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Ahem! I have made a decision on the direction of this fic- it's going to be a prequel of sorts to my other fic, Asking For Disaster. Basically, in AFD Ghirahim is the long- suffering servant of Ganny and his cronies (Vaati and Shadow Link). So I decided that I may as well write how this actually came to be. I've still got no plan for how long this story is going to go on, though!
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Chapter 6: Ganny's Back And As Stupid As Ever
After the disaster that had been dinner, Headmaster Gaepora decided never to invite another VIP to the Knight Academy again. Barry Trotter was summoned to Professor Owlan's office and promptly dismissed on grounds of "the most Godawful conduct we at this prestigious establishment have ever had the misfortune to experience". It seemed that everyone was trying not to remember Ganondorf's antics.
Ghirahim, of course, found it all very amusing. He remembered his master's complaints about him in Chapter 1, and seeing the man true to life had been even better than he had expected. Demise was not responding to his telepathic and technological attempts to contact him, apparently in shame at his vessel's complete inanity. In fact, nobody could be sure who was duller; Ganondorf or Link.
Lessons were resumed as normal. The first lesson Ghirahim had the misfortune to attend was a practical class, taken by Parrow- the slightly stocky guy who hung around in the town centre and was a Loftwing obsessive. The class lined up tiredly in the morning air (this was the day after the dinner, of course, as everybody had been in too much shock yesterday to teach properly). Groose was wrapped in a beautiful fur coat, which Zelda kept shooting envious glances at. Link was dressed in the same clothes as usual- a short tunic and loose tights. He looked very proud of himself, as if expecting someone to compliment him on his amazing and original dress sense. Funnily enough, nobody did.
Ghirahim, since he hadn't been given any official uniform, was left to shiver in his skinsuit. In all his wisdom, he had forgotten to pack any spare clothes, and was now seriously considering ringing Vaati to see if he could borrow his cape. He doubted the mage would be on too- friendly terms with him after Fartbutt had ripped his palace to bits, but ah well. "Has everyone got their Loftwings, then?" Sparrot's voice rang clear over the town square. Ghirahim froze as Link giggled stupidly. His Loftwing! Fartbutt!
"Um, sir?" He stood on his tiptoes and waved his hand in the air. "I've kind of forgotten mine... Can I go back and get it?"
"Can't you just call it to you?" Sparrot asked. "How do I call it to me...?"
"Jump off the ledge there, boy, and I'll show you!" the man replied cheerfully, pushing Ghirahim to the wooden ledge jutting off the sky- island. Ghi looked around frantically as he realised it was a rather long drop. "W- what do I do once I've ju-"
"JUMP OFF THE LEDGE THERE, BOY, AND I'LL SHOW YOU!"
Ghirahim stalled at the edge, and it was Link that finally pushed him off. Bored of waiting and eager for his flying lesson, he had realised that the skinsuit- wearing guy was just going to hold them all up. Unsheathing his sword (just a random one stolen from his swordfighting teacher's spare room again) he sharpened it viciously on his teeth and set off at a run towards Ghi. The Dash Attack he pulled off went straight up Ghi's backside, and to his not- exactly- surprise the mage found that he was falling at a rather worrying pace down towards the cloud barrier. "UWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGUUUUU UUUUUUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" he screamed. "DELICATELYDEADLY THINKS HER AUTOCORRECT IS BAD?! YOU SHOULD HAVE SEEN THE TROUBLE CORTEX HAD TYPING THAT! UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUULALALALALALALALALALALALAL ALLALALALALALALALAHWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHUUUUUUUUUUUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHH! AND THAT!"
A cat, who had also been thrown off the top of Skyloft, floated down next to him. "Get a grip, buddy." he said. "THE AUTHOR'S GONNA KILL ME OFF! SHE'S GONNA- OUCH!"
Completely without warning, Ghirahim had all the wind knocked out of him. He lay prostrate and sideways over Fartbutt, who was lazily blowing off as he cruised along in the air. He realised he was also quite close to someone else's backside. "Ganondorf?!" he yelled. "What are you doing up here? And what are you doing riding Fartbutt? What did I just do? What am I? What's the meaning of life?"
"SHUT UP!" Ganondorf roared. "I can't hear myself THINK!"
"You think?"
Ganon punched him. "In the loosest sense of the word. What you just did was call your Loftwing! But I was trying to poke it in the eye at the same time because I like it when they get all angry. But then they chase me and bite my head, which I don't like so much. Anyway, you called it and it sped off with me still hanging on! That wasn't nice, was it?"
"How exactly did I call it?"
