#he's the frollo of final fantasy xv

[iamthechocobabe]

A True Nightmare

Again, this is not an Ardyn love story. If that’s what you’re looking for, you might want to go somewhere else.

For the record, there’s NOT going to be anything trigger worthy in this story-just kinda wanted to throw that out there. 

Tagging the Senpais: @roses-and-oceans @bespectacled-girl @cupnoodle-queen @gladiolus-mamacitia @nifwrites @themissimmortal 

A True Nightmare An Ardyn Soulmate AU This is NOT an Ardyn love story

~Chapter 2~ SFW Word Count: 2,191

A cold chill ran through the air just as the four were beginning to board the train, making Mallory shiver intensely and wish grateful she'd brought her winter coat. Though apparently she was the only one who felt the sudden dip in temperature, as no one else seemed all too bothered by the sudden cool air. But there was something else...it was almost as if someone was watching her. Mallory had that sense where someone...or something...was watching her every move and she instinctively looked around to see if there was someone undesirable around. Mallory had been trained to always follow her instincts and they were most, if not always, right. 

"That's her?" Gladiolus, apparently the prince's bodyguard, pointed at Mallory as he spoke to Aranea while final preparations were made. "She's the...you said she was an assassin? She's the one who knows how to get into Gralea?" 

Mallory tried to ignore their comments as she often did with people who were shocked of her true employment-she knew she wasn't what people expected when they pointed at her and said 'assassin', but she was a lot tougher than she looked, which Aranea felt compelled to point out. 

"Don't let the pink fool you," Aranea snickered, referring to Mallory's hot pink tank top. "She's not called the Viper for nothing," 

"I hate that nickname," Mallory called to them, still observing the crowd gathered by the train stop. "It's cliched," 

"I don't pick the names, honey," The snideness in Aranea's voice always made Mallory want to go up and smack her. 

"And the teen is...?" Noctis, the prince, pointed at Ari, still sitting in the grass and playing with some dirt. 

"That's Ari," Spinning around, Mallory marched up to Noctis when Ari was mentioned and sent her withering glare of emerald eyes towards him, who seemed more confused then intimidated. "And you don't talk about her-you don't even look at her, or you answer to me. Got it?" 

When there was nothing but silence, Mallory leaned forward until her nose was practically touching the Prince's own nose. "Got it?" 

"Yes, ma'am?" Noctis was still clearly confused, but Mallory ignored it and went back to observing the crowd. 

Someone was watching-she could feel it. Someone...who? The chancellor of the Empire? Mallory had only heard about him and seen his picture in the paper a few times, she'd never met him-Aranea was more involved with him than anything, Mallory was only called in when someone had a job that needed more stealth-Aranea was more 'in your face'. 

The small blink of a yellow light caught the corner of Mallory's eye-up towards the right of the train station, under some awnings, two or three security cameras were set up and poised to aim around the crowd. They were clearly originally intended to keep an eye on the train station, but now it seemed to be used as a weapon of spying. Mallory wasn't about to put up with it. 

Within a matter of seconds, a switchblade that Mallory kept in the back pocket of her skinny jeans was out and swung at the tangle of cords under the awning, severing the cords right where they needed to be severed and causing the blinking light to go dark. Noises in the crowd proved that people were now starting to grow weary of Mallory, ducking out of her way as she went and retrieved the knife before returning back to Aranea, who stared at the security cameras thoughtfully. 

"Forgot about those damn things..." she mumbled, watching Mallory press the button for the switchblade to go back into its handle and placing the weapon back where it belonged. 

"They probably know we're on our way," Mallory mentioned to the three boys. "So, we're going to have to move fast-Aranea, where are we with the engineers?" 

"Biggs and Wedge-right over there," Aranea pointed to a pair of gentlemen in uniform drinking coffee. 

"Alrighty then..." Mallory took the first look at the three boys she was going to assist in this mission-the prince was everything she had seen in the papers and pictures and the bodyguard seemed like he could handle himself, but the last one... "No offense, but are you sure-" The question about the one who was apparently blind lingered on Mallory's lips. 

"Ignis goes where we go, it seems," The bodyguard, Gladio, mumbled with discontent. He clearly didn't agree that Ignis should join them, but Mallory didn't say anything. She knew what it was like to have people think you were incapable because of a disability. 

Loud laughter in the air distracted everyone-Ari was giggling at an ant hill she had found in the grass as she laid down on her stomach, observing the tiny creatures as they crawled back to their hidey hole. 

"Go ahead and hop on," Mallory told the three as she headed back to say final goodbyes to Ari. "I'll be there in a few minutes," 

Nodding, the three talked to Aranea about where exactly they were going for the crystal as Mallory approached Ari, whose olive toned fingers were now a dark brown to the dirt all over her fingers from trying to pry the ant hill a part. 

"Ari? Are you listening?" Bending down on her haunches, Mallory dropped Ari's pink and grey backpack by Ari's stretched out legs while talking to her younger sister. 

"Hnh," Ari continued to dig her fingers into the dirt, but grunted again to show she was listening, so Mallory continued. 

"Remember what I was talking about in the car? I have to leave for awhile-Aranea's going to take care of you until I get back, okay?" 

"Nn-NNNNNNNNNH," Ari didn't make Mallory's eye contact, but she started to shake her head vehemently, a few of the short strands of copper brown hair falling into her dark brown eyes. 

"I know you don't like Aranea," Mallory said softly. "But you'll be safe-she'll protect you. I'll only be gone for a few days-you can handle that, can't you?"  

There was no response, but Mallory took it as a sign of acceptance-if Ari really wasn't okay with it, she'd be screaming her head off. 

