An Angel Blooms (Gladio X Reader)

Chapter 24

Noctis bends down to pick up the sword. He walked towards Ravus's body and stabbed the glaive into his metal arm, "Spare me your sycophancy," his voice was ominous, almost like...

He turned around and smirked at Ravus's dead body. He kneels down on one knee and gets right up in his face, "I've indulged your false heroism for far too long."

His voice suddenly changed into that familiar, charming, and sick voice, "You tried to save the world in my stead, but it wasn't enough. The Crystal chose me- not you."

He then stood up and as he did his form suddenly changed. Noctis was replaced with Ardyn.

He reached into a pocket in his jacket and threw a few papers on the body. He then began heading out the door and mumbled, "Rejection hurts, doesn't it?"

The camera cuts to static and then shuts off.

"Was that Noct?" Ignis asks

Gladio crosses his arms, "No, just that scumbag chancellor posing as him."

I start clenching and unclenching my fists, and then I realize something.

"How did the chancellor use the crystals magic? ...and what did he mean by, 'the Crystal chose [him]'?"

All of us remain silent for a moment, "Could be another one of his tricks," Gladio finally answered. I don't respond. I'm not quite sure if I believe it was a trick.

We continue on in silence to an elevator that will lower us down further. When it opened we were in a wide space filled with boxes and other storage containers.

"Some sort of cargo bay?" I ask.

"Perhaps the Crystal passed through here at some point in time," Ignis responses.

"Could be stored somewhere nearby..." I whisper mostly to myself.

We hear a loud noise and look on to see a large gate across the room opening up. Probably the chancellor leading the way again. Before we can approach it, an Iron Giant climbs out of the ground.

"What is it?" Ignis calls out.

"An Iron Giant!" I answer.

"Do we fight?" Gladio asks?

"We are two men down. This is too big a risk."

"Then we make a run for it," I said. We try to run around the monster and to the open gate. Gladio stayed back a moment to stun the enemy, giving us a head start. There was a part of me that wanted to help him, but then Ignis would be alone.

The giant quickly regains its composure and stomps toward us. We try to run fast and once we've reached the next room we look around for a switch to close the gate. I find a big red button and big green button. I hit the red one as fast as I can, but the gate is very slow. I start to smash the button hoping it would speed things up.

"Come on. Come on!"

The giant reaches out to grab one of us, but the gate closes on its arm. It tries to pull its arm out but fails. In anger he begins swing it around to hit us.

Gladio then steps in front of us and summons his sword, "Get to the elevator!" I turn to see a large elevator in the middle of the room, much bigger than the others we've ridden. I grab Ignis' arm and we run for it, Gladio following behind as he keeps looking back at the gate. When we're all on the elevator Gladio smashes one of the buttons and we quickly descend to the next floor.

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We continued on through the maze of corridors until we made it to another control room. Unlike the last room all of the panels are turned on and they all show the same image. The Crystal held up in chains behind some type of laser wall.

"It's the Crystal. We must be close." I said. We looked through the control panels until we found something promising. Ignis then walked me through how to disable to the laser wall.

"Thieves cannot escape the hands of justice!" We turned back towards the daemonic sound. Some type of weird, slimy looking dragon thing was speaking to us. "The Crystal is mine... Never shall I lose my grip!"

The way he's talking. Almost as if he were a ruler. Could it be the leader of the empire? But... That would be impossible, right? The beast charges us and Gladio quickly parries it with his sword. The thing growls and disappears in a thick cloud of black smoke.

"What the hell was that?" I asked.

It's silent for a moment until Gladio speaks up, "Why does it want the Crystal? I thought they were afraid of it,"

"It may be like a moth to a flame," Ignis answers, "We must keep our guard up and find Noct and Prompto before that thing does first."

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We continued through the halls a while longer until another secret door opened up to reveal a large staircase going up.

"What's this?" Ardyn's voice comes over the intercom again, "I think he's stopped breathing." We look at each other frantically. Who is it? "Why don't you go see for yourselves?" We quickly sprint up the stairs hoping this is just a sick joke. We stop at the top of the stairs at an open door.

"If that son of bitch even-" Gladio's rant is cut off by Ignis.

"Wait. Can't you hear that?" We all fall silent and listen. Nothing.

"Hear what?" Gladio asks.

Ignis steps through the door, "Noct's voice. I heard it clear as day." He pauses for a moment, "This way- follow me!" He runs ahead and Gladio and I quickly follow. It's strange. Somehow, I see Ignis running through these halls just fine. Maybe he's developing a sixth sense to replace his eyes.

As we run we call out to Noct, "Noct is that you?" Ignis calls out.

"Can you hear us?" Gladio asks.

"Guys?" We hear him yell. We quickly follow the voice and we find another control room. This time there is a side door blocked of by an electric door. We peer inside and see Noctis trapped inside with another electric door inching behind him.

"Y/N! There must be a kill switch on one of these panels. Find it." Gladio yells. I nod, and then start scan through the different panels in a panic. Eventually, I find a panel that looks promising and begin pressing buttons. The electricity cuts off and the doors open. Noct runs out of the room and falls on his butt in the process. He sits there trying to catch his breath.

"The hell'd you get here?" He asked through short breaths.

"You're welcome?" Gladio responsed and held out his hand to help him up.

"Thanks," Noct says like a child and takes his hand.

"Reunited with your retainers at last. How very touching," Noct looks up at the ceiling looking for the intercom with a scowl on his face.

"You alright?" I ask.

"That sick bastard's been screwin' with my head. Haven't you heard all the things he's said?"

"N-no?" I respond, "He talked to us too, but nothing crazy. Maybe he was only speaking through different speakers?" Noct starts running his hands through his hair, distressed.

"What's wrong?" I asked again.

"Those MTs," he starts, "Th-there not robots like we thought,"

We all look at him in confusion, "I found out... Their human. Th-they made artificial humans a-and filled them with daemon energy!"

I breathe in and the air gets stuck in my thought. I try to process what he's saying as I think about how many MT's we had killed.

"We killed so many of them..." He whispers.

I shake my head, "You didn't know. Come on. Let's go find Prompto," I place a hand on his back and we guide him throughout the rest of the keep.