#also featuring clarus and regis being mother hens

[ahkaraii]

[ff15] a 'what if cor didn't run away from gilgamesh and kept fighting' fic (2900 words)

When his sword cuts through flesh and bone and sinew and finally embeds itself with a crunch into Gilgamesh's armoured side, Cor at first cannot believe it. He stares up into the Blademaster's red eyes, dumbfounded at his success. They meet his, briefly, and then he's flying-- Gilgamesh has literally batted him aside, with his other hand.

Cor flips in midair like a coeurl, landing feet-first, crouched and ready for retaliation. But the Blademaster does not follow.

Instead, that huge, unsurmountable beast of a man remains where he is, kneeling, Genji blade embedded into his chest. Cor wheezes feverishly, heart in his throat. Has he done it? Has he actually defeated--?

"Impressive," Gilgamesh murmurs. "It has been many years since I have lost an arm."

Then the Blademaster grips the Genji blade with his right, remaining hand, and, with one easy tug, pulls it out of his side. He does not even so much as bleed. Cor stares in horrified awe as Gilgamesh stands, unruffled, despite missing a whole fucking arm, despite only recently having had a two meter sword embedded in his fucking chest.

"This is a good sword," the Blademaster says casually, swinging it twice in quick succession before manifesting a fucking magical spectral arm to replace the one he'd lost, and settling into a ready position.

Cor feels faint. He feels what little blood remains inside him sink, to the bottom of his feet. He now understands he cannot win. Not like this. He's lost his only weapon and he's going to die here, unremarkable. Pathetic and forgotten, like every other warrior who has gone down here and not come back up.

And worst of all? Gilgamesh will not even bat an eyelash. This is nothing to him. Cor Leonis is less than nothing. He has lived fifteen years for absolutely fucking nothing.

In another world, this soul-shattering dismay will make him turn tail and run. He will hate himself for it, berate himself for it, and be haunted by his cowardice for years to come-- but he will live to feel it, long enough to come to terms with it, to hold his head up high again, despite it.

In this one, Cor Leonis, barely fifteen years old and with absolutely nothing left to lose, bows his head to his fate. He's shaking with fear and rage and the indignity of not even having made his last opponent sweat, let alone fucking bleed. But if this truly is his end-- if he truly he has to die here-- then he will die with an Astrals-damned sword in his hands.

There are plenty to chose from: this bridge is a veritable graveyard of them. He is one of many, he thinks dully. And soon he will be one of nothing. He reaches out with a faintly trembling hand and grabs another katana. To his half-dissociated mind it feels ridiculously light, like he's holding nothing but air between him and his death.

"You've a true warrior's ken," the Blademaster may have said, but Cor isn't listening anymore.

His eyes are solely on the Genji blade, the sword he inherited from his mother after she became sick, after she became daemonified, after the Royal Guardsmen had finally managed to decapitate the Ronin she had become. How strange it is to remember her now. The Blademaster almost fights as she would have, as she did, and it's like recreating the memory of that day.

He'd seen the 'guards fighting her, all six of them, swarming around her like flashy locusts. He'd never known she was so strong. He'd never admired her, not once, until those minutes before her death. It was only then that he'd understood how incredible she was. And then she was dead.

Gilgamesh, however, does not die.

Cor stabs him with one, two, fucking five different swords, but each and every time he manages it the Blademaster bats him aside like an errant fly and manifests a spectral arm to pull the weapon out like it's a fucking splinter, until he's got six arms, six fucking arms, and each and every one of them has a weapon, and Cor is outnumbered, outmatched, and out of fucking luck.

He's making a high-pitched whining sound by the end of it, crawling on his hands and knees, desperately reaching out for another sword, but he doesn't have the strength to get up anymore. No, not like this. Not like this! Get up! Get up!

Out of the corner of his eye he sees the Blademaster coming, casually walking toward him. No. No! No! Cor screams, feral, hands digging into the dirt, feet scrabbling for purchase, but he's pretty sure he's broke something vital after that last fall because he's not getting anywhere, he's not going anywhere.