"Most Skyloftians whistle. But it seems that the call you have for Guffbackside is as follows:
UWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGUUUUUU UUUUUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHH! UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUULALALALALALALALALALALALAL ALLALALALALALALALAHWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHUUUUUUUUUUUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
"That's a lot to remember." Ghirahim whimpered.
Fartbutt brought him and Ganondorf back up to Skyloft after the two had argued some more. Sparrot was not impressed, and sentenced Ghirahim to a week of cleaning up any Loftwing droppings as a punishment for "disrupting the lesson". Link giggled. "Droppings." he muttered to Zelda, nudging her in the ribs. She slapped him.
Nobody had really noticed Ganondorf, who was sitting stupidly in the middle of the group. He and Ghirahim would exchange looks as Sparrot droned on and on, and occasionally Ganny would mouth something. Ghirahim attempted to squint to see what he was saying.
"You what?" he mouthed back as Ganondorf made frantic hand gestures. "You... love me?"
Ganon shook his head and made another gesture, along with more mouthed words.
"My head is falling off?"
More mouthed words.
"Fartbutt needs to be neutered?"
"OH, FOR PETE'S SAKE!" Groose yelled. "What Ganondorf's trying to say is DO YOU WANT TO SERVE HIM?!"
The class turned and stared. However, none of the three were aware of this. Ghirahim glared in Ganondorf's direction, teeth bared.
"What do you mean, serve you? I already serve my ultimate lord and master, Demise!"
"Yes, but I'm Demise's servanty bow- bow thing. So I already serve him too!" He jumped to his feet with an excited gasp. "Have you got Facebook? We could soooo be friends!"
Groose whipped out a phone, the ever- popular Brickwork 2000. "Yeah! And me!"
"You don't serve Demise." Ghirahim said smugly. Groose's eyes narrowed and he faced the leotard- wearing mage angrily.
"Oh yeah?! You wait and see! I can serve him! Where's this Demise guy? I'll bring him [CENSORED] papaya on a plate!"
He leapt backwards as both Ghirahim and Ganondorf made a lunge for him. Ganon kicked out and managed to get him in the stomach, and the two beat him back to the edge of the wooden platform. He teetered on the edge, face drawn with terror. "What did I do? What did I say?"
"My- lord- and- master- Demise- is- ALLERGIC- to- papaya!" Ghirahim hissed. Ganondorf cracked his knuckles menacingly.
"Um- um-"
Any further altercation was prevented by Sparrot's yell of "Okay, students, jump off and call for your Loftwings!" There was a silence of a couple of seconds as Ghi and Ganny pondered on what torture they could inflict on him, when Groose let out a scream of his own accord. The two threatening mages whipped round to see the entire class thundering towards them in order to jump off the platform. Nobody seemed to have noticed they were there.
"RUUUUN!" Ghirahim screamed.
"We ARE running!" panted Zelda, who was approaching at a very fast pace. "Now get out of the way, you jerks!"
Ghirahim and Groose reacted quickly- Ghi had the sense to teleport to behind the group, wheras Groose just collapsed to the floor and curled up in a whimpering ball. Ganondorf's mind worked a little too slowly to formulate an escape plan fast enough, so he just stood there grinning and waved at everyone.
"See, Mum, I told you!" he said cheerfully. "Look at all my adoring fans running to meet me! Look at-"
What he said next, we will never know. The entire class rammed into him at exactly the same moment, and Ghirahim watched in wonder as his head sailed into the air and landed in a nearby bush.
"I told you you should have put that sword away BEFORE we ran!" Zelda yelled at Link, who fell off the edge of the platform instead of jumping.
"Ganondorf?!" Ghirahim yelled, sprinting over to his head. "Are you okay?" To his utter shock, Ganny's head proceeded to levitate back onto his body, which was twirling around aimlessly on the spot and somehow making a giggling noise. Not that the guy had missed his head, of course; in fact, he had seemed rather more intelligent and likeable without it. Groose watched the scenario from his viewpoint (still curled up on the floor and miraculously uninjured) in utter shock. How did that happen? he and Ghi thought at the same time.
The author rapped her desk impatiently. "Well, Ganondorf is an integral character to this story, which has now become a prequel to Asking For Disaster! So it's rather IMPORTANT he stays alive, isn't it?" she snapped.
"Fair 'nuff." Groose shrugged.
