The Hammerhead; Liede; Eos. Tuesday Afternoon, 08/30 756 ET [Friday Evening, 07/01 FT]

[hashtag_chocobro]

Even with the help of Aranea and her airship, it had taken nearly a month for Prompto, Ignis, and Gladio to make it back to Lucis, although any distinction between nations now seemed....superfluous. The Empire had been left in shambles, all of its major players--Ravus, Verstael, Emperor Iedolas Aldercapt himself--were all presumed dead, succumbed to the daemonification that had been subjected to and killed at the hands of the Kingsglaive and their King. All that remained was Ardyn Izunia, the man who just picked himself right back up and carried on after having been shot multiple times through the heart as if it had been merely a mosquito bite. Who'd told them Noct was gone and wasn't likely to be back for a very long time, and who said he certainly hoped they weren't afraid of the dark.

So they'd taken down the Empire. They'd gotten the Crystal. But the Crystal was useless, and they'd lost Noct along the way, and the darkness had completely taken over.

At first, they hoped it was just Niflheim, but it became clear, watching from the safety of Aranea's airship, that it encompassed the entire world. Daemon hordes thriving and swarming all over the planet, tearing down powerlines, destroying energy sources, anything that would allow them even the slightest hint of light. The only exception, with its massive power plant and a population large enough to defend it, was Lestallum, which quickly became a hub for refugees, anyone able to survive long enough to make it there safe and able to add to the support. The Hunter networks were out in full force, scouring the darkness for survivors, for resources, batting back the daemons as best they could.

And there was, of course, the Hammerhead, equipped with generators and a mechanical whiz like Cindy, one outpost beyond Lestallum, and that was where they found themselves now, after a brief jaunt out to Galdin Quay, abandoned for a while now, but still, they were constantly going to be on the hunt for any survivors that may have been missed.

It was a little jarring, honestly, how quickly the Apocalypse could actually happen. Even with so many hints and possible futures to show him that this was going to be the way, Prompto still couldn't believe how much the world had changed in such a short amount of time. But one thing that didn't change was his promise to keep trying to get the communicators to work. And, just before everything really went down, back in the days of sunlight, back when his biggest concern seemed to be a scary looking cloud hovering over the mountains of Niflheim, he'd had a spark of an idea. And now that things had reached some sort of equilibrium on their return to Lucis and he had access to all the tools and tech that Hammerhead had to offer, he went about finally attempting to hook up a lightning flask to the communicator to see if that could give it enough charge to work.

Ignis had been very reluctant about the idea. Practical as ever, he pointed out that, without Noct to extract the energy and craft it with his elemancy, their magical resources were severely limited. And with daemons having taken over the world, they might need every ounce of it they had. But Prompto convinced him to spare at least one flask, just enough to try it, and maybe a second if it actually worked. "If anything," he appealed, "just something to let them know we're okay."

"Not exactly the word I'd use for it," Ignis noted dryly.

"You know what I mean," Prompto was almost too annoyed to roll his eyes. "Besides, I said I'd try, Igs. I have to at least try."

It took a bit of doing, but finally, Prompto thought he'd managed to hook up some sort of rig that would channel the energy from the magical flask into the communicator, and he looked at the little glass container of magic for a brief moment, took a deep breath, and finally switched it on.

He'd been so used to nothing happening that he almost didn't know what to make of the fact that the little light on the communicator started to glow, the lightning in the bottle crackling and sizzling as it poured itself into the device.

"Iggy!" he shouted, eyes going wide. "Ignis! I...I got it! I got it! It works!"

"It works?" Ignis was at his side in a second, and Prompto started to send out a 'do you read me' message, but then Ignis' hand was on his shoulder. "Wait. Shhh. Listen."

There was a voice already coming through the speaker, but it was faint and quiet and Prompto turned the volume up.

"That's Goose, isn't it?" he said.

"It is," Ignis confirmed, who listened a moment longer and seemed about to respond to it, but then he stopped, as the words seemed to repeat. "And it seems to be....some kind of recording...."

"Recording?" Prompto frowned at the communicator for a moment, before his frown shifted to a disturbing surge of energy from the flask. "Why would there be a recording?"

"I don't....know," Ignis admitted, his own frown deepening as he just settled in to listen even closer to the words, to extract some meaning out of them and their purpose and what exactly it all meant.


[[ for the man with the communicator! NFB on the chocobro side, but can definitely be FB on the Goose side bayybeeeee! ]]

Comments

[notagoose]

Goose had still been working on the communicator, he wanted to try and have at least another serious go at it to try and restore communications and that was when he started to hear voices on the other end.

