CHAPTER 9:
THE FIRST GREAT IVALICE PRANK WAR
WARNING: Do not eat or drink anything while reading this chapter! You may choke!
The first shots of a very different kind of war began a few days later. Harry and Mjrn returned with Cid to Archades, and to the Draklor Laboratories. From there, they began to plot the humiliation of the higher-ups of the Archadian Empire. Cid seemed to go along, simply because he loved a good prank or ten. Balthier and Fran, meanwhile, had opted to stay out of it, and wanted to spectate. So too did Ashe, Basch and Vossler. However, they got a scrying crystal from Harry, linked to crystals he was going to sneak into the various areas the victims were going to frequent. So too would the Gran Kilitias, who was beside himself with glee at the thought of the pompous idiots who wanted to rule the world taken down a peg or three. And Vaan, Penelo, and Migelo got their own.
The first to realise he had been pranked was Judge Ghis, a rather snide, ratty politician of a Judge-Magister. He woke up to discover that somehow, he now was in possession of an extra head, every bit as snide and snarky as he was(1). After he got over the initial shock, he found himself getting along with his new head, though he still wanted to remove the head of the man who had done this to him.
Judge Bergan, he of the bloodthirsty demeanour and brute strength, began to act in an even more peculiar manner, redecorating his chambers and armour in shades of pink and yellow with flower patterns on them, and declaring himself to be the prettiest pony princess in all of Ivalice. When Ashe saw this, she nearly wet herself given how hard and long she laughed.
Judge Zargabaath got off lightly. His helmet turned into a bunny rabbit, and the metal bow tie-like ornament on his armour could now squirt water. And his sword turned into something wavy, with a skull ornament, and looked insanely cool(2). So too did Judge Drace, who found her armour transformed into a very nice and flattering dress, and a card on her bed saying Make love, not war. Get married, do both. A very nice bunch of roses accompanied it, dedicated to 'One of the few Judge-Magisters in Ivalice with any bloody sense: Figures that you're a woman'.
Poor Judge Gabranth, aka the Judge formerly known as Noah fon Ronsenburg, found that every time he put on his armour, he would start making this strange, heavy mechanical breathing. And while his voice was made deeper and more impressive, he was plagued by random utterances of "No! I am your father!", "You do NOT know the power of the Dark Side!", and "DO NOT WANT(3)!" And for some weird reason, his sword had become a sort of bladeless hilt that, when he activated a button, sprouted a red beam of light like a blade. It set his bed on fire on first usage, but any enjoyment he got out of the light-sword was marred when a tinny voice would speak up and say things like, "Well, SOMEONE'S compensating for something!" and "Don't play with it too much: you'll go blind!"
Larsa wasn't pranked, but he was entertained nonetheless by the spectacle of his brother and father acting oddly. His brother was hunched over, thinking he was someone called Richard III, and going on about the winter of discontent, while his father seemed to think he was called Henry IV, and was going on about how uneasy lies the head that wears a crown. When Vayne stopped acting like a hunchbacked would-be usurper, he remarked that he would need to find out who was responsible for these events. He wasn't sure whether he intended to hire the culprit for their obvious skill, or execute them for their insolence.
Harry, when he heard that particular line, howled with laughter, and made a mental note to talk to Vayne later, if only to see the man's reaction when Harry came back to life if he did get killed. Preferably with Mjrn not nearby, in case Vayne decided to use her as leverage.
Meanwhile, Larsa had found a crystal ball in his room, with a note attached. It said, If you want to laugh like you never have before, watch what goes on in this crystal. Yours sincerely, Death's Bitch.
And so he watched. And laughed.
In the parade grounds of the Archadian military, new marching songs were distributed ('for the morale of the men', the orders claimed), and it had just about every official seal on it to make sure that the officers went through with it. So, the troops were marched along to considerably more entertaining songs, like…
In English class I did the best
Because I cheated on the test(4).
And…
Gramis has only got one ball,
Bergan has two but very small,
Vayne Solidor is somewhat sim'lar,
But poor old Ghis, he has no balls at all(5)!
