"Any progress?" Ignis asked. He had sought out the mechanic because he had grown rather tired of playing King's Knight, Monica and Iris refused to let him do the cooking,—"This is our house and you're a guest. Relax."— and, he and the others were all but stir crazy at this point. Well except Noctis, who preferred to sleep whenever things grew too claustrophobic.

"Like I told Noctis an hour ago, I can't do anything until the parts arrive, and I don't know when that will be because the damn empire taking over the Crown City throws a huge wrench into any plans of getting the parts I need without exposing us all!" Cid said.

"Odd, I could have sworn Noctis said he was off to take a nap," Ignis said.

"That might have been code for driving me nuts!" Cid said.

"I apologize if I—."

"Don't. It's just the stress of all this getting to me. Reggie's death, the whole mess with the gods and everything, and the fact we can't reach Altissia until those Gods-dammed parts arrive, if they ever arrive….It's just a lot to deal with," Cid said, "Why don't y'all go and find some bounties to keep you outta my hair while I'm doing what repairs I can?"

"I'll make the suggestion to the others, but I'm sure they'll leap at the chance to do something. Well, most of them." Ignis nodded.

"I'll give y'all a holler when things are ready to go," Cid said.

"Thank you," Ignis said, "Let us know if there's anything we can find while we're out."

"Will do. Keep safe now, ya hear?"

"Loud and clear."

"Hunting huh? I guess we don't have anything else to do," Noctis said.

"Plus, some extra gil to line our pockets with might be a good idea," Gladio said.

"But, I liked not having to go kill stuff," Prompto said.

"It will also lessen the stress everyone in the house has because without us here, taking up space, they won't have to work around us," Ignis said.

"You heard him. So, where to first?" Noctis stood and crossed his arms.

"I believe it's time we paid Meldacio Hunter HQ a visit," Ignis said.

"Hey, if it isn't my favorite freelancers," Dave said. The group looked only slightly out of place amongst the similarly garbed hunters and huntresses. Though, the dark clothes were still a commonality.

"Hey, have any leads for us on royal arms or any interesting bounties?" Noctis said in a low tone.

"Afraid I have nothing for the first one, but I do have a mighty interesting hunt that's already claimed two of my hunters. It's in the Kettier Highlands just south of Foucciaugh Caverns. A strange sinkhole is said to have opened up and children from nearby settlements are vanishing into the night. I'd sent a hunter to scout it out but they never came back. The hunter I sent to retrieve those tags also never came back, so if y'all could find out what's going on and get those tags, I'd appreciate it." Dave rubbed his face, especially his eyes.

"We'll do it," Noctis said without hesitating, "You can count on us to find out what happened to those hunters and those children."

"Thank you. One last thing, the sink hole only appears after sunset, so you'll have to brave it in the dark." Dave marked their map and handed them the bounty card. After Dave had walked away, Prompto looked at Noctis,

"Dude! How could you just sign up for a hunt that's claimed TWO hunters already and in a dark creepy cave!"

"We've taken on stuff that's taken out hunters before, we'll be fine," Gladio said.

"Except when we're not! It steals kids! This is not the kind of thing you deal with because kid stealing monsters turn the kids into other monsters and make them their minions and those kids are forever trapped as monsters serving a master they can't escape from!" Though delivered in his usual over the top style, there was an undercurrent of near hysteria and fear.

"We'll be ok, Prompto," Noctis said, "No one's going to turn any kids into monsters here or anywhere." Prompto let out a nervous laugh, gripping his barcode.

"Sorry I freaked out."

"Better you do it here and not in the field because we're going," Gladio said.

"Not to fear, so long as we prepare, we shall be in adequate shape for this adventure," Ignis said, "And the reward listed for this bounty is quite substantial. I expect we'll only need to take on a few mundane hunts to bolster our funds adequately."

"Well, let's get moving," Noctis said.

It was nearly nightfall whenever Ignis pulled the Regalia off the road. Gladio and Noctis helped obscure the distinctive vehicle from view with some brush and other bits of plant. No need to alert the Imperials to their location and have a lovely ambush of MT's waiting for them whenever they emerged.

"Everyone ready?" Noctis asked. He was looking at Prompto who nodded.

"Forward the Light Brigade!"

"Not the best thing to be quoting," Gladio said.

"I'm surprised you even quoted it in the first place," Noctis said.

"You don't remember that annoying unit from high school focused on that stupid poem?" Prompto said.

"I do but I put it out of my head as soon as I didn't need it," Noctis said.

"That explains a lot," Gladio said. Noctis rolled his eyes as they heard the ground rumble. The sinkhole appeared as promised.

"Abandon all hope, ye who enter here," Noctis looked over at Gladio. "Sorry, had to."

It seemed fairly standard for the creepy dungeons they'd been in before. Dank, dark, and filled to the brim with nasties. Imps mostly and aracneas with the occasional yojimo and ronins. The imps were in abundance, though. Like freakish abundance.