No-- No--!

The Blademaster embeds one, two, all six swords around Cor-- but incredibly, none of them pierce him. They're more like a fucked up halo-- or a grave-marker, Cor thinks wildly. Well, fuck him. Fuck him! Cor reaches for the nearest one, he'll grab the damn thing by the blade if he has to, he can't die without a weapon--

And Gilgamesh fucking. Sits on him. Knees on his arms, his armoured backside digging into Cor's thighs, pinning him down. Rendering him immobile.

Cor screams, but the Blademaster is impossibly heavy, and when Cor tries to scream again, he finds that he can't, he can barely get any air in due to the weight pressing against his chest. He swivels his feet, fails to arch his back, flails in place, to no avail-- piece of shit, not like this-- not like this!-- Cor snarls, gnashes his teeth-- he'll bite that fucker if it's the last weapon available to him, he'll-- he'll--

Cor has exhausted himself hyperventilating, vision already splotchy and faint, when he finally understands the Blademaster is not going to do anything more. Indeed, that masked face has been looking down at him quite patiently: those red eyes even blink every now and again, slow and placid-like.

"You've calmed your warrior's frenzy?" the Blademaster asks, as if from a great distance.

Cor stares up a him.

"Ah, good," the Blademaster says. "I feared you'd become deaf."

What...?

The Blademaster adjusts his stance just enough that he's no longer bearing so much weight on Cor, resting on his haunches like he's in a fucked up seiza. Cor almost wants to laugh at it, hysterically, but he's too busy breathing in deep, hoarse breaths, hitching every now and again from the pain. He only now realizes every inch of him is shaking, from fear, adrenaline, and disbelief.

But he's somehow still alive, and Gilgamesh is still fucking sitting on him.

"Did I win?" Cor croaks, stupidly.

"I am very much still alive," the Blademaster responds, calmly, "So I think not."

Cor's head thumps back down onto the earth, dizzy and exhausted. That's it, then. "So what're you waiting for?" he asks, tiredly. "Kill me already."

"Giving up so easily, little Shield?"

Cor's eyes snap wide open, staring agog at the Blademaster. Had he just--?!

"I would call you by your name," Gilgamesh continues mildly, "But I do not know it."

Cor's mouth is so dry. He swallows convulsively. "It's Leonis," he rasps. "Um-- Cor. Leonis."

"You fight admirably, Cor Leonis," the Blademaster says, and doesn't Cor's heart skip a bit to hear that. "I much enjoyed myself."

"Uh," Cor says stupidly, "Thanks. You too."

Gilgamesh laughs softly, low and melodic. Cor is too anemic at this point to blush, but trying sure makes him dizzy. He feels really sick all of a sudden.

"I'm, um-- going to throw up now," Cor whimpers, and only just manages to turn his head aside to puke bile, blood, and what tastes like the bourbon he'd downed right before the fight.

Hands come up to help him-- Gods, Gilgamesh has six fucking hands!-- and he's practically cradled against the Blademaster's side, who is still kneeling patiently like he's got nowhere else to be. One of his hands is even petting his head like Cor's a fucking cat.

Cor pukes two more times, before simply falling limp in the guy's embrace. This is too fucking surreal. Everything hurts. He moans, feeling really, really cold. Wouldn't it be funny if he died now? he thinks, muggily. At least he could go to the afterlife knowing he'd made a goddamn impression...

"You must excuse me if this hurts," the Blademaster is saying. "These powers are not quite my own."

"Whuh--"

Cor suddenly screams. He feels every inch of his body come alive, like someone has injected him with a truckload of adrenaline and then set him on fire. He's seeing red, everything is glowing red, those fucking hands are like vices on him, crushing him, killing him--

"How very presumptuous," someone's voice says clearly, even through Cor's haze of agony, "Truly how often shall my brother sin against me, and I, forgive him?"

"Seventy-seven times, my Liege," a more familiar voice replies.

The pain goes on for ages, Cor thinks, and his shrieks turn into broken wails, cutting, hitched sobs, and he's pleading-- please-- please stop-- please-- Let me die--

"And we are four from four-score," whispers that first voice--

And then it's over.

