Noctis is tending to Blix's wounds while she tearfully bandages Jasper, and while Noctis can try its hand at comforting Blix and reminding her that he is fine and he will survive she just barks back that they're down at least one tank and they need to get back in there and help Anya and Arte. Safe to say the team was over their heads in this fight.
When Arte showed the mission to the team, ji seemed cagey on why. They all should've realized that this would be bad.
Once Noctis and Blix finally got Jasper awake and stable they left him in the side room. When they came back into the small cave of a battle arena they saw Anya in the center of the room, making Noctis Jump to help her. But when she looked him directly in the eyes she smiled calmly, reaching out her hand. "The world is ending and there's nothing we can do so let's dance til we die!" It was like her lifeline was just a tightrope to bounce on til she broke. The moment Noctis tore his eyes away from Anya's he took in the rest of the scene. Arte was being held in what Noctis can only describe as a flesh prison, any time ji tired to touch the walls it shrunk and ji flinched, an endless cycle of emotions he never saw on jix face until just then. Looking back at his sweet Anya felt gut wrenching, their knees buckling in such a way to make them lean 90 degrees forward, the only thing keeping her off the ground was the cane held in hands that slipped away more and more. The feeling of death was so strong in the room, it had been since they got there but now it was overwhelming, painful. Before he knew it Noctis had walked up and held her face in his hands, it hurt most when she looked up, he knew it wasn't her by the maniacal smile, the eyes open far too large unfocused as they were.
"Taking me up on the dance then," She stood at full height so hard bones cracked, even more when she grabbed his hand like a lifeline. "Hope you can keep up." She almost pulls his wrist out of place. Then claws, no, just nails digging into his waist once close enough. "You know, really, I've missed dancing." She laments to herself. "Who knew I just had to accept the pain." The nails scraped at his back harshly, he heard his shirt tear and stood higher. His ears were ringing and he knew Blix was saying something, but he couldn't hear her, couldn't focus on anything but the eyes looking straight back at him, the death he could feel fast approaching and couldn't stop no matter what he tried. He was putty in her hands, all the years of keeping her alive, keeping her with him and he was finally bested.
She opened her mouth to speak again but only blood came out. The once wide eyes becoming lidded more and more. Screams were distorted, and it became less and less his teammates, his friends but what they became, the last adrenaline boosted attempt at staying alive. The cave was so dark and the noises never stopped, the sound of flesh turning in the ways they shouldn't, a caterpillar to a butterfly.
When Noctis finally woke up he was laying on top of Anya, he held his fingers to her pulse, hoping, when the beat was found he finally let himself survey the noises still around. Another one of the monsters they had been fighting was there, a pile of rotting flesh and organs pushing out without any fat to keep them from bulging out. The cage that Arte was in had been broken. The first monster seemed one push from a final blow and the second one isn't relenting on it. Once the creature had gotten what he wanted from this it'd give us the same treatment. The rest of the room seemed so much more barren, the flesh on the walls retracted, somehow Jasper had gotten in even with a broken leg and most likely many concussions, he was in Blix's arms. They were asleep, hopefully, or maybe it would be better that they don't have to deal with the torture that was to come.
Before the final blow was about to hit the monster looked directly into Noctis' eyes, it had one eye high away from most other organs pushing themselves out, the color a mix of brown and green, and it looked almost sad. The opposing monster took the small reprieve to get one last hit in, though he was overtaken moments later. Bleeding out and left for dead, not even a sniff of curious hunger before the victor turned back to the team, breathing heavily from what seemed like multiple sets of lungs. Then suddenly, it was no more, just Arte's small body falling from where the eye sat. Ji was unconscious from what Noctis could tell but his body fell, slowly? It was like he was watching jin fall in slow motion, and when ji landed the dirt poofed up around jin.