This caused more than a little merriment amongst the troops, and to be utterly honest? After that day, morale was at an all-time high.
Meanwhile, in Rozarria, much of the royal family were engaged in a battle to the death. Normally, they would do so through political manoeuvring, verbal backstabbing, and the occasional poisoned drink. Currently, however, they were using strange claws strapped to their hands, and wearing elegant masks with few features other than a pair of sinister eye holes.
The reason for this battle royale? For some reason, it was over the names Balrog and Vega(6).
Al-Cid Margrace, one of the few nobles of the Margrace family who wanted some measure of peace with Archadia, was rolling on the floor, laughing his admittedly callipygian arse off. This was one of the most entertaining things he had ever seen!
In his study, the Marquis Halim Ondore was now dancing around his study, half of his clothes off and the others dishevelled, while he sang a song about someone called Lucy, who was in the sky with diamonds. A bag once filled with lemon sherbets, and a card saying, To Ondore. Your niece sends her regards.
In the Archadian Senate, Senator Gregoroth glared at a senator who had released the most mephitic fart. "Are you going to apologise for such an unseemly smell?"
"I put it to the honourable senator that 'he who smelt it, dealt it'," the offending senator opined. At that moment, klaxons wailed.
"That's ten points docked from your score," remarked a rotund, erudite man whom they had never seen before(7).
Ba'gamnan and his not-so-merry troupe of ne'er-do-wells had been given a tip-off about the whereabouts of Harry Potter, Balthier, and their Viera lovers. It was somewhere in the gym in Rabanastre, though why they would be there, they had no idea. However, Ba'gamnan intended to turn in Balthier and Fran for their bounties, kill Harry Potter (not knowing that this would be an exercise in futility of Sisyphean proportions), and turn Mjrn into their personal sex slave.
When they barged in, they found themselves confronted with a most bizarre sight. A tall Hume man, dressed in green spandex with a vest over the top, with a bowl cut of shiny black hair, and a pair of thick eyebrows that could have been parasitic hairy caterpillars. And he was looking at them.
"Ah, you must be the most unyouthful bounty hunters my good friend Harry spoke of!"
"Shut yer mouth," Ba'gamnan snarled. "Where's Potter and Balthier? And their Viera whores?"
"Your words are most unyouthful!" the man declared, as if mortally offended, pointing a finger at them. "I, Might Guy, will defeat you, and then train you to fan the Flames of Youth to their greatest heights! And if I fail, I will run a thousand laps across the Urutan-Yensa Sandsea! And if I fail at that, I will do two thousand laps across the Sandsea on my hands!"
Emboldened by their numbers and their weapons, Ba'gamnan and his crew promptly attacked the man. Four against one. It wasn't fair odds.
For Ba'gamnan and company.
A few hours later, the inhabitants of Rabanastre were treated to the sight of a very weird Hume, and a quartet of Bangaa, all dressed in green spandex, doing laps around the city, with the Hume admonishing them, or else yelling "YOUTH!"
As Dr Cid tried to avoid choking on his coffee at the sight, Mjrn leaned across to Harry. "Where did you find a man like that, anyway?"
"Well, remember that guy clad in red that we met briefly in Bhujerba not so long ago?" Harry asked.
"The one who wouldn't stop talking? The one you called the merc with the mouth? That dimension traveller? What was his name again?"
"Gilgamesh." Harry then looks at the reader. Yes, you. "Not Deadpool. Don't get me wrong, Wade's hilarious, but he's like a parasitic mushroom growing in someone's buttocks. He's a fun guy, but also a pain in the arse."
"Who is he talking to?" Dr Cid asked.
Mjrn shrugged. "He claims to suffer Tangential Mentality Cross-Dimensional Reference Disorder, or Deadpool Syndrome. He seems to think he is breaking something called the fourth wall(8)."
"And to think people call me mad," Cid remarked. "I bow to the champion."
