Pre-Canon Adventures Collection

To Hold Again

Ingressus has a nightmare that renders him sleepless and Dominus doesn't know what he can do to make his son feel better. That is, until he remembers something that he had been saving for the right time

Author's note: you write one fic for Ingressus and his father and suddenly it's all you can think about. I wracked my brains for something to use here since teddies aren't really a thing for the Ardoni XD

but little Gress is kinda just... hnnnnggg I can't even right now

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The world flashed in bright colours – yellow, blue, green, and red – their traces darting in all different directions, surrounding his mind in blinding light. He could hear the harmony – a siren, calling to him in malicious song. The tune was enticing, clawing at his every thought, corrupting his very nature and he couldn't shake it. The pain was too much to handle. He wanted to scream, but no sound would come out.

The Champions of other colours grabbed him from every direction, pulling him this way and that way. Each sharp blade of their weapons laid across his neck as he looked to their fiendish eyes, bright in the colours of those who sought to destroy him. He could feel the cold metal of their knives, their swords, and their sickles as they scraped along his body, piercing his skin, and tainting his red markings that he loved so much.

Still, he tried to call out to anyone who could hear him, but like before, his voice was stolen from him as he was dragged away further into the blinding colours of painful tunes, getting louder with every passing second, piercing his ears and making them bleed. He desperately looked for his Master – his father – but he was nowhere to be found. There was no sign of the powerful stance of Voltar amidst the chaos and ruin – no symbol of hope to remind him that everything would be okay, and the Champions clung to him until their knuckles turned white with their fingers digging into his skin.

They had every intention to hurt him, and they didn't very much care how they did it.

The Songs got louder until Ingressus couldn't hear his own thoughts, until he couldn't hear the taunts coming from the warriors of other colours as they stole from him the last thing that held him together.

Again, he tried to scream. He kept trying amidst the laughter from the monsters that held him. He kept trying, hoping that someone would respond, hoping that someone would help him.

He kept trying, and trying, and trying until he did it.

He screamed.

"Ingressus?"

He screamed even louder.

"INGRESSUS?"

He continued to scream until he could hear his own voice over the sound of torturous harmony that continued to surround him in inescapable fury.

"GRESS! WAKE UP, BOY, PLEASE!"

Ingressus shot up from his bed, panting and gasping, drenched in sweat and he frantically looked around him, trying to reacquaint himself with his surroundings. He was in his tent, on his own bed and clutching at his blanket, eyes frightened in the dark. The hand on his shoulder belonged to his father – Dominus – and he looked to the familiar markings in familiar colour and slowly, his breathing calmed, but he couldn't shake what he saw. He couldn't shake the feeling of the other Ardoni Champions' grip on him, nor the feeling of their weapons piercing his skin.

He looked to himself to find that he had not a scratch on him and he sighed, but the tears had started, and he couldn't stop them. He couldn't tell if they were fearful tears, or tears of relief that it was over, that none of it was real.