He startled, wondering if this was another blip but he definitely had to try and see if there would be another response.

“Hello?” he spoke into his communicator, “Prompto? Ignis? It’s me - Go … Shane,” it took him a moment to remember his name there for a moment as he waited to see if this would be like all the other blips or if there would be a different response this kind.

[chef_chocobro]

"It worked!" Prompto laugh was almost delirious once they realized that the new words they were hearing deviated significantly from the recorded message. "It actually worked!"

Well, with the somewhat worrisome surge and sizzle coming from the flask, Ignis honestly wasn't sure how long it would work for, but it was still nothing compared to the surge he felt in his chest. Good news had certainly become a rare thing to come by these days, and even when they managed some, there was usually something much worse waiting for them right around the corner. But he leaned in, his voice quick and intent, because they didn't know how much time they'd have.

"Shane." Well, he had meant for quickness and intention, but it came out much more like a soft sigh of relief. "Yes, it's us. It appears as though Prompto has finally cracked the code on the missing element to getting the communicators to work again."

An electric static whine seemed to fill the air.

"I'm not sure for how much longer, though."

[notagoose]

It took a moment to register that Ignis was actually talking to him directly and it wasn't just a blip.

"It is so good to hear your voice again," he said softly, which he hadn't expected to blurt out but he had been missing Ignis a lot, "we've been trying to reestablish communications for the last month - Summer helped set up a whole experiment with the communicators to try and get through, I tried everything with the communicators that I could think of, nothing seemed to work,"

"Is ... " his voice trailed off as he tried to figure out what to say, in the short amount of time that they apparently had, "is everyone okay? Are you alright?"

[chef_chocobro]

Ignis didn't need to see Prompto's eyes intent on him, imploring, questioning. He could practically feel them. But the erratic crackling and sizzling of the flask as it pumped its magic into the communicator was a sharp reminder that he might not have time to waste on figuring out how to best answer such complicated questions as those.

So he focused on the easier things. He focused on the things that wouldn't make Shane worry more than he already had. He focused on it is so good to hear your voice again and all the mutual flood of emotions that came with it.

But he also didn't want to be untruthful.

"So that's what the recording is," he noted, almost mildly, as that repeated message still kept playing as a background to the conversation at hand. "A constant stream of information in the hopes that at least something get through. Not a terrible idea, really...."

And he could have left it there. It was tempting, to just leave it there. But he sighed and figured that they should know, especially if efforts had been made on their end still, as well.

"But things have....not been good, Shane. Quite frankly, it's all been rather terrible."

A snort drifted up from Prompto. "Understatement of the Year award goes to...."

[notagoose]

Goose had expected as much, especially when they had lost contact and Summer couldn’t reach their dimension with her portal gun.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly, unsure of what else to say, “I wish I could have been over there to help - be there with you now,” he hesitated, knowing that that wasn’t going to change anything, “Summer tried to get us a portal so we could reach you but your dimension seems to be blocked,”

[hashtag_chocobro]

"There's no doubt that when Insomnia fell," Ignis said, surprisingly light for the weight of the words, "that severed only connection to that dimension entirely. Possibly with magitek interference. We think that's what ultimately ended up killing the communicator's ability to connect, as well."

"Hey!" A spark of another idea seemed to hit Prompto. "With the Empire gone, we could probably get back into Insomnia now! Maybe we can find the hubs, see what happened to them! See if we can figure out how to get them running again!"

Ignis' brows lifted with that. "I suppose it wouldn't be any more dangerous than anywhere else at the moment..."

But now that his mind was spinning, now that he realized that might be able to get to the portals, Prompto's brain seemed to start shooting off in all directions, and the reality of the fact that they were connected to Fandom right now seemed to hit full force, and he leaned forward into the communicator.

"Goose!" As if he needed to get his attention or something, but, well, he was kind of pushing in on him and Ignis' moment, but it was important. "What about Liz? Have you talked to her? Is she okay?"

[notagoose]

“Insomnia’s completely gone?” Goose asked softly, “We kept getting blips of communication from your end but we weren’t able to communicate,” Goose explained, “we think … maybe you got a lot of feedback when you encountered the Eos Gods? We tried to find out as much as we could about them but I don’t know how much it helped in the end,” he admitted.

