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For the first time in several years, I'm actually feeling pretty festive. Usually I'm kind of a grouch, but for some reason this year I've cheered up a lot more! Even though I'm having to pay for the only present I'm getting, which is a graphics tablet after my old one crashed a couple of weeks ago. I'm looking at the Wacom Intuos, but after a PM conversation with someone I have started considering whether my typewriter would be able to cope with the drivers and whatnot...
Ay ay ay. Anyways. The chapter!
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Chapter Nine: The Untimely Death of Fartbutt

"WELL?" Ghirahim turned to Groose. Ignoring Sparrot's high- pitched shrieks of protest, he rasied the crystal ball above his head in preparation to smash it down on his former friend. "Explain yourself!"
Groose's maw hung open. He looked hilariously gormless as he struggled for words. "I... I don't know what you're talking about! I don't even like Zelda!"
"Oh, don't be ridiculous." Sparrot popped in. "I've seen you-"
"WOULD YOU STAY OUTTA THIS?" Groose yelled.
"Only through my crystal ball!"
"You have nothing to do with this!"
"I just told your freaking future, buddy!"
"Blah blah blah blah blah blah bl-"
SMASSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Groose fell to the floor with an alarmingly loud THUNK. It seemed that, while waiting for the conversation to end, Ghirahim's skinny arms hadn't been able to take the weight of the crystal ball any longer and he had dropped it. Whether it was pure coincidence that it landed on Groose's head or not, we shall never know. Of course, this noise had attracted nearly everyone in the Bazaar. It was Gonzo that hurried over first, and Ghirahim saw this as a huge advantage- could he use the robot to transport Groose down to the Surface? The boy would need to be held in isolation until they found the Goddess... and this flying machine seemed to be perfectly designed for said purpose. He was about to ask it to do so-
But the robot got there first.

"Ha, ha, look at that skinny little [CENSORED] with the Ziggy Stardust face!" it shrieked. Its oversized hand pointed rudely, one finger jamming straight into Ghirahim's eye.
Gonzo backed away, head in hands. "I don't know him." he muttered through his fingers. "You do know me! You liar! See, I hate humans! Do YOU hate humans? No, wait, you're a [CENSORED] human yourself!"
"Would you shut up? That's not nice at all!" Ghi yelled, leaping to his feet and standing on the glass shards from the crystal ball. "Oh my gracious, that's rather painful!"
"How very restrained!" Sparrot exclaimed.
Ghirahim turned away from the bug- eyed fortune teller in annoyance. Even though the robot was going to drive him to insanity, it was the only real chance he had of getting the unconscious Groose down to the Surface without hiring Vaati's help. After the incident with his palace and Fartbutt, he didn't really feel enthusiastic about hiring the wind mage. And Fartbutt... well, he couldn't really remember how to call his gusty bird. He couldn't remember whether the call was pronounced "AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH" or whether the intonation was a little different. Perhaps... came a wild thought, perhaps I could just throw him off the edge of Skyloft and hope he lands in the right place?
No, because if he lands on someone's head it's going to be pretty obvious that something weird is going on up here. I need to make sure he lands in a precise location.
"Scrapper... would you mind awfully if you did me a little favour...?"

ONE HOUR LATER

Ghirahim sat miserably on the edge of Skyloft, Groose slumped next to him, radioing Vaati. His head was wrapped in a large bandage and he was finding it difficult to hold the walkie- talkie- several of his fingers were broken. His leg hung at a weird angle and his eye had been poked almost into his skull. It was obvious that Scrapper found it quite insulting that a human- urgh, a stupid human!- had asked for his help.
Frustratingly, his transmissions returned only static. He was prepared to bet that that stupid Ribena- coloured mage STILL hadn't forgiven him. Still, he supposed that was to be expected after he had held a grudge against Link through all the time he had been sealed in the Four Sword.

He didn't notice Link looking over his shoulder until it was too late.
"What are you doing?" Ghirahim nearly jumped out of his skin. Leaping up, he instinctively swung round and threw a punch at Link, only to have it deflected neatly by the flat of a sword. He recoiled.
"Where did you learn to do that? You're so thick you can't learn a thing!"
"Yeah, I know." Link said miserably. "Awaiting response from- Not even the author likes me much. It's really not fair. Her favourite Zelda character is Vaati, so that means I'm always insulted and thrown about! Even though I don't know who Vaati is!"
"Has this conversation gone slightly off topic?"
"Yeah..."
Ghirahim turned back to his futile attempts to radio Cortex's favourite character. "Well, isn't that a shame. ...
STOP LOOKING OVER MY SHOULDER!"
"That's really cool." Link pointed at his walkie- talkie. "Can I play with it?"
"It's not a toy!"
"Awaiting re- That's funny! Ha ha! That's exactly what my swordfighting teacher tells me when I play with the swords in his back room! I actually put one right into my brain once. There was a squishing noise. It went kind of like this."

