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A humanoid figure stumbled down the floating, displaced section of highway, twitching, at war with itself in multiple directions from within as unsteady feet shuffled and scraped with the sound of metal on asphalt.
“Oh gods no…” Ganondorf murmured under his breath.
It was Ghirahim. Sure, he’d been creeped out by the eidolon initially just… showing up out of nowhere and showering him with love like an excited puppy, but… gods, what did they do to him? As soon as Kirby approached and Ghirahim turned around, Ganondorf’s heart sank.
The sword spirit’s core had been overtaken, Galeem’s unmistakable searing, sterile light blazing out not only from his exposed core, but his eyes, his mouth… Gods, he was fighting it, he was fighting it with everything he had. His usual poise was nowhere to be found, leaving a zombie-like husk as Ghirahim’s mind was locked inside, frantically trying to break free.
“ Mas...ter… ?”
Ganondorf’s heart broke. He was weird, yes, he was twisted, yes but he couldn’t help it, he was created to be a killing machine, he’d known nothing else…! He didn’t deserve any of this.
“ Help… me… ”
A Corrin-puppet materialized, and Ganondorf and Kirby moved in as one. Immediately they realized that this puppet was stronger than the others. It seemed to move not only itself, but Ghirahim, his movements sickeningly jerky, and not his own. The puppet’s weapon seemed a bit too jagged , seemed to hit too hard, and as the fight went on, Ganondorf realized that the puppet was tapping into Ghirahim’s very soul, at the poor spirit’s expense.
“Kirby!” called Ganondorf, reluctant to hurt Ghirahim further, “Can you Friend him?”
“I can try!”
The towering Gerudo brought his massive Molduga-hunting sword down on the Corrin-puppet, leaving two crumbling halves. Ghirahim pitched backwards, and Kirby seized his opportunity. He ran up to the fallen, writhing eidolon, and slammed a Friend Heart directly into his core.
Immediately, Ghirahim froze, shuddering one last time before slowly going limp. The light from his chest faded back to its natural orange. Kirby waddled up to Ghirahim’s head, resting one soft nub on his forehead as the dazed sword spirit blinked too slowly up at him with a gaze that wasn’t entirely “there”.
“Are you okay…?” Kirby asked.
It hurt to see him shake his head “no”.
Ganondorf knelt at his spirit’s side. As he moved to pick Ghirahim up, the eidolon weakly reached up to him, latching on as he was scooped up and pressed his chest, his core, up against Ganondorf like it was a bucket he was dipping into the water to bail out a sinking rowboat.
“C’mon Kirby. Let’s get him out of here…”
~~~
When they got back to base, Ghirahim was slightly more lucid. The direct control had played hell with his mind. Ganondorf heard from Link that Fi was the same way when she had been freed.
After his ordeal being used as a Malice battery by Dharkon, the other Smashers had been nagging him about “taking it easy”... Well… at least he had a reason to do so now.