#v-general

For years he had searched for the baby brother that had been stolen from the labs by the Lucians. Now Loqi finally heard the news that the search was over, though managed to intercept such a message long before it could reach Verstael, and redirected his capture to his own base.

For a moment he held his breath when Prompto was brought to him, though he immediately waved the MT’s off, and released the younger blonde from his restraints moments later, though took a moment to grab his wrist just to see the barcode with his own eyes. 

“I don’t appreciate what you and your friends what you and your friends did to me on the battlefield, and as distrustful as I’m sure you are of me right now I don’t have any plans to hurt you or turn you in for that matter.” 

He was still quite sore from that fight, and had lost count of how many days he had spent in recover both in and out of the ICU. The scars would surely remain for some time, but at least they were hidden under his armor. 

“Don’t shoot.”

The General spoke calmly as he stared at the other blonde, keeping a few feet between them in hopes to show at at this very moment he meant no harm.

“I’m alone and unarmed, and as you can see still healing.”

His recovery from the battle with Cor, Noctis, and the others had been a few weeks ago. While there were no obvious scars, one of his arms was in a sling, and since he had not been declared fit enough to return to active combat duty he was out of uniform as well. Stumbling upon Prompto had just been mere chance...

Maintenance time was supposed to when he was undisturbed, for the General took great pride in making sure that his mech was in both perfect conditions, and upgraded regularly whenever the engineering department had a breakthrough that had been properly tested. 

Long having gotten used to the spinal implants he unwillingly received as a child he often decided to plug himself into his mech and keep it in low power mode while working, that way he could be certain any fine-tuning was done properly. However, his focus broke the moment he spotted a silver-haired individual strolling about like a lost child.

       He was perplexed, not expecting the General of the Niflheim empire to stand up to him. In fact, he highly believed that he was a puny issue in front of him that he could erase if he wanted to. But the truth was out, Prompto knew who he was, where he’d come from, but didn’t want to accept none of it.

      Not that he wanted to make an enemy out of Loqi, on the contrary, he’d prefer that they didn’t have bad blood. Thus why Prompto couldn’t muster any words at first.  Then again, he was siding with Noctis and nothing could change that. Which was why he didn’t understand why the General was coming to aid him.

      “Why…?” he could simply ask, though with a hint of hesitance in his voice. He didn’t wish to go against him in any matter or any choice he made. But the feeling of astonishment mingled with uncertainty from the other’s display of solicitude caused him to question such action.

“Unit 05953234 am I right?” Loqi questioned softly, eyeing the younger blonde’s wrist for a moment, but didn’t snatch it just to prove what he already knew. Surely this had to be the escaped clone he had heard about, the only flesh and blood brother that he knew of...

“I’ve been looking for you for a while.”

Rolling up his own sleeve he shamelessly showed Prompto the numbers that were tattoed on his own wrist it what was undeniably the same ink.

When his phone rang Loqi was currently fine-tuning his latest mech that had been issued to him, for it was still a prototype model. Since he was out of uniform and no one else was around for the time being the young soldier saw no problem in answering Prompto’s video call, smiling when he saw the seemingly happy teenager.

“Hey, there little brother. How’s high school treating you?”

It hadn’t been anything specific that finally made him snap. Anyone that knew him well enough could say that just catching a glimpse of his father would make his blood boil, but even fewer knew just how deep that hatred and rage really was. Really it was an ordinary conversation between the two of them as they bickered back and forth. As always Verstael looked down on him as no more than a failed experiment that was wasting the Empire’s resources with each defeat he brought upon himself.

Normally Loqi would bitterly defend himself to the end, but instead something inside him just finally snapped. First it was a bullet to Verstael’s good leg to bring him to his kness, but in his few moments of blind rage the General had drawn his sword and stabbed the mad scientist even long after there was any signs of life left. Catching his breath as he returned to his senses the realization of what he had just done started to sink in, yet he couldn’t find a single bit of remorse or regret at his actions. Instead he could only chuckle as he yanked out his bloody sword and wondered why it had taken him until now to finally put down his abuser.

Turning away from the corpse only when the door to the lab opened behind him he wasted no time lifting his blade in warning, not caring who it was that dared to stumble upon the scene.

Somehow he wasn’t all that surprised when the Doctor told him that the wounds he suffered from the daemon attack on the lab had become infected with the scourge. While he wasn’t in any immediate danger of dying, Loqi knew of only one person that could help him. 

Insomnia had fallen, yet the Prince and those that remained loyal to him kept pressing forward. His personal defeat had landed him in the ICU for a short amount of time, but with his wounds healed and his strength regained after physical therapy the young General was back and kicking with a vengeance. 

“General Tummelt, returning from medical leave and awaiting new orders.”