The three sat in Groose's room after the lesson (which had abruptly ended when Link managed to stab himself in the eye with his sword) and discussed what they were going to do next. Ghirahim's reluctance to join Ganondorf had waned a little after learning he served Demise, and the two were now locked in an urgent discussion as to what they were going to do next. Ganny was very impressed to learn Demise had sent Ghirahim on an actual mission- to find the Hero who would vanquish him, no less. Groose sat by miserably, quickly realising he would have nothing to do with the conversation. He was no evil villain, he had no accolades to his name; no, he was just the fall guy who couldn't get Zelda's attention whatever he did. "So, can I work with you?" Ganondorf leaned forward enthusiastically. He grinned, and Ghi was reminded strongly of his chipolata- swallowing the day before.
"Um, sorry, but I don't think that would be practical..." he began.
The King Of Evil swelled up. "WHAT DO YOU MEAN NOT PRACTICAL?"
"It's just not practical!"
"WHAT DOES PRACTICAL MEAN?"
"It means-"
"And why do we say "what" at the beginning of a sentence? I always found it a lot easier to put it at the end, like... Uh... you know what I mean. WAAAIT! What wasn't at the end then! I mean, what wasn't at the end! That wasn't a question, it was... Ummm..."
Ganondorf zoned out.
Ghi was about to give up in desperation and recruit Groose to his mission instead, when the door burst open. The two whipped around (Ganondorf continued to stare at the wall, chuckling), expecting Link, but instead a man in overalls with a ridiculous moustache walked in. "Who are you?!" Groose snapped. "This is my room!"
The man looked at them, confused. In his hand he carried a toolkit. "It's- a me, Harrio?" he said.
"It's-a who?"
"No, not who. My name Harrio. Mi chiamo Harrio."
"What are you here for?"
"Je ne comprends pas."
"That's French!"
"Who's French?" Ganondorf asked, coming round out of his stupor.
Mario gave up, shaking his head in apparent annoyance, and set down his toolkit. Kneeling down beside it, he proceeded to rip back the carpet with a horrible rending noise. Groose swore loudly and yanked at his overalls, but to his surprise they just pulled back with his hands as if they were made of elastic. He let them go with a twang, but Harrio didn't even notice. He got a spanner from his kit and wrenched up the floorboards to reveal a medieval plumbing system.
Ghirahim leaned over his shoulder, interested. He wondered where those pipes led to... could he possibly use them as secret passageways?
In a fit of bad timing befitting this terrible story, Harrio cracked open a water pipe at exactly that moment. A gush of water smacked Ghirahim in the face and he flew backwards, cracking his head on the opposite wall. Groose burst into rude laughter as Harrio scratched his backside and looked confused.
The Headmaster came flying in, quickly followed by Zelda as always. "WHAT ON EARTH ARE YOU DOING?!" he screamed, pointing at the (supposedly) Italian plumber. Zelda glared at him viciously, like a protective guard dog. "Did the Headmaster commission you, or are you a fraud?" she snapped. When Harrio did not reply, she continued. "Where's your ID card? Show me!"
"I don't think he speaks much Hylian, sweetheart." Groose said, seeing this as his chance to swoop in and act the hero. He looked at Zelda so smarmily that Ghirahim felt sick.
Ganondorf, not knowing what to do, waved cheerfully. "Hi, blonde girl and fat slaphead!"
The explosion of offended screaming from Zelda caused Ghirahim, Groose, and Harrio to flee the room as if the acopalypse was about to happen. Even when they had climbed to the top of the Statue of the Goddess, they could hear her shrieking. "WHAT DO YOU MEAN OUR GRACIOUS HEADMASTER IS A FAT SLAPHEAD?!"
"Well, at least I wasn't calling YOU a fat slaphead!"
Groose closed his eyes. "That guy really isn't clever... Are you sure you want to work with him?"
"Well, he's pretty powerful. He's Demise's vessel, remember." Ghirahim replied, clambering to halfway down the statue to get a better look at who it depicted. Was it just coincidence that it looked an awful lot like Zelda...?
Harrio shook his head viciously. "He bad man! Molto grazie!"
"Doesn't that mean "thank you very much"?"
"Molto mille?"
"Thanks a million."
"Don't mention it." Harrio blushed.
Eventually Ganondorf teleported up to join them. He was sporting a rather interesting black eye, and looked decidedly the worse for wear. Evidently Zelda had given him rather more than a telling off.
"Hey, guys!" he announced. "Zelda beated me up and this fic just got another review!"
"Yaaay!" Harrio announced.
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Aaaaand that's that for Chapter 6!
DelicatelyDeadly: Thank you once again for your consistent reviews! I do hope you and your autocorrect have come to some sort of agreement- though I hate mine just as much. The one on my phone literally won't let me type ANYTHING... Ugh.
Oh, and I address this question to you as my sole reviewer: Do you think this story has too much conversation? I've just been looking over it and I can't believe the amount of speech marks in it. If you think there should be less talking, please say ^^ Thank you again!