Goose winced a bit when Prompto asked about Liz, he didn’t know the full story of what had been happening the last few weeks but he figured something had happened that made her return home for a bit, “she’s … she’s been missing you a lot,” Goose finally settled on, “she … she’s not been coping well at all,” and then he hesitated, maybe telling Prompto that would make him worry even more, “I - she went home for a couple of weeks, I’m not sure when she'll be back,”

[hashtag_chocobro]

The guilt that Prompto felt hearing those words hit so hard that he couldn't even respond at first, nothing but a pained whimper as he felt like they were trying to crush him. He could practically feel it, rattling around in his ribcage...

...or maybe that was just the flask, rattling around in the casing he'd constructed around it.

"Prompto," Ignis said softly. "The flask..."

But Prompto wasn't paying any attention to that, letting out a slow breath to steady himself and nodding a little. "Home is....home is good," he said, biting his lip against the complicated swell of emotion rising up in him, bringing the sting of tears to his eyes. "That's good. For her. She....no. That's good."

It had been so long! The fact that she'd have had to spend all these months like that....it was...it was a miracle if she just didn't completely hate his guts by now...

The rattling from the flask started to get more violent, the lightning inside glowing brighter....brighter...

"Shane," said Ignis, hurriedly, by way of warning, "I don't think we have much time left. The connection is...unstable, at best."

[notagoose]

Goose winced at Prompto’s reaction, he definitely had to get better about breaking bad news to people, “sorry,” he said quietly, wishing he had better news to offer.

He took a deep breath, “I - I understand,” he said quietly, “is there anything you’d like me to do on my end?” he asked , “or to see if I can try and get a connection going again?”

[hashtag_chocobro]

Prompto almost wondered if it would have been better if Goose had told him that Liz really had just moved on, forgotten about him entirely, went on with her life, because then he'd at least know she was happy. It would have absolutely crushed his soul and left him devastated and hollow, sure, but....what else was new? He was used to it by now, and it was a small price to pay...

But those thoughts seemed to realign his focus, and so it was Prompto who answered with a decisive firmness this time, not Ignis, especially as he became more aware of the way the flask was sparking and shaking.

"Just keep the lines open on your end," he said decisively. "Give me a few days, I'm going to see if I can't figure out how to stabilize the magic better--"

He winced as a spark burst out out through the glass like a bullet.

"Shit!"

"Shane!" Ignis hurriedly called out. "I--"

But he couldn't get it out; instead, the words were cut off by Prompto's shout of his name, and the impact of Prompto's body against his, knocking him back as the flask exploded in a burst of lightning that went crackling over them as their bodies hit the floor, and the communicator gave one last sizzle of electric power for going quiet, going dark, again.

[notagoose]

"Ignis?" Goose said softly into the communicator, "Ignis are you there?" he waited a few more moments, "Ignis? Prompto?"

There was nothing and Goose stared helplessly at the communicator, he supposed at least now he knew they could establish communications, however temperamental they were and it was better than hearing nothing but it looked like he was back to waiting for news again.

[chef_chocobro]

"Well," Ignis huffed, once it was clear that the magic had been spent and Prompto had rolled off of him to then offer out a hand to help him up to his feet; he immediately took to brushing off his shirt and pants once he was up, too, choosing to focus on his tidiness rather than the depth of the disappointment coursing through him just then, "that seemed a bit unnecessary."

"Yeah, right," Prompto's tone was a bit cutting and....moody, but that was certainly understandable. "Sorry for not just letting you fry, dude."

There was an awkward silence that seemed to follow, as if they realized that the weight they had been hoping this interaction would be lifting was still very much there and, quite possibly, had somehow gotten a little bit....heavier.

"At least," Ignis finally offered into the silence, "now they know."

"Know what?" asked Prompto, a bit irritably. "That we're alive, but barely? We barely got the chance to tell him anything, Ignis. You didn't even mention--"

Ignis lifted a hand to cut Prompto off, almost as if half worried the communicator would still pick up on it. "It hardly seems the most important thing," he said. "But...perhaps...we can get around to some of the more...egregious details if you really think you can find a way to stabilize the flasks better."

"...does that mean...?" Prompto's voice became hopeful, eager, and Ignis nodded.

"At least one more," he allowed. "I don't feel great about wasting our magic right now, especially without Noct around to gather more, but...it hardly seems fair, does it? I know you'd like to speak with Liz. Or at least hear her voice. Maybe next time, we can figure out some way to get through to her."

When Prompto didn't say anything in response, Ignis just smiled faintly and place a hand on his shoulder. "Then maybe we can see about plans to go see how things might be faring back home."

He gave Prompto's shoulder a small pat, then took a few moments to locate his cane leaning against one of the tables before stalking off, perhaps to go find a can of Ebony with his name on it and a quiet spot to just...think.