Cor curls in on himself, shaking, mute from the memory of it. What the hell was that? What the hell...? But he's no longer in any pain, he realizes. And he's curling in on himself because he can actually move.

That kinda jostles him out of his funk. He scrambles-- those giant hands-- six of them! There are six fucking hands!!-- let him go when he pushes against them, so he's suddenly on his butt, on the dirt floor, staring up at the Blademaster's silver mask and his red eyes, and his spectral hands, Cor realizes, are fading, until he only has the one arm left.

And he's still sitting down in seiza, calm as you please.

"What was that," Cor says, dumbfounded.

"The magic of my Liege," the Blademaster says, quietly.

"Uh." Cor processes that. He remembers, now, Clarus mentioning that the Blademaster of the ancient Amicitia Training Grounds was the original Shield to the-- "The Founder King?!" he squeaks, scrambling to his feet. "That was the Founder King?!"

Despite being well over three meters tall, sitting down like this, Gilgamesh is just about level with Cor's eyes. He seems very vulnerable, suddenly. Surmountable. Like Cor could easily behead him at this height.

"The founder of my sorrows," Gilgamesh corrects, softly, and then stands up.

Cor steps back warily, all at once unsure if the fight will still keep going. He glances behind him, at the grave-marker of swords Gilgamesh made over him, and quickly lunges for his Genji blade. He snatches it and readies it, ready for anything.

The Blademaster does not follow.

"Peace, Cor Leonis," he says. "You have completed this trial."

"I lost, though," Cor says, dumbly.

"If that is what you take from this, then perhaps you did," the Blademaster says, and Cor feels like a fucking moron for opening his goddamn mouth. "Regardless, you have proven your strength and fortitude of character. What tempering remains will occur over time, as you are young yet, and have room to grow."

Basically, you're still a punk-ass kid, Leonis. Shit. He hunches in his shoulders, feeling stupid and young and frustrated.

"Let me try again," Cor says, impulsively.

The Blademaster has the gall to laugh, lowly. "I think not," he says mildly. "I tire of this, and your Liege is quite tired of waiting, too."

"My Liege--?" Wait, what--?

A BOOM and part of the cave wall has torn open. "It's about bloody fucking time!"

Cor stares, gobsmacked, at Regis fucking Lucis Caelum, who is glowing blue and furious and has a whole bunch of swords swirling around him, and is literally floating--

"Regs, what the hell!" Cor yelps. "What are you doing here?!"

"I'm here to save you!" Regis says, like it's obvious. "Where is that knave!"

Clarus bursts out of the debris looking haggard and apoplectic. "Don't fucking charge in without me, how many times--" his enormous claymore pauses mid-swing. "Cor! Oh, thank the Gods you're alive!"

Cor turns bright red with a mix of emotions, all too jumbled up to name. He whips his head back behind him, just in case the Blademaster's gonna attack-- but the guy's gone. There's no one on the bridge.

"No--" Cor gasps.

"He's gone," Regis confirms, powering down, looking all of a sudden droopy, like he does after edging Stasis. "Thank the Astrals. Are you all right--?"

"Fuck you guys!" Cor howls. "I had him!"

"Now see here, young man--" Regis starts.

"--I'm going to have your guts for garters," Clarus interrupts with a growl. "You dumb little shit! We nearly had a heart attack, finding you gone!"

"I had him on the ropes!" Cor insists. "I fucking stabbed him five fucking times and cut off his arm! I had him!"

"I'm sure it was all very impressive," Regis says, patting him down like Weskham does when checking for injuries, "but I really must impress upon you the severity of your actions--"

"But--" Cor says, desperate. "But I had to--"

"Had to what!" Clarus roars. "Kill yourself?!"

"Prove myself worthy!" Cor screams.

"Oh, my dear," Regis says, and Cor hates that, hates that he evokes sounds of pity every time he tries to be impressive, like he's just a pathetic little boy instead of a Gods-damned veteran, and he's not going to cry, not over something like this, but it's a near damn thing.

