#i love the show and Prompto reminds me a lot of ben ok?

[freevoidman]

④ DAY 4 (10/22): Alternate Universe ★ Fears/Insecurities

For some reason, daemon activity has been on the rise in Insomnia, despite the walls standing as strong as ever. The city’s falling into panic, and on top of all of that, there are completely new daemons that are fighting for dominance in the city. The only thing Lucian scientists can conclude is that they’re spawning from a similar area, given that all eye witness reports claimed to see a green hourglass symbol somewhere on their bodies.

Meanwhile, Prompto has a new accessory: a large, clunky watch that doesn’t tell time.

((Look y’all I have no idea where this AU came from but it’s my brain child and I love it and I might continue it after Prompto Week bc I am a self-indulgent piece of trash))

Ignis sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose as he looked at the scene in front of him. “What number is this?”

“Nine. We’re nearly at double digits.” Gladio nudged him, holding out a can of Ebony. “I probably shouldn’t be feeding your addiction, but I think after this many early morning wake-up calls I might have to get a can for myself.”

Ignis took the drink and quickly opened it, taking a long gulp. He surveyed the ripped streets, the jagged crystals jutting out of the ground, the overturned cars and, of course, the daemon’s blood, only just beginning to evaporate in the early dawn light. “I doubt the cleanup will be anything but pleasant.”

“Sure won’t be like that green goop stuff from a couple weeks ago.” Gladio made a disgusted noise in the back of his throat and slapped Ignis on the back. “C’mon. Cor’ll kill us if he sees us slacking.”

Ignis quickly downed the rest of his Ebony, surveyed where workers hadn’t started, and picked up a hammer and chisel.

It was time to get to work.

~*^*~

His homework (somewhat) completed, Prompto grabbed an energy drink from his fridge and took a few sips as he looked out the window. He put it down on the small table next to him, besides his camera, and examined the watch on his wrist.

Today would mark the beginning of week three since he found the stupid thing. It had been left in an alley, faintly glowing green, and he’d seen it on the walk back from his job. He’d gone to pick it up, like an idiot, and it had leapt from the ground, like an excited puppy, to clamp onto his wrist. No matter what he did, it wouldn’t come off, and he wasn’t about to cut off his arm to do so. More importantly, the stupid thing couldn’t even tell him the time!

And then he discovered what the watch could actually do.

He opened the window, peering at the street below. So far, no one was outside—which was expected with the mandated curfew given the rise in daemon activity and the mysterious creature killing them. Pulling back, he tapped the watch’s face, the green and black disc popping up into a cylinder. The green hourglass symbol shifted into a diamond, and a silhouette appeared in the center.

Prompto scoffed. “I am not becoming Antman again.” He twisted the face dial, the silhouette changing into different forms, one after another, each one being changed as Prompto considered them, only to move on. Finally, he nodded, and very lightly placed his hand on top of the dial. “Please don’t mess up, please don’t mess up, please don’t mess up…”

He pressed the dial down, and his apartment was filled with green light.

When it faded, Prompto was gone. In his place was a bipedal creature with sleek blue, black, and white scales. His body was lean, with a long, reptilian tail coming from his back. His feet ended with jet black spheres, and his fingers had fused into three claws. His head was angular, an x-shaped visor covering its eyes and mouth. With a hiss, the visor slid back, exposing narrowed sky-blue eyes. Prompto looked down at his body, examining the hourglass symbol badge on its chest.

“Alright, looks like I got the right one.” Prompto’s voice had become somewhat raspy and higher pitched, noticeably different from his normal tone. He carefully went back to the window, claws clicking against the windowsill. “Now the hard part.”

The creature backed away a few feet, sizing up the available gap, before darting forward faster than any human could. At the last possible second, it leaped, diving through the gap and tucking and rolling before hitting the ground. Not wasting a second, the creature took off down the street, the air around it rippling and buffeting the buildings.

Prompto grinned beneath his visor, darting down the streets and weaving around, performing a few tricks as he went. Velos was always a fun form to take, mainly due to the fact that the high speed and traction allowed him to run laps around Insomnia, if he wanted.

However, tonight, he wanted to be Velos because of the increased security. Last night’s patrol had left a sizable amount of damage to the streets, as Terra was bound to do. Turns out he could create more, similarly colored and shaped rocks so long as he had contact with the earth!

