why had it taken him so long to mark their absence? That was far too strange. Something definitely wasn’t right about this place.
He stepped inside the Citadel. It was dark and seemingly empty. He saw no one else. The sense of foreboding grew worse. This was the Citadel he knew, and yet at the same time, it was not.
He walked to the throne room doors, placed both hands upon the enormous handles, and pushed them open. Inside, he encountered a darkness even more profound, pierced by one faint beam of light that landed on the throne. Noctis was drawn to it. He climbed to the throne and sat.
This does not belong to me. But neither does it belong to another.
Straight after he had that thought, a voice boomed in his mind, seemingly coming from nowhere and everywhere at once. A voice with a force and gravity that were utterly inhuman.
Before the Chosen unfurls one possibility. To mortal mind, a dream.
Though man would choose, he has but one way forward. Ordained above is mortal fate.
To the Crystal, all possibility is memory, and all memory etched within.
The episode in the courtyard had felt half known to him and half strange. A possibility. A dream. If Noctis were entangled in a dream, that would account for the way the places and events had felt familiar and yet off. It would explain the mysterious absence of his companions.
Behold the heart of the Crystal, wherein lies the soul of the Star. It is in this place that the king will gain the power he needs.
Receive the memories inscribed in the Crystal, that the True King’s calling may be fulfilled.
The word “calling” stirred something deep in his mind. He cast back through his memories―a place called Gralea, the imperial capital, Zegnautus Keep―and then it all came flooding back. The endless hordes of magitek troopers and daemons. The battle that never seemed to end, no matter how many foes were slain.
“We’re getting nowhere!” Gladio had shouted.
Then Prompto: “They just keep coming!”
“Noct, you must go on alone. If you can obtain the Crystal’s power, we may yet be able to turn the tide. Elsewise, we are all like to perish here.”
“Iggy’s right. It’s our only chance.”
“We’ll manage somehow! Just get moving!” With Prompto’s final encouragement, all three were in agreement.
So Noctis had run. He left his three companions to fight by themselves and made his way to the Crystal alone. He ran until his chest was tight and his legs ached.
And then he was plunged into an absolute darkness that blotted out all the light of the world. All sound ceased, even that of his own breath. Touch, smell, and taste, too, were gone, and he was left with the solitary sensation that he was falling at an impossibly slow pace.
Please . . . Help me stop the daemons, he’d pleaded as he stretched out his hand.
He remembered it all now. This was the heart of the Crystal. He’d been dragged inside by a force that defied all resistance, and the last thing he’d seen before sinking inside was a face whose mere memory sparked rage: that of Ardyn Izunia.
Ardyn Lucis Caelum is my proper name, the man had said, looking Noctis straight in the eye.
Lucis Caelum? What could Ardyn have possibly meant by that?
As if responding to the questions now seething in his mind, the darkness faded and was replaced by the boundless, blinding light of the Crystal. The glittering peaked, then receded, gradually replaced by blue sky and green earth. Noctis found himself overlooking a landscape bearing no resemblance to any place he knew, but he felt a strange certainty that it was Eos of the distant past, in the age when the Crystal was brought to their star.
He saw a sanctuary in which the Crystal had been enshrined. Surrounding it were scattered homes and fields of wheat. The landscape began to change. Forests fast receded and the wilderness was tamed and tilled. The people grew in number. Noctis could see them, quotidian scenes swirling by at a dizzying pace. He witnessed the countless joys and sorrows of their lives. An inconceivable quantity of information flooded into his mind at once. The fact that he could make clear sense of it had to be thanks to the otherworldly Crystal in which he hung suspended.
Memories inscribed in the Crystal. That was how the scenes before him had been described. It seemed to have something to do with his calling as king―perhaps he’d need all the information recorded here. Perhaps it was important for him to understand what had happened in the beginning, when the Crystal and the Ring of Light were first brought to the land.
Two men came into focus, their names familiar. Ardyn. Somnus. Noctis saw that they were brothers, heirs to House Caelum, meant to support each another and rule the land together. To symbolize that bond, they were entrusted by their father and mother with a pair of weapons, two swords that were as one: the Rakshasa Blade and the Blade of the Mystic.
One parent and then the other departed from the world, and not long after, the two brothers stood in opposition. At its base, it was a matter of ideology. The two differed in opinion as to the proper mindset of a ruler. The younger deceived the older, and the older hated the younger for it.
Noctis had known nothing of this, and the knowledge stunned him. He had been so sure that Ardyn possessed not a shred of decency, that no matter how much he reviled the man, it would never be enough. Instead, he was now witnessing a man who was utterly selfless, consumed by the constant labor to relieve the suffering of his people.
Even more disorienting was the discovery that Ardyn had been in love. Her name was Aera Mirus Fleuret. The first Oracle. When the pair were together, talking and laughing, Ardyn was neither savior nor scelerat. He was simply an ordinary man.
Ordinary, too, were his desires. Oh, Aera. Pray be with me always, Noctis heard the man say. Ardyn dreamed of a simple happiness, one that had nothing to do with either star or god. It was a happiness every person should be able to know―and thus Ardyn had never for a moment thought it might be stolen away from him.
Was that why Ardyn had killed Luna? Because he knew firsthand the extent to which it would devastate Noctis?
It was still unforgivable. It didn’t matter that Ardyn had been a savior laboring for his fellow man, and the death of his own love was no excuse. To claim an innocent life simply to see an enemy suffer was an act that lay far beyond the bounds of absolution.
But if Ardyn was beyond pardon, then so, too, was Somnus for the web of lies he used to ensnare his brother and ensure his own place as founder of the new nation. It was Somnus who had killed Aera and planted the evil seed that would culminate in Lunafreya’s death.
And what about me? Noctis thought. Don’t I deserve some of the blame, too?
The covenants had chipped away at Lunafreya’s life. They were forged for Noctis, that the True King might be favored with blessings of the gods, and each one left Lunafreya weaker. Even had Ardyn’s dagger not ended her life, the Oracle’s time in the world would surely not have been much longer. Noctis, too, had played a part in her demise.
Sacrifice is unavoidable in the pursuit of a strong nation; that was the belief of the younger Caelum brother. If Noctis accepted Lunafreya’s death as a necessary evil to see darkness purged from the Star, would that make him any different from Somnus?
Did he, then, have any right to condemn the actions of his forebears?
The memories of the Crystal swirled on, pushing Noctis’s uncertainties aside.
He saw Ardyn, imprisoned in the depths of Angelgard. He saw Somnus, setting forth to exterminate daemons across the land. The citizens lived in peace and stability, and Lucis continued to grow as a nation.