Ghi watched in grim fascination as Link re- enacted an elaborate mime of himself sneaking into his teacher's back room, seeing the jar of swords, and taking one out. Link examined it, then drew his real sword out from his sheath and inserted it into his pointed ear cheerfully. *The boy may be dull, but he doesn't lie.* Ghirahim thought, feeling faint as a wet squelching noise filled the air around them. Link wiggled the sword, his blue eyes lighting up as he discovered a previously unknown part of his brain. ("Hey, it feels like toast!")
"That's really, really nice! But I DON'T WANT TO SEE ANY MORE!" he eventually cried in desperation as Link made to remove the sword. Seeing him extract the goop- covered blade was a bit too much for him, and he screamed into his radio. "VAAAATIIIIII! VAAAAAATIIIIIII! I'M COMING DOWN THERE!"
Flinging Groose back around his shoulders (Link watched this in utter confusion, having not realised his enemy had been knocked out next to them the whole time), he bid a quick farewell to the tunic- clad boy and flung himself off the edge of the platform.
"UWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGUUUUUUUUUUUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUULALALALALALALALALALALALALALLALALALALALALALAHWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHUUUUUUUUUUUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

In the mysterious holding centre where Loftwings go whenever you don't need them in Skyward Sword, Fartbutt's ears pricked up. He was glad that his master had called him, no matter how much the two disapproved of eachother; he had been gassing himself to death since Chapter 6.
All he could remember was Ghirahim protesting at serving Ganondorf- however, his master had been reconsidering this after realising how unreliable his other comrades were. At least Ganny would be too dull to ever betray him.
Fartbutt spread his great wings, looking up to the sky as his feathers ruffled against the wind. Setting off at a powerful run, he hurtled off into the air and swept down to Skyloft, to his squealing master.
Ghirahim landed on Fartbutt's back with an ungainly thump, and had to hang on to Groose as he threatened to bounce off. Adjusting himself quickly on the Loftwing's back, he whispered in it's ear. "Believe me, I'm not happy to see you either. Take me down to the Kuroi HQ on the Surface. You know where it is, so you better not pretend you don't."
Oh, shut up, you stupid skinny little piece of butt fluff, Fartbutt thought. Of course, he never said anything of the sort out loud. After all, it was important he kept his job- Demise had given him an IOU of several thousand Rupees if Ghirahim succeeded in his mission.
The three flew down at a rapid pace towards the surface. Ghi managed to radio Vaati as they passed his palace.

"Hey, Vaati!" he yelled. "Look out of the window!"
Vaati, holding his walkie- talkie at arm's length as he recognised Ghirahim's voice, glanced out of his top window. He saw a flash of feather shoot past it, and raised his eyebrows in surprise. "Have you actually managed to get the Hero?" he asked.
"Yup- AAAARRRRRRGGGGGHHHH!"
Vaati ran to his window again, only to see a jet plane hurtle past with Fartbutt splatted against the visor. He was very disappointed to see that Ghirahim wasn't on it also.

At that precise moment when the plane had hit, Ghi had acted quickly and jumped off Fartbutt's back. Grabbing Groose in one hand and doing an authentic scream into his walkie- talkie at the same time, he had allowed himself to freefall down towards the approaching earth. He turned over in mid- air and was very amused at the look on Groose's face- his lips were curled back by the wind and his eyes were wide open, staring at him.
Well, he was amused until he realised that Groose was wide awake. And not very happy.
"I'll explain when we reach terminal velocity and crash to earth!" he yelled, and quickly poked Groose in the eye. The boy flinched away from him, delaying the punch he gave him by approximately two seconds.

"Hee hee... Demise?"
"WHAT!?"
Demise turned round reluctantly to face Ganondorf, who was bouncing cheerfully around him. The Gerudo had been getting steadily stupider by the day, and Demise couldn't believe that Ghirahim was actually considering becoming one of his followers. All Ganondorf seemed to be capable of doing was saying "Uuuuh?" a lot and going to the toilet without closing the door. He was seriously considering commiting suicide-
"What's that noise that sounds like "Ow! Ow! Ow!" It sounds stupid." Ganny sulked.
YOU sound stupid, Demise thought, but his attention was recaptured as he heard exactly the sound Ganny was describing.
He looked up to the sky, his flaming hair almost burning his back as he watched his minion plummet towards him, being punched several times by a red- haired Skyloftian.
"Master!" He could just hear Ghirahim's voice, getting louder and louder as he approached. "I've got him! I've got the Hero! Now move out of my way before it's too late!"

Unfortunately, by that time it was too late and Ghirahim fell right on top of Demise.

_
Hmmm... Goodbye Demise!

DelicatelyDeadly: Ah, ohayou! O genki des ka? Groose has got even worse coming to him next chapter- whatever Ghirahim wants to do, Demise is going to do it ten times worse! That guy's going to have a bad, BAD time...
Bless. I like Pictionary, but I can literally only draw stick figures with elongated torsos. I wish you better luck next time! I loved the Groosenator in Skyward Sword. I reckon Groose is actually a really clever guy but Nintendo just made him out to be useless, for the first part anyway. I'm glad he got a bigger part in the game at the end! I'm starting to warm to the guy even more since writing this story (which isn't what I intended, I actually started to write this so I'd get fonder of Ghirahim)...!

Aaah, can't believe I got this chapter finished! I completely forgot to write Chapter 16 of AFD, and it was the same for this one! TOO MUCH HOMEWORK...!