"I'm going to kick your ass," Clarus says, lowly, "six ways to Sunday--"

"Peace, Clarus," Regis says, tiredly, patting Cor's shoulder now that he's confirmed he is unharmed. "Let's just. Away from this place." He glances around, uncomfortably. "We are not welcome here, I think."

Clarus reaches out to squeeze the nape of Cor's neck with one large hand while Regis softly squeezes his arm and then they're force marching him out like that, like he's a misbehaving puppy-- he winces at the thought, feeling stupid and worthless and not at all like he'd won anything but the knowledge that he'd lived only because he was spared.

"Do you need curatives?" Regis asks, worriedly.

"No," Cor mutters. "The Blademaster healed me."

Clarus jerks, at that. "He healed you?"

"Said it was the magic of his King or something," Cor mumbles.

Clarus stops dead, as does Regis. Cor almost stumbles from it.

"The Blademaster has never been known to spare anyone, let alone heal them," Clarus says, agog. "Like. Ever."

Cor feels a little warm, hearing that, and also a little lame. Like, he was so fucking pathetic even the badass Blademaster took pity on him. Astrals.

"That must have been one very old potion," Regis says, nose curling in distaste. "Two thousand years old... not even wine could still be viable--"

"It wasn't a potion," Cor mutters. "It was, like. Actual magic, from the actual King. I heard him talk to Gilgamesh, something about it being presumptuous. And something like, 'how often shall I forgive my brother for sinning against me.'" Cor's developed a good memory for archaic words, thanks to King Mors' preference for it, so he's confident he got it right.

"The Founder King had no brothers, to my knowledge," Regis says, slowly. "And, besides, his spirit can only commune through my father's Ring. Though, I suppose... a shade, like his sword in my Armiger...?" He quiets to mumbles, like he usually does when he's working out something to himself. It's usually endearing, but right now it just makes Cor annoyed.

"I know what I heard," he grouches. "And I know what I felt. That wasn't a fucking potion, Regs. That was like, Oracle level healing." He graces a hand over his body, his ragged, blood-soaked clothes evidence of the abuse he'd suffered. "Shit... I was really messed up... I, uh... probably should'a died, huh."

Clarus squeezes the nape of his neck tightly and shakes him a little. "Maybe you got knocked around so hard you hallucinated those in the Beyond," Clarus jokes, in the way he does when he's trying to avoid resorting to violence. "Astrals know I've heard the voice of my Lord Father bitching at me enough times in that manner."

"Yeah, maybe," Cor says, still kinda processing the fact that his clothes are downright stiff from blood-- his own fucking blood, liters of it, to drench him like this!-- and, geez, the many places its been torn, marking all the places he was once wounded. He should be confetti, he thinks, a little amazed at his own resilience. "Probably," he relents. "I mean, otherwise the Blademaster really did pet my hair, and that was fucking wild."

Clarus chokes.

"He did what--" Regis' voice reaches up an octave.

"Like a fuckin' kitten," Cor grumbles. "He sat on me, first. So I'd stop fighting. Said I had to calm my 'warrior's frenzy'." He perks up a little at the memory. "He did say I fought admirably, though. Gave him a good fight, said he enjoyed it. Asked my name and everything."

Clarus continues to make dying noises.

"You know, my dear, you really should take this potion," Regis says, pressing a flask into his hand. "Just in case you're suffering, ah, internal injury."

Cor frowns. "You thinkin' my brain's bleeding or somethin'?"

"Or something," Clarus says. "Take the goddamn potion, Leonis."

"Yes, sir," Cor grumbles.

[secret-engima]

I just want to say I adore all your AUs and now you have a transformer Regalia and I. I love it. The Regalia IS family and IS part of the team, and reading that snippet of her was just soothing to my very soul. (Especially cause I just recently rebeat the game and was having Feels). I am forever amazed at how you come up with such rich and perfect AUs.

Thank you, that’s really sweet hgfd! I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks transformer Regalia is a super cool AU. She is totally family. And this (like ... I think all but one of my FFXV’s) is a happy Fixit. Because like pit is she gonna let some prophecy kill her sparkling.