Harry grinned, and held out a trophy, marked, Runner Up in the Maddest Mofo in Ivalice Competition. As Cid took it and peered at it, Harry said to Mjrn, "Anyway, Gilgamesh is a bit of a traveller to other worlds. Would you believe I'm in more than a few?" He shuddered. "Just don't mention Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way(9). Once I heard about that one, well, let's just say that I know how to make the atmosphere of a world catch fire, and one day, I will use that spell on that world. That shit makes Twilight look like Pride and Prejudice."
"But what does that have to do with the man with the attack eyebrows and the eye-burning spandex?" Cid asked.
"Might Guy comes from a world where ninjas rule. He's so eccentric, he makes the Doctor from Doctor Who look normal, but he's also a brilliant martial artist, and enthusiastic fitness guru. Gilgamesh had encountered him, got chased by him into Ivalice, and Might Guy's been stuck ever since. That was a month or so ago. I just asked Might Guy to open the eyes of Ba'gamnan and his comrades to the Flames of Youth."
"YOOOOOUUUTTTHHH!" yelled Might Guy from the crystal.
"My sister was right when she said there were unspeakable horrors in the realms beyond Golmore," Mjrn muttered in shock.
In Eruyt Village, having been given a crystal herself to watch the show, Jote asked the leader of the Wood Warders, "Have we got any popcorn?"
In Lowtown, beneath Rabanastre, Ashe found herself singing along (voluntarily: it was a catchy song) as the Judges of Ivalice (save for Zargabaath and Drace) sang a strange song. Something that involved people called Scaramouche and Galileo, the fandango, and thunderbolts and lightning. Strangely, Ghis had a good soprano voice, although that was partly because Gabranth had kicked him in the codpiece beforehand.
In the evening, Vayne made his way to Draklor Laboratories. He was managing to fight off the compulsion to hunch his shoulders, and cry out some idiocy of exchanging his kingdom for a horse. He was coming for a social visit more than anything else, though he was hoping Dr Cid might have some remedy for his ailment.
So when he heard gales of laughter from behind a locked door, some of it Dr Cid's, he felt his significance sense tingling. He rapped on the door imperiously, and waited.
When the door was opened, it revealed a young man in his twenties, but with emerald green eyes that seemed far older than the rest of him. He looked Vayne up and down, before saying, "Whatever you're selling, we don't want any." He then shut the door, causing a muffled eruption of laughter.
It took Vayne ten seconds, an extremely long time for him, to get his brain around the fact that he had just been treated as a door-to-door salesman by a complete stranger who nonetheless was in one of the most secure labs of Draklor. He then rapped on the door again, hearing the laughter behind it die down. "Doctor Cid! It is Vayne Solidor!"
The door opened, and Cid, his face wearing a rare expression of sheer mirth, poked through. "Why, so it is! Sorry, I am currently on holiday."
"In your lab?"
"It's a working holiday."
Vayne blinked, before pushing through the door, and finding the young man who had answered the door packing away some sort of crystal, helped by a rather comely Viera. "And who are these?"
"I'm Severus Snape, and this lovely young lady is Bellatrix Lestrange," the young man said with a cheerful grin. "We are researchers."
"In what field?"
"Applied colorectal psychology. Namely, we give arseholes some much-need shock treatment," the young man said, still with that cheerful grin.
Vayne sighed, as he came to a realisation. "You were the ones who have been pranking us."
"You might think that. I couldn't possibly comment(10)," the young man said cheerfully. "Oh, and before I go, Obliviate!"
As Vayne went cross-eyed, Cid looked at Harry. "What does that spell do?"
"Alters his memory. Allows me to fuck around with it a little. Like this: you didn't see me or the Viera. Doctor Cid here told you that the strange occurrences are due to a poltergeist who is ill with a mutagenic flu. Oh, and whenever you hear the word 'sesquipedalian', you will suffer from a bad case of coprolalia(11)."
Vayne nodded, before leaving. As he left, Harry yelled, "SESQUIPEDALIAN!"