He winced as he darted past the torn up road and stabbed buildings that he’d hit dealing with a bunch of Arachnes. He did feel guilty about it, but he couldn’t really do much about it now, not without creating more, unintentional damage as a result.

Moving on, he dashed into the northern neighborhoods, keeping as close an eye as he could on the smaller gaps between the apartment complexes. Satisfied with the lack of any daemonic activities, he moved southwest, making a very complex, maze-like path around the city.

Tonight he’d simply do a short patrol. The watch would change him back sooner rather than later, but he should have enough time to do a quick sweep through. The Kingsglaive were probably actively patrolling, because of him or the daemons or both he didn’t know, but it would certainly make the rest of Insomnia feel better.

Western neighborhoods secure, Prompto moved to the southern end of the city, then to the east once he was satisfied at the lack of any daemons. Deciding to vary his path a slight amount, Prompto found a lowered fire escape ladder and took the stairs at a much slower, much more annoying pace. Velos was the fastest thing alive so long as he wasn’t going up a ladder and trying to keep quiet enough to not wake up anyone staying in the apartments.

Reaching the roof, Prompto sighed and looked over the barely-tall-enough skyline. So far, the night had been pretty easy going and, frankly, he was surprised! Typically he’d run into at least one nasty daemon encounter or another before retiring for the night. Maybe they’d finally screwed off and given him a break.

A distant scream came from far down the street, almost far away enough that Prompto barely heard it.

He sighed. Never could get an easy night, huh?

Racing across the rooftops, Prompto headed towards the scream, paying attention to the roads below. He slowed considerably when he couldn’t hear or see any daemon activity, and stopped completely on top of Nouveau Records, a store he frequented for movies and music. As far as he could see, there weren’t any daemons, so what—

“Keep his mouth covered! Do you want to have the Crownsguard finding out about this?” Prompto paused, then walked to the edge of the roof and looked down. Beneath him were four people dressed in all black wearing ski masks, keeping their identities a secret. One was standing guard at the entrance of the alley. A second was hanging back further in the alley, a gun in hand. The third and fourth were working in tandem, with one pinning their victim against the brick wall and the other looking through his bag.

Now this was a bit more uncommon. With the curfew in effect, as well as the known increase of daemon activity and patrolling guards, there hadn’t been a lot of robberies or just… crime in general. Insomnia had become safer with Prompto running as a monster, in a weird, paradoxical way.

Still, he wasn’t opposed to stopping a robbery. With a smirk, Prompto ran down the side of the building, rapidly circling the one hanging back and creating a small tornado before darting towards the one holding the victim to the wall. He slammed into him, throwing him into the guard and knocking both of them to the sidewalk.

The fourth robber yelled, and Prompto just had enough time to turn and see the glint of silver before his clawed hand stabbed into the robber’s arm. He let out a scream, holding the wound and dropping the switchblade he’d intended to use. Hearing the screams of the first man he attacked getting louder, he picked up Mister Switchblade and threw him into his buddy before he could hit the ground, both of them flying back into the alley.

“What the fuck is that thing!” Shouted one of the robbers currently outside the alley. Not wanting them to escape scot-free, Prompto grabbed both of them and threw them back into the alley into their friends. As a last hurrah, he grabbed the cell phones from their pockets, keeping the only flip phone (thank the Gods for that) before grabbing a dumpster and blocking them in, cutting the wheels from the bottom with the spheres at the end of his feet.

Satisfied with his vigilantism, Prompto opened the flip phone and dialed the emergency hotline, tapping his foot in impatience when he wasn’t immediately answered. “Hello this is Insomnian Emergency Hotline, how many I help you?”

“Hi, yes, I’d like to report a robbery at…” He dashed to the street, narrowing his eyes at the street sign. “The corner of seventy-sixth street and Lexington. They’re in the alley between Nouveau Records and Lectio’s Books, behind a dumpster.”

“A… dumpster, sir?”

“Yep, at the back of the alley. Thank you!” Flipping the phone closed, he tossed it into the street, uncaring if it broke or was run over. Darting back into the alley, Prompto picked up the bag and any discarded money or somewhat-clean items and put it in the bag, turning to the guy still pressed against the wall. “Here you… go…”

Noctis’ wide, terrified eyes stared back at him, the grip on his short sword trembling as the awkward silence settled between them.