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“Come back soon. I shall keep your friends company until you are ready.”

Noctis couldn’t breathe. He’d spent so long struggling for air as he was being pulled inside the crystal that it took him a moment to even realize there had been a change of scenery. The crystal’s magic had been searingly hot, but as the shock wore off, it finally occurred to him that he was laying face-down on something hard and cold instead. Gingerly propping himself up on his hands, he spit out a mouthful of something wet and frigid--snow maybe?--before sitting back on his knees and wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand.

He seemed to be in some kind of frozen wasteland. The sun reflecting off of the snow was blindingly bright, but after being surrounded by the crystal’s glow, it seemed almost dim. The worst part was the brutal temperature. He was already shivering in his short-sleeved jacket, and he’d been awake for all of ten seconds. This wouldn’t be pretty if he didn’t find a way to get back inside.

“Got to be kidding me,” Noctis muttered, climbing to his feet and spinning in a slow circle to take in more of the frozen tundra. He’d asked the crystal for help--practically begged that he was ready to fulfill their damn prophecy--and it looked like all it had done was spit him back outside of Gralea. Ardyn himself had seemed to think that the process would make him some kind of chosen king, but Noctis didn’t feel any different. If anything, the Ring of the Lucii on his finger looked like it had grown even dimmer than before he’d gone into the crystal.

“Damn it,” he hissed under his breath, rubbing at the back of his neck as he wondered what to do next. The crystal had been something of a last hope. How else was he supposed to stop the daemons and save his frien-

His friends.

Noctis straightened as he realized that it didn’t matter if he wasn’t any stronger. What mattered was that he needed to get back to Zegnatus Keep right now before Ardyn did something else to them. No more. He refused to let his friends be a shield between him and the immortal this time.

There were some barren trees behind him with icicles caked onto their lower branches. Noctis considered the tallest one before he summoned the Engine Blade to his hand in a shower of blue sparks. Taking aim, he chucked the sword upwards in a graceful arc before he warped after it and reappeared with one hand clutching a higher branch and his feet braced against the tree trunk. He needed to get a better view, after all.

It turned out the area wasn’t entirely barren. A silvery stretch of road wound its way not too far from him. It must have been a highway with how fast the cars were travelling, and Noctis could just make out a hazy city skyline in the distance along the horizon. The number of cars was startling given how overrun with daemons Niflheim had seemed to be earlier. Noctis hadn’t found a single person alive except for his friends, but this seemed to be a busy freeway. Not to mention that the shape of the city didn’t look all that similar to what Noct had glimpsed from the train heading into Gralea, but it could have been a different angle he supposed. It’s not like there was another city that big out in the tundra. It had to be Gralea.

And Noctis didn’t have time to spare. His friends needed him right now. Staring at the cars speeding towards the city, a reckless idea sprang into his head. Moving targets had always been harder for him, but desperate times called for desperate measures. Iggy would have shaken him for even thinking about it, but Specs wasn’t here right now. That was the problem.

Steeling himself, Noctis settled more firmly onto a tree branch before picking the car closest to him and chucking his sword towards it. Warping after it, Noctis managed to latch one hand around the top of the car as he and his sword landed on the vehicle's roof with a hard crash. With the wind knocked out of him, Noctis barely managed to poke his head down over to the passenger side and knock on the window. He couldn’t get a good view of the driver since he was upside down, but he hoped he didn’t seem too much like a serial killer. “Hey! Can I get a ride? It’s kind of an emergency.” The pain in his knee suddenly warned him that he had dented in their car ceiling. “Er...I’ll pay for that.”

[attr=class,ooc-notes]And this is how Noctis gets arrested.