A torrent of expletives erupted from Vayne. He blinked, shook his head, then left.
"Well, better get going," Harry muttered. "I just hope Venat has kept up his end of the bargain and delivered the package..."
High above Giruvegan, in the lofty seat of Occurian power, Gerun, the leader of the Occuria, looked at the box. It had a note on it. A Well-Deserved Gift to the Undying Ones. Love and Kisses, from the Master of Death.
With his phenomenal cosmic powers, Gerun tentatively opened the cardboard box, only for…things to start flying out at enormous speed. The Occuria gathered around shrieked in surprise and anger that someone would dare to attack them in their own demesne. Soon, however, they realised that the projectiles were far from lethal. But they were messy, to say the least. Gerun realised that they seemed to be like a pie of some sort, only covered in some sort of white cream.
Soon, the thrones of the Occuria were covered in sticky white goo (normal cream, rather than shaving cream, or far less salubrious substances), and while they had sustained no physical damage, their dignities had been critically injured.
Gerun, after a moment, said four words that summed up the Occuria's thoughts on the bizarre attack.
"We are NOT amused."
CHAPTER 9 ANNOTATIONS:
No, I wasn't high on anything when I wrote this chapter. Unless caffeine counts (and it was only a couple of cups of Traditional Afternoon blend tea). I did warn you guys in the last chapter that things were going to get cracky. Hopefully, this made some of you laugh. Honestly, I'm surprised I got this out so quickly after the last one. The next one will be a while, and will be a more serious one.
Review-answering time! Mathylda0: When it suits him, he will do it ridiculously easy to defeat from up close. In a life-or-death situation, though…well, let's just say that you know how Daffy spins it so fast, it's like a propeller? Remember what happened to that soldier in Raiders of the Lost Ark? Yeah, like that. Harry can do that…with a wooden staff. And yes, he is almost as unkillable as a toon.
Nerdlord2nd: I don't suffer from insanity. I enjoy every minute of it. :P
1. Why two heads? Well, Ghis' English actor is a man by the name of Mark Wing-Davey, whose most famous role is a man with two heads: namely Zaphod Beeblebrox in the radio and TV versions of The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It was weird listening to Ghis and knowing he's played by the same guy who played Zaphod.
2. Another voice actor reference. Zargabaath is played by Simon Templeman, aka Kain from the Legacy of Kain games. And the sword I described is the Soul Reaver.
3. For any of you not in the know, this is a recursive translation (from English to Chinese back to English) of Darth Vader's rather melodramatic "NOOOO!" from Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith. Long story.
4. This is reaching back to the mephitic depths of childhood, from one of the first episodes of The Simpsons: Bart the General. This is one of the marching songs Bart and his troops sing.
5. Based on the infamous marching song Hitler's Only Got One Ball, sung to the Colonel Bogey March.
6. Given the vaguely Spanish nature of Al-Cid in the game, I decided to make a Street Fighter reference. In Japan, the Spanish fighter is called Balrog (the name given to the American boxer in the English version). In English, he is given the name Vega (which, in the Japanese version, is the name given to what we English speakers know as M Bison). Localisation issues, what can you do?
7. This will be VERY obscure to anyone who hasn't seen the QI episode Drinking. Phil Jupitus is the one who gets the klaxon in the show. And the man docking the points is, of course, QI's (former) host, Stephen Fry. Who has also read the audiobooks for the Harry Potter series.
8. That was a condition I made up for my fic Final Fantasy VI: The Abridged Series. SHAMELESS PLUG!
9. And now, there's a My Immortal reference. Merlin, I've sunken very low there.
10. Did you know that there was another TV series called House of Cards, a British version done in 1990? Yes, based on the same books. The main character in this version, Francis Urquhart, had this as his catchphrase. And he was played by the late, great Ian Richardson.
11. You know that stereotype of Tourette's Syndrome, where people swear all the time? The technical term for swearing as a verbal tic is coprolalia. Only about 10% of Tourette's sufferers actually have coprolalia, though.