Chapter 51: The World's Second Deadliest Golfer
Many residents on the Isle Of The Lost kept saying that if this weren't an island prison meant for villains solely, then the place would have been recognized for hosting the biggest mini golf course in the world. It was about 324 meters long and wide that you could have easily laid the Eiffel Tower flat in it. All the holes were placed within diverse obstacles, which went from simple ones like flat green surfaces and menhir circles to unimaginable ones like piranha-invested lagoons, leg-hold trap filled fields, and missiles that went off whenever the ball went into the hole.
Despite how crazy and dangerous this mini golf course was, villains didn't mind spending their afternoons hanging out there with their family and friends just for the sake of having fun.
The owner of the mini golf course, Duff Killigan, the 'World's Deadliest Golfer', certainly enjoyed running and playing the place, and if there's one thing he definetly enjoyed more than anything else, it was to organize afternoon mini golf parties where anyone could come and play, and since the entries were free, who could resist?
"Wow, this area is packed," Ruby commented as she and Martin walked through the crowd of villains. Like most of the other wicked teens, they were wearing the Dragon Hall golfing uniform, which usually consisted of plaid T-shirts with the school's logo, shorts, long socks, sneakers, and hats to protect them from the sun. Of course, depending on the students, the uniforms were diverse. For instance, Ruby's was mostly purple-and-beige colored with cat motifs while Martin's was red-and-black with the Chinese characters of 'monkey' on his hat and didn't include shoes due to his simian feet.
"Yeah. I heard Buffy is holding the party today," Martin said. They went to grab some golf clubs at the welcoming table.
"Buffy Killigan?" Ruby had nearly forgotten that Duff Killigan, the owner of the Killigan Mini Golf, was the father of Buffy Killigan, a sophomore student at Dragon.
"Of course. Our fathers are old acquaintances and Buffy and I have been friends since Father and I came to the Isle."
"The Killigans didn't live out in Auradon like you and some of the others?"
"Sadly, no. Duff was instantly thrown into the Isle by Team Possible once the Isle Of The Lost had its grand opening." A hint of disgust was heard in Martin's voice. Obviously, he grew to loathe even the mere mention of Team Possible since he was born, and as far as Ruby managed to conclude since she began hanging out with Martin, never EVER talk about Ron Stoppable and naked mole rats. "Haven't you met Buffy yet?"
"Uh...let's just say I met her during one of the Haggis Days at Dragon Hall," Ruby answered. This was probably one of the weirdest things she ever did ever since she came to the Isle: Dragon Hall had this ghastly obligation (courtesy of Auradon) to do Mystery Meat Wednesdays, which is a reason why all the students leave the school at lunchtime on Wednesdays in order to get food from town. Headmaster Facilier and Gollum, the Cruella-teria's disturbing 'male lunch lady' (as every student called him), grew sick of students skipping lunch every Wednesday, so they concocted a plan with one of the students in order to make sure that no one left the school grounds on Wednesday: if students and even the faculty left, they would be forced to eat the nightmare of all the culinary artists in the world: an entire pot full of the Killigan haggis, cooked by Buffy Killigan herself. And the haggis was just as bad as Mystery Meat.
Conclusion overall: every teen on the Isle Of The Lost, except for Buffy, hated Wednesdays. As for Buffy, she found delight in 'sharing' her family's haggis recipe with anyone. And as for Ruby, there came a day last month when Proserpine dared her to willingly eat Buffy's haggis and spit it on the latter's face. Loser had to pay an entire week of dinner at Legume Tavern for the other. Not only did Ruby accept the challenge, but she even swallowed the entire pot's haggis and drank an entire bottle of spicy sauce before doing a humongous spit take on Buffy Killigan. Buffy ended up with her haggis covered face on the UNHOLY GAZETTE, Ruby with an extra credit for 'surprising humiliation', and Proserpine spending her entire weekly allowance for Ruby's dinners at Legume Tavern.
"The haggis-spitting scenario?" Martin tried to cover a small monkeyish laughter to no avail. "My father and I laughed about it for days! Honestly, Duff felt like Buffy had humiliated him more than the insults about him being a girl!"
Ruby chuckled at Martin's remark. It was true that, even on the Isle, it was still a running gag for villains to mistake Duff for a woman thanks to his kilt.
"Gather round, everyone!" a thick, Scottish accent spoke over the crowd. Everyone turned to look at the green mini stage where Duff Killigan himself spoke through a megaphone while his daughter, Buffy Killigan, stood next to him. Unlike the other teens, Buffy did not wear some sort of Dragon Hall golf uniform: instead, she wore a more exposing version of her dad's suit, including a red-and-green mini kilt, a white blouse crop top covered by, a short-sleeved blue mini jean jacket, black gloves, white stockings that reached her knees, Mary Jane shoes, and a hat like her father's. Her light brown hair with orange streaks was pulled back in a long ponytail, leaving bangs to cover her forehead. For some reason, she wore the golf balls from the first game she won as earrings.
