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When the smoke from the magic disappears and Gladio can see again, he’s tiny, like an ant. An actual, literal ant. He looks up at the (now distressingly large) monster that did this to him, finds himself staring into its open mouth like it’s going to eat him. He’s pretty sure it’d be as satisfying as a fun-size candy bar, which is to say there’d be nothing fun about it for the monster or for him.
He’s had to put up with a lot of shit on this road trip, but this absolutely takes the cake. When the monster bends down close enough, he swipes at its gums just to make himself feel better.
His sword gets stuck. Of course it gets stuck.
The monster at least seems to be feeling the pain, backing away and shaking its head violently. Gladio’s thrown clear of danger, and flies smack into something soft and pillowy and freckled. Prompto was apparently on his back trying to get a good picture again, the little shit, but Gladio doesn’t have much time to be angry about it before he sees a giant hand coming towards him.
“Hey, watch it!” he bellows, just barely dodging Prompto’s fingers. Prompto jerks hard enough that Gladio falls over, then freezes.
“G-Gladio?” he whispers. “Where the heck are you?”
“I’m on your cheek,” Gladio growls, already fed up with the situation. “And you almost fucking squished me!”
Prompto laughs. Okay, it’s a little high-pitched and hysterical, but the point is that he laughs and Gladio gets pissed off just that much more.
“Yeah, laugh it up,” he grumbles. And he wants to continue, but the monster is moving in on Prompto’s distraction, saliva dripping down its jaws. It probably wants to eat Prompto too, which is fair; at least a full-sized Prompto would be more filling than a miniature Gladio. “Would you pay attention and shoot that thing?”
Prompto doesn’t pay attention. He’s still laughing, probably didn’t even hear Gladio. Gladio kicks the nearest finger before he gets up, eyeing his surroundings and not sure what he’s looking for. He seems to be standing on the bridge of Prompto’s nose, and the monster is moving in quickly. He can hear Noct giving Iggy a hand nearby, both of them apparently too injured to come help. Well, nothing for it then.
He runs down Prompto’s nose, takes a flying leap off the tip, and somehow manages to get his sword right in the monster’s eye. Ha! That’ll show it what happens when you try to eat Gladio’s friends!
“Gladio, holy shit!” Prompto yelps, and finally finally levels his gun at the monster. He takes out the thing’s other eye, but the sound of the shot is absolutely deafening and Gladio automatically lets go of his sword in an attempt to cover his ears. At this size, a fall from a height like this would probably kill him, but he barely manages to form his favorite litany of curses in his head before Prompto snatches him out of the air. Gladio wants to scream as he’s cradled against Prompto’s chest—he doesn’t need to be protected, how fucking dare he—but Prompto starts shooting again and he has to cover his ears instead.
This is the worst thing that’s ever happened to him, hands down. He’d rather get turned into a frog. At least when he’s a frog he barely notices anything’s wrong.
Luckily for him, the battle ends pretty quickly now that the beast can’t see anything. Gladio’s ears are ringing when he finally lets them go, so loudly that he can’t hear whatever Prompto’s saying. He crosses his arms and glowers. Prompto smiles at him, the smile he gives to baby chocobos and other adorable things, which Gladio resolutely is not. He hates everything.
Prompto eventually puts him on the ground and somebody smashes a remedy over Gladio. The first thing Gladio does when he’s his normal size is grab Prompto in a headlock to remind him of how cute Gladio isn’t. Then he goes to find something else to kill, anything else, as long as it’s not another one of whatever they just fought.