Maybe Prompto was right. Noctis shook his head whenever the light of his flashlight glinted off metal on the floor. Tags. Two sets of them. Well, they had part one of their mission done. Funnily enough, there were also two sets of clothes left behind.

Did they strip before they were killed? Noctis tucked the tags into subspace and that's when he heard it. Crying. Children were close and they were screaming.

"I hear it too," Ignis said.

"Me three!" Prompto said nervously summoning his guns.

"Well, let's put this sick bastard out of its misery," Gladio said. The ground shook and cracked sending Noctis plummeting to the depths below.

"Noct!" Ignis yelled.

Noctis landed badly, and was dazed. He tried to summon a potion from subspace but something prevented him. He couldn't move and something was looming over him. Oh, shit. It spoke to him in garbled daemon tongue,

"You not fit, but that can fix!"

"Noct!" Ignis yelled again. This was bad. Without much preamble, Gladio leapt into the hole after their King forcing Ignis and Prompto to share a look and join him. Ignis tucked and rolled the instant before impact lessening the jarring he received. Gladio, already upright caught Prompto and set him down. Their lights didn't show any sign of Noctis. Well that wasn't entirely true. Noctis's clothes were on the ground.

"Any chance Noctis decided to be a nudist?" Prompto said.

"About the same chance as getting him to eat vegetables without coercion," Ignis said. He stored the clothes in subspace. "But he is still very much alive no matter his current attire or we'd have lost out ability to subspace items upon his death."

"So, he's alive for now, but we had better hurry," Gladio said. The sobbing grew worse as they progressed down the corridor. Gladio burst into an open cavern and in the center was what was best described as a litch. Different than Psychomancers and Necromancers, this was bigger and it had legs which dangled as it floated. It was wreathed in black smoke and wore flowing tatters of blackest cloth. The bones were a charred black that absorbed light it would appear.

"You won't get back. You not take them. They mine. They always mine! They Mine forever!"

"Gladio, what did it say?" Prompto asked.

"Why are you asking me?" Gladio said.

"Because you knew what Snake Lady was saying whenever we faced her." Prompto gestured at the litch again.

"It is saying that a "them" is theirs and we're not going to take them," Gladio said after a moment, "Ignis, a plan?"

"I say we freeze it out!" Ignis threw a spell sphere at the litch causing it to shriek. Prompto nodded before he switched to his ice imbued gun and took a position to lay down cover fire. Gladio knew none of his weapons where enchanted like that, but generally speaking, nothing stood up to a great sword for long unless it was some sort of gelatinous monstrosity. Gladio felt like he made progress when he heard a snap that heralded the breaking off a limb. An arm fell to the ground and turned to dust. The creature blocked one of his blows and sent him flying into Ignis. Prompto yelled something and leapt at the litch with the circular chainsaw and it was smoking. Prompto made it shoot fire and the force of the explosion made the litch shriek even more loudly than the ice had and it was still on fire from Prompto's assault. Ignis nodded and pulled out a particular sphere.

"Is that a firaga?" Gladio asked. Ignis nodded.

"Noctis was saving it for a rainy day," Ignis said.

"Well it's storming like a bitch!" Gladio said. Ignis threw the orb and that was all that was needed to fully subdue the litch once and for all.

"I want save them! Keep them safe forever!" Gladio shook his head and the sobs had quieted to whimpers. The next cave over, the one the litch had guarded, contained filthy children wearing out of date raggedy clothing. These clothes were fashionable whenever Gladio's grandfather had been a child.

"Alright, stay with us and we'll get all of you out of here," Prompto said jabbing a thumb at his chest.

"We'll keep you safe from any nasties we might encounter but only if you stay together. I'll be brining up the rear and Iggy, that's the guy with the glasses, will be leading you out. Prompto, that's the little guy who spoke first, will be in the middle with you," Gladio said.

"Who're you?" a kid asked.

"I'm Gladio," Gladio said.

"There are three extra kids here," Ignis said as he counted the children who were still huddled together outside in the pre-dawn light. It was too light for the flashlights but too dim to make much out about the children they'd saved.

"Perhaps three of 'em didn't have folks to report them missing," Gladio said. Ignis double counted and kept confirming eleven heads instead of the expected eight! Not to mention no sign of Noctis in the caves.

"Or, they were adults," Prompto said in a high pitched stressed voice. The light of dawn was finally bright enough to see by and,

"Noct?" Ignis said. A small child stared up at him eyes wide with fear and no trace of recognition to be found. He knew those eyes and knew that face, even as a child. Noctis.

"We are in serious trouble," Gladio said.

MP: This idea came from the fact that I adore the Platinum Demo and how adorable 8-Y-O Noctis is.

Also, there is a Once Upon a Time quote in this chapter.
Any references to other TV shows and pop culture is likely intentional.

This work is cross-posted on AO3. I will be doing a rapid set of updates to catch the posting on this site up to where the AO3 posting is currently.