"We, the world's deadliest golfers, are happy to invite ye all to this mini golf course party hosted by me lassie Buffy," Killigan said as he motioned his daughter, who waved at the crowd. "We hope ye play your best, because the ten players with the lowest scores will have to eat..."
Then came the nightmare: Buffy walked offstage to something covered with a red cloth standing next to the stage: the world's largest cooking pot with horrible, familiar gas coming out of it.
"The Behemoth Killigan Haggis Pot!" Buffy told the crowd, who gave cries of horror and disgust.
"This is it..." Napoleon Moriarty, who happened to be standing in front of Ruby and Martin, groaned. "It's bad enough that Buffy uses haggis to destroy our chances to avoid Mystery Meat Wednesdays, but now she uses it to prompt mini golf players to win?"
"I'd go with cash instead," Ruby said. "But I'm quite certain that everyone will play their best in order to avoid getting the haggis inside their stomachs..."
Later
Although the risk of eating Killigan haggis and ruining your reputation was at stake, almost everyone had a good time playing mini golf. Ruby herself had fun: she only did mini golfing once in a while back in Gotham (her mother had tried to give her daughter some fun experiences by sneaking into the mini golf course at night to play) and she still had the hang of it. Thanks to her small knowledge of mini golfing, she barely managed to make it among the top 30 players with the highest scores.
While the crowd was waiting for the ten losers to face the horrible Behemoth Killigan Haggis Pot, Ruby and Martin were sitting at a bench near Hole #13, which was mostly made out of a horseshoe-shaped lagoon infested with piranha and electric eels.
"How on earth do the Killigans manage to pay for such crazy golfing supplies?" Ruby asked as she drank sips of her root beer soda.
"Beats me." Martin shrugged as he wiped his sweaty forehead with the back of his left hand.
"Well, positively speaking, we avoided the haggis." A look of 'Thank God!' was shared between the two until Buffy Killigan came passing by and noticed them.
"Mart. It's been a while," Buffy greeted Martin Fiske. "How's it going?"
"Well judging by the fact that we go to the same school and that I occasionally come mini golfing here, how can you not tell?" Martin arched an eyebrow. Buffy merely shrugged as if she heard it before until her eyes darted at Ruby and instantly recognized her as the girl who spit her haggis onto Buffy.
"Kyle," Buffy greeted in a dry tone as if her tongue went through a dry cleaner.
"Buff," Ruby greeted back at Buffy, whose face flushed at the nickname. "It's been a while."
Martin had to cover his mouth in order to prevent bystanders from hearing his high-pitched monkey chuckles. Obviously he found it amusing how Ruby was imitating the World's Second Deadliest Golfer just for the sake of irritating her. Now he understood the meaning of 'copycat'.
Buffy noticed Martin suppressing his chuckles. Her irritation dissolved when she began to look at both Ruby and Martin with a confused look. "Are you two dating?" she asked. This, on the contrary, shocked both Martin and Ruby: the former's eyebrows arched at the mention of the mere idea and the latter inadvertently spat her root beer onto Buffy.
"We're not dating!" Ruby exclaimed, nearly getting the attention of a dozen bystanders. "We barely met this morning!"
"And I see you barely spared me kilt from your spits...again," Buffy grumbled as she walked away to change her kilt and could be heard mumbling to herself in Scots' Gaelic. Meanwhile, Ruby covered her mouth in embarrassment as she realized that nearly shouting out loud that she and Martin weren't an item was not a good idea. Especially in front of Martin. God damn it, why is everything so hard with boys? She mentally cursed to herself.
"Are you alright, Ruby?" A now concerned Martin got up from the bench. "You're beginning to look red."
"Yeah...uh," Ruby stammered, trying to find some excuse. "Will you look at the time? I just realized that my mom will most likely intensify my death penalty if I don't go back home soon. Bye!" Ruby tried to rush away as fast as she could, but her limping leg just made it easier for Martin to catch up to her and grab her arm in order to keep her from going any further.
"And risk injuring your leg even more?" He gave her a suspicious frown. "You seriously have this thing for speeding up your death."
"Well you certainly have this thing for being a gentleman 24/7," Ruby commented in a similar tone.
"Eh. It runs in the family." He shrugged as he guided her through the crowd. "Looks like we should go in case you want to avoid Buff coming back at you with haggis as revenge...Tough Tigress."
Ruby started blushing when Martin called her 'Tough Tigress' the same way he did back at the clocktower. "Is this going to be one of those gentlemanly pet names?" she asked.
"Trust me. I'm just warming up."