Also can you picture how she and the Chocobros 1.0 met? Because it was great. Here lemme-

-Regis got her when he was like- a teenager? A teenager who really wanted a car of his own, more than that, wanted to PICK his own car rather than have his father just gift him one.

-ANYWAY circumstances and Luck being what they are, Regalia had just crash-landed on Earth and smuggled her way into Insomnia desperately looking for somewhere to rest, her systems damaged from the fight she’d gotten into before coming here. She had to disguise herself, so she scanned a vehicle mode (a custom classic that was sitting pretty in an expensive lot) and transformed.

-Only realized her mistake after she had transformed and passed out for a few hours. Her damages were around her T-Cog area and she had made them worse by transforming.

-She was STUCK in her car form.

-While trying to figure out what the frag she was going to do, because there are no proper cybertronian medics on this planet, Regis comes to the fancy lot of fancy cars looking for one of his own, a long-suffering Clarus and vaguely exasperated Weskham behind him because this is the tenth lot and Regis still hasn’t found one he liked yet.

-Then Regis finds her.

-He doesn’t know what she is yet, but he ... lingers. Places a hand on her hood and they can both feel the tingle of connection between them the little place where magic meets spark (Regalia almost jolts, because this organic has a SPARK, a spark and spark bonds between him and the two following him, Regis gasps softly, feeling life, ancient and quiet and afraid humming through the metal beneath his fingers as sure as a heartbeat).

-Regis buys her. Doesn’t even bother to take her on a test drive. She’s the one he wants, and after she’s been safely stashed in a private corner of the royal garage, Regis ignores Clarus’s and Weskham’s alarmed looks to gently run a hand over her steering wheel and murmur, “I’m sorry I bought you like an object. But I didn’t know how else to get you out of there.” He pauses and Regalia inwardly trembles (this organic knows he knows he knows what will he do to her she is TRAPPED in this garage without her root form-). His magic reaches out and shyly brushes against her spark energy, like a youngling not sure if he’s doing the right thing, “Are you okay? Can you talk?”

-Clarus opens his mouth to ask WHAT IN THE WORLD Regis is doing when Regalia sighs and says, “...I can.”

-Clarus and Weskham freak the flip out, Regis presses the button to lock the doors to keep them from running straight to security and Regalia obediently locks her doors more out of surprise than anything else. Once getting his two friends to calm down for fifty seconds, Regis turns back to her and smiles shakily at her steering wheel, “I thought so. May I ... ask what you are? I’ve never felt a car with magic before.”

-Regalia doesn't have anywhere to go, or anyway of taking care of herself, trapped in vehicle mode as she is so she ... tells him. Bits and pieces. Cybertron’s fall, running for vorns and vorns, the fight that damaged her systems, crashing here and being stuck. Clarus is incredibly skeptical and alarmed (ALIEN??? ALIEN CAR???????? He’s not sure if that’s worse than thinking this is a prank or some kind of Nif trap-).

-Regis, being the guy he is, immediately promises to help her and take care of her however he can. He offers to let the royal mechanics look at her, see if they could fix her systems, but she turns him down. She doesn’t want anyone but these three to know about her and she still hopes her auto repair system will fix the damage for her.

-In exchange for secrecy and fuel, Regalia easily agrees to be Regis’s “car” and drive him (or let herself be driven) wherever he wants to go. Weskham usually ends up playing driver for this, and while Regis is chill with this idea of a living car because he can FEEL her spark and knows she’s a good soul, the other two take a while to warm up to her.

-Her doing crazy driving stunts to save Regis from that assassination attempt a few months later finally cements her place in the list of “okay people”.

-Regis is happy to tell her about Eos, and Clarus is fascinated when he realizes she can use a holoform to interact with them on a more face to face level (and spar, Regalia is a master swords-femme and not afraid to give the Shield tips). Regalia is ... not exactly happy being the only cybertronian on Eos and being stuck in vehicle mode, but she loves these three teenage organic idiots and is happy to be part of their group.

