The Far Edge of Fate (Final Fantasy XV)

CHAPTER 7 - CALLING FOR RAIN

Chapter title comes from 'Calling For Rain' from the Final Fantasy XV: Kingsglaive soundtrack

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An explosion rattled the battlefield.

Aaralyn staggered, throwing out a hand to steady herself against the old ruins she'd been taking cover under. A few feet away, streaks of blue shot past her. Pelna appeared in a shower of sparks. He jerked his arms and in one fluid moment, the MT he'd warpstriked crumpled in a heap of smoking metal. He had no time to regard Aaralyn before he was warping again to fight another trooper wielding a heavy axe.

The battle was—under no exaggeration—a clusterfuck. A fuckfest, to put it even more crudely. The mission had even started off simple enough, just another skirmish between the Glaives and the Empire's forces on the border. However, the fight had quickly taken a turn for the chaotic as Niflheim began to overwhelm them with sheer numbers. MTs, magitek armors, hell even monsters were marching across the natural bridge spanning across the enormous chasm that separated Lucian lands from Imperial ones. It had been day-in-day-out fighting for the past week and Aaralyn had felt it take its toll a few days ago. Conserving stamina wasn't anything she didn't know how to do at this point, but there was only so long she could run off of a few hours of restless sleep before being thrown back into the fray.

She flung out her hand as a monster launched itself at her, jaws snapping. A shield made of hexagonal shapes—Protect—blossomed in front of her and it bounced harmlessly off of it. She followed it up with a quick flick of her wrist, warping to the monster to embed her knife between its eyes. Her fingers curled tightly around the hilt, tugging as she dragged the knife through skin and falling with the monster as it hit the dirt, dead. She didn't give herself a moment to rest as she spotted artillery shells spraying the air and ducked back behind something for cover.

"All units move to secure the wall," she heard Luche command. "If they break through, we're done!"

While ordinarily, such an order would have earned him a few snarky responses, everyone was too focused on the fight to respond. Aaralyn rushed to obey, spotting what Luche had meant immediately. The MTs and monsters were descending on the area en masse, chasing after injured Glaives trying to escape to the backline.

Aaralyn warped to the nearest MT, driving her knife aggressively into its neck to deactivate it and then ducking to avoid the swing of the next's weapon. She dropped to her knees to place both palms squarely on the ground, frost coating her fingers before the magic exploded upwards in a spray of snow and ice that swallowed the nearest soldiers and froze them solid. Aaralyn wasted no time making short work of the statues she'd made and moved on to the next cluster.

"What's the holdup, Crowe?!" Libertus demanded in her ear.

"Almost there-" Crowe's voice was tight with strain. Above her, Aaralyn could see the telltale signs of the magma tornado that the Mages were struggling to summon. They'd been at it for nearly thirty minutes now, grasping at any kind of magic they could and forcing it to work. There was a heavy thud over the comms that made Aaralyn's skin crawl. Crowe cried out in alarm. "No!"

"Crowe, status?" Drautos demanded.

"Mage down, but we can't stop the process at this point!" Crowe grunted. "We're just gonna have to power through. Buy us a little more time!"

"Time is not a luxury we have right now!" Tredd snapped. "Watch the east wall—Niffs brought out more artillery!" As he spoke, several loud explosions rattled the bridge, sending dust and debris flying in all directions. Aaralyn cursed under her breath as the bridge rattled, scrambling up the side of the crumbling walls. "Pelna, can you get to me?" Tredd asked. "Getting overwhelmed with MAs and MTs here!"