Looking around, Noctis noticed all the flesh from the walls gone, the creature too, there was probably a body somewhere, but he didn't know if he wanted to find that. Judging by every sense he was getting whatever it was was dead. He made a lap of the cavern trying to check on everyone. When he walked up to Jasper and Blix he heard crying, short, quiet sniffles of someone told too many times they shouldn't cry. Rustling Jasper's shoulder the taller man spoke. "It's ok, she's ok, we're all okay." When verbal comfort failed he stuck to rubbing small circles into the others shoulder. Grabbing Blix by the wrist with his free hand, if Jasper wasn't so distressed he would've tried to bite him. He quickly found her pulse point and looked at Jas, "Feel right here." He moved his thumb to make room for Japer's. "She must've gotten spooked is all, she should wake in less than an hour." He saw Jasper nod quickly before getting back up and starting to leave to check on Arte, but before he left he heard the younger man clear his throat.
"Thank you." The genuine tone almost threw Noctis off for a moment, he was used to Jasper clowning on him so much he forgot that he could actually like him for a moment.
"We're teammates, it's only natural."
Arte was looking generally worse for wear but not as bad as Noctis expected. And the moment he had a hand on jix pulse point jix eyes opened. Noctis held his free hand down on jix chest. "It's ok, it's over." The little guy had such a knack for jumping around and running that ji often tried to skip rests, this one was needed though.
"It's all over?" Jix voice cracked and something clicked in Noctis's mind. This probably wasn't some random monster that happened to be the same type as jin, this was someone ji knew. It wasn't long until the hitched breaths from Arte evolved into hyperventilating, then crying, searing hot tears running down jix face. This was probably Arte's family. Noctis knew how it felt being a rarer monster, he knew that you can only have family to lean on. He also knew Arte never talked about jix family, always shooting offhanded comments when asked. He could only hope and assume this death was something Arte wanted.
He was so engrossed in worrying about Arte he didn't hear the footfalls behind him, nor the cane beating in rhythm with their steps. "Is Ji ok?" Anya's hand fell on his shoulder. "I don't remember last time I saw- nope, actually I've never seen Arte cry." It was almost a half whisper, loud enough for Arte to hear if ji wanted to but quiet and so close to his ear he almost flinched.
His pale skin suddenly flushed heavily. "Shouldn't you be resting?" It sounded angry so he quickly backtracked. "You were already in pain before everything happened, if you weren't now I'd be worried."
"Oh I'm in pain." She dropped down to sit next to him. "Just not easy to rest when you wake to almost all your teammates crying." Her hand idly reaches up and wipes one of the ever present tears from Noctis' face. It was quickly replaced with another streak of purple, but the sentiment was not lost on it.
"Thank you."
The softness is immediately shut up by Arte. "Your moment is ruining my moment."
"Hey fuck you." Anya kicks jin softly in the gut. Looking at jix face ji's still crying, though the grin on jix face makes it seem much less of an issue.
Ji laughed loud enough that jix form shifted a bit, hair changing to brown and eyes momentarily merging together, but quickly changed back when ji saw Noctis and Anya staring. "Hard to control so fast out of," Ji struggled to find the right word. "It." Jix eyes gazed above the twos heads and to jix other friends laying on the ground. "We should probably get over to them, right?"
"I've checked on them but if you're ready to leave we should, they will need help getting out of here." Noctis' tone lost its comfort, moving onto its normal matter of fact speech. Even so, Arte silently thanked the spirits for its wording.
"Yeah I think I'm ready to leave." Arte quickly lifts jinxself up, as do Noctis and Anya, and they get on their way to the couple. The damage didn't seem too bad, Blix had enough strength to become Jasper's crutch and Noctis' wings, surprisingly for clipping through walls, actually are very nice to lean against.
The walk to a point Jas accepted as a proper camping spot was painful, honestly at some point he gave up and settled a bit for a not-so-perfect spot. Getting a fire going and some food was a quiet enough escapade, no one really wanted to talk about what had happened.
Arte coughs a bit. "So," Ji shifted in jix seat. "That was my dad."
Everyone looked at jin a moment before sighing and going back to whatever they were doing. The lightheartedness helped but none of them felt they needed an explanation other than that.