"I told you not to play in the dirt," Mallory noticed the dirt on her hands and grabbed hand sanitizer out of the large black backpack she had brought with her. Seeing the backpack and Ari's own bright pink and grey backpack filled Mallory with relief once again. 

Relief of the memory, how a few hours ago Aranea had called her and informed Mallory that the Empire was attacking Tenebrae and to out of the apartment and get to the train station. Mallory didn't expect that Aranea was the one over the relief effort there, but to each their own-Mallory could only assume that she was pissed at the Empire for this shitty stunt and for killing the Oracle. Aranea was already on thin ice with them after the attack on Insomnia, but this seemed to end all relations with them. 

Which was just as fine, the Empire fucking sucked and Mallory never hesitated to tell Aranea that. 

"HNH. HNH. AAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHHHH," Ari's screams began to make everyone at the train station tense as she backed away and started to flail her arms and Mallory knew that people would start to assume that Ari was insane. 

"Hey-HEY. Easy, alright?" Mallory put away the hand sanitizer, knowing it was the cold shock of the clear liquid that had sent Ari over the edge. Mallory cursed herself for forgetting to warm it thoroughly in her hands before putting the liquid on Ari-she was already on edge from the short days, having to evacuate so quickly, and having Mallory leave-Mallory knew that this was just another thing to set Ari over the edge. 

By the train, Noctis and the rest of his group observed in interest as Mallory waited patiently for Ari to settle down and for her screams to subside, though Ari still panted loudly in an extreme panic. They, and everyone else, still observed as Mallory gently put her hands on Ari's shoulders and led her to a park bench and watched as Mallory used a pink and grey backpack and helped Ari lie down. 

"That's...her sister?" Gladio asked Aranea. "What's wrong with her?" 

Knowing it wasn't her condition to tell, Aranea simply said "Ari's different,"

Ardyn tried to control his breathing after the cameras went dark, even though he had no real need to, not anymore. He hadn't needed to breathe in over a thousand years, but it was a force of habit-some small part of his remaining humanity he wanted to hold onto. 

Deep down, Ardyn knew it wasn't Aryelle who glared at the security cameras before tossing her knife to sever the power cords; he never did see her again after their final parting in the throne room, Ardyn was never able to get close enough to see those beautiful green eyes widen in fear at Ardyn's prescence. But Aryelle was mortal-she had died like everyone else he had known back then did. 

Or did she? Ardyn pulled up the footage from the archives and paused the video right as Aryelle-or whoever she was-was pulling the knife from her back pocket, her beautiful green eyes staring daggers into the security cameras. 

No, she couldn't be Aryelle, at least not the one he remembered. Aryelle never glared. 

Ardyn clicked the keyboard, zooming in on the footage to observe the woman's wrists and check his knowledge and see if for certain she was somehow Aryelle. From this angle, he couldn't tell and he cursed himself for having done away with most of his 'allies' (if he could call him that) long ago...

There was only one left...one he'd frankly lacked the energy to deal away with. 

Five minutes after pushing a button, Verstael Besithia walked in through the door. Verstael had no real way of knowing, no real way to know how Ardyn had already done away with everyone, including the Emperor himself. By now, Ardyn only had Besithia see what Ardyn wanted him to see, going back and forth between what duties he had as if in a daze. 

He was now in for a cruel awakening-but not before making himself useful first. 

"Who is she?" Ardyn pointed at the screen containing Aryelle's-no, he shouldn't call her that-face. 

"Friend of yours?" The dazed look on Verstael's never faded as he typed onto the keyboard, plugging the image of the woman's face into an official Niflheim archive. A picture of the same girl showed in a different monitor, though she wasn't wearing a grey beanie and only showed her from the shoulders up along with a scroll of text and Ardyn browsed through the information of the girl. 

Mallory Moon-born and raised in Tenebrae. Parents had been reported missing when she was eighteen, forcing her to raise her mentally disabled sister on her own. Was recruited by the Impirial army as a mercenary before taking her sister and was reported M.I.A. after a failed mission. 

Ignoring the rest, Ardyn controlled his breathing once again at the information of her visual aesthetics. Hair color, black; Eyes, green; Height, 5'7. 

Everything pointed to Aryelle-her name was different, her hair was shorter and cut more modernly, but her physical appearance was the same. She looked so much like her that it might have sent chills down Ardyn's back. 

Might have. 

But just as Ardyn was about to click to turn the monitor off and mull over this information, a little star caught his eye. 

A star-his star. Mirrored, on the left side, only on her shoulder. The memory of Aryelle's mark was burned into Ardyn, he could easily remember and visualize the mark to know it was the exact same as the girl's, just on her shoulder instead of on her wrist. 

She wasn't Aryelle...but perhaps she was somehow reborn? 

"I remember her-she was hired for one of our-" Ardyn had forgotten that Besithia was in the room as the old man rattled on about something Ardyn really didn't care about. 

Sighing, Ardyn's face in the black monitors lacking any emotion, Ardyn knew Besithia was already far gone from weeks of exposure to the Starscourge. All he needed was a little push, and a little bit of daemonic essence attaching itself to the back Besithia's neck was all it took. Ardyn had told them how to fuse the plague into humans, causing them their almost invincible army-

Ardyn never told them there was no way to reverse the process. 

"Well, thank you for your assistance," Ardyn stood up, ignoring the now writhing older man as he panicked and rolled around on the floor with cries of fear filling the room. "But it seems I have an additional guest to prepare for," 

Walking out the door, Ardyn was so absorbed in his own thoughts that he didn't hear Besithia now screaming in pain as his new daemon form began to take shape. Not that it mattered, though. 

Ardyn did have a new guest-and he would finally get his chance, finally fulfill his thousand year old promise. 

He would show them all his redemption.