-Then the road trip happens and Regis and co run afoul of some distressed and giant wildlife that flip Regalia over and damage her enough she can’t make her engine run (Regis FREAKS out over the thought of her being crippled or maybe dying but she assures him that this, at least, is something a mechanic can repair and no she isn’t dying, just in a lot of pain).

-They push her to Hammerhead and Regis hovers like a mother hen in the garage until Cid kicks him out, not understanding why this rich boy is making quiet soothing noises at his car like its a skittish cat.

-Cid hoists her up on that ... platform thing mechanics use (sorry to all mechanics reading this I’m blanking on the term) and begins his work repairing her. She really is a beaut, he thinks to himself as fixes damaged things and marvels that her metal and glass are undented and unbroken despite everything. Stupid idiot needed to take better care of a car like this.

-Cid moves from specific repairs to a more general look over, because when he tried her engine she sounded ... off. Not wrong, but not like the engine this model should have.

-He crawls around under her chases and finds what looks like OLD damage. burns and scars and twisted seams and REALLY, Pretty Boy should have gotten her into a mechanic YEARS ago what has he been doing forcing such a lovely lady as this to drive around with damage this nasty?

-He starts pulling things back into place and replacing things on pure intuition, pauses when he swears the car shudders away from his touch and finds himself making mindless soothing noises just like Pretty Boy as he works and metal creaks in something dangerously akin to pain the deeper he goes to repair years old damage.

-He forces the last thing back into its proper spot and will never admit to a girlish screech of surprise when the car above him suddenly shifts and blurs in a whirl of gears and metal until there’s a robot with feminine features staring down at him in shock, her arms and knees braced to keep from falling on him.

-She stares, Cid stares and clutches his chest with one hand while the other holds his wrench above him like a sword.

-Pretty Boy and his group runs in and Pretty Boy gasps, “Regalia! You’re FIXED! Wow you’re tall, I didn’t realize your root form was this tall.”

-The robot blinks at Cid, slowly and carefully sits up to hunch in his garage on her heels, “That ... I have no idea how you did that. I thought it would take a registered cybertronian medic to fix my T-Cog. Thank you.” And there’s actual emotions in that voice, actual, trembling gratitude like someone about to cry from a sudden lack of pain and Cid is just-

-What.

-What is going on.

-The Pretty Boy (Prince Regis) explains things and Cid has to break out the liquor because ALIEN CAR. ALIEN LADY CAR.

-He’d had his hands all up in the innards of an ACTUAL FEMALE PERSON and he is decidedly NOT thinking about that thank you.

-Curse it. Curse it he’s spent the last five hours doing the equivalent of open surgery without anesthetic no WONDER the car kept flinching away from his tools and the metal kept groaning in pain-.

-The oil he scrubs angrily off his hands while listening to the explanation (and somehow finding himself BELIEVING IT) suddenly feels too much like blood, even if Regalia (the ALIEN LADY CAR) tries to reassure him that her actual blood wasn’t oil but something called energon that she had managed to refine from fuel and sunlight.

-Cid ends up going with them because 1. who else gets to say they met and traveled with an alien car and a prince, and 2. curse it all these four are heading right into a war zone and potions won’t work on something mechanical. Even if she’s alive (which he believes, he does, even if he can’t pinpoint why) and the way things are looking they’re going to NEED a medic for Regalia.

-Regalia and Cid become two of a kind, she teaches him everything she knows about mechanical work and he mother-hens her whenever they get out of a fight and the two of them team up to keep the other three (and later Cor) in one piece.

-Cor is the last to meet Regalia. Does not understand why the four TALK TO THE CAR like it will actually respond or have an option or why Cid yells at Cor for scratching its paint like he just wounded an actual person until one day he picks a fight with something too big to handle (probably a Behemoth) and Regalia transforms and kills it with one expert strike of her sword, then looms over him and snarls, “Cor Leonis of the city-state of Insomnia of the planet Eos WHAT WERE YOU THINKING!?” And Cor’s hindbrain goes “oh.”