Chapter 3: Highway to Hell (McDonalds, 5 miles)
Story So Far: Summaries are pointless. Why trade the full, informative details for an edited, curtailed collection of succinct overall main ideas? Summaries are the fast-food of facts and I will not tolerate them. So, instead of a concise recount of the important things (if any) that happened in the previous two chapters, I will instead provide an exact copy of the text of the story up until this point: …Okay. Just kidding. I'm too lazy. So instead, here's a summary: Er…stuff happened, there were events, and characters involved, a little dialogue here and there, and it all wound together in something resembling, but not quite instantiating, a plot. Um…just read. You'll figure it out. Chances are, you wouldn't be reading the third chapter of this story if you hadn't read the last two. Actually, the greater chances are that you wouldn't be reading it all, since its obscure, obscene, and not very good, so, according to statistics, this message I just spent my time dutifully typing was a complete waste. Er…enjoy:
"We'll have 75 happy meals. With extra happiness."
Link wasn't sure what made the meals so jubilant. Perhaps there were consciousness-altering substances involved, who knew? Who cared, for that matter? He figured that, in light of recent events, they could use all the happiness they could get and by whatever means necessary. Besides, the smells of fat and grease had reminded them all of something the moment that they had walked in the restaurant: They were hungry as hell.
"AND a diet coke." Reminded Darunia.
"And a diet coke." Link repeated to the lanky, acne-ridden, adolescent so stereotypically emblematic of cash-register employees all over the U.S.
"Trying to watch my figure." The Goron explained with a grin to the employee, who merely gaped at them, mouth slightly slack-jawed, sporting a countenance that was a mix of wide-eyed confusion and the usual detached, empty-headedness that can be seen in most teenagers' eyes.
"Can't see why you'd have to try. Din knows its so huge you'd have difficulty watching anything else." Ganondorf remarked with a smirk.
Darunia bristled indignantly. "Geez, Ganondorf, why are you being such an asshole. Oh that's right…you're an evil sorcerer who got raped senseless as a youth by every member of your entirely female race."
"HEY!" The King of Evil was instantly in tears, "That's not fair! I HAD CHILDHOOD ISSUES! My therapist said that it wasn't my fault! How am I ever going to get over my crippling self-blame now?"
"That was a little unjustified, Darunia." Saria chided gently.
"Unjustified? He started it! What does he think he's the only one that has sensitive issues? You think its easy being a fat Goron?" The fire sage yelled back, voice cracking with emotion in a way quite unbecoming of a 500 pound Goron king.
"Why shouldn't it be? You're whole race is a bunch of overweight, squat, ugly, dirt-eating terds!" Ganondorf screamed back.
"GANONDORF! YOU'RE SO GAY YOU'RE FARTS SOUND LIKE GUSTS OF WIND!"
"Hey, that's enough!" Interrupted Malon, bravely restraining Darunia's huge fist with all her might.
"Oh why don't you just shut up, you red-headed bitch!" Ganondorf howled in reply.
Her subsequent slap sent him reeling.
"Please! Let us not resort to violence!" Saria pleaded desperately.
"Why not! Its only thing that'll teach this asshole a lesson! Maybe I should call Nabooru up to do it for me! You know, so he can continue that tradition of getting his ass dominated by girls! " Darunia threatened.
"SHUT UP! SHUT UP! YOU FATSO!" The Sorceror's squealing was enough to wound ear drums. What had started out so innocently had gotten dangerously out of control, and by now, every customer in the restaurant was watching the fiasco intently.
Link closed his eyes tiredly. He was still facing the cashier employee. He hadn't even bothered turning around to intervene in the insanity taking place behind him.
"Make that extra…EXTRA happy. And for the love of god, hurry." He could not meet the boy's eyes and spoke to the "Hello, my name is Steven," tag pinned on the his bony chest. Steven continued to stare. First at the pretty-boy elf standing before him, then at the gigantic creature behind him, whose leathery brown skin, round shape, and wild body hair, did indeed make him look like a very large, very hairy, terd. And an angry one at that. The other one, ridiculously tall and dark, and dressed in clothes that he must've pulled right out of a masochistic, homosexual's sex fantasy, was cringing backwards, whimpering about how it wasn't his fault that he was an evil warlock bent on world domination. A cute red-headed girl's face was contorted in a not-so-cute rage as she screamed down at the cringing giant, and a ten-year-old with an apparent color-obsession was trying vainly to reason with the giant, hairy terd, her hands help upward in a pacifying gesture.
Had he been a Nintendo gamer he might've exploded in his pants at the scene, but seeing as it was the ugly, monstrous form of an X-box resting under his TV at home, he was as unprepared for the situation as a fish was for flying. That is, of course, a fish of the non-flying variety. So instead he merely shrugged and reacted in the only way he knew how.
"Uh…would you like ketchup with that, sir?"
Drake supposed the reason he hadn't been worried about careening into a large expanse of very hard concrete from a twenty-thousand foot drop was because he was so used to being an incorporeal being from the future that he couldn't have recognized his own mortality if it had slapped him in the face, which coincidentally, it was just about to do. Very hard.
When it finally did hit him (pun intended) that Cleveland, Ohio-land was a subset of the same time continuum from which he himself hailed, and that as such, he was alarmingly capable of dying, it was about .5 milliseconds too late to do anything other than scream in dismay.
The aromas of sesame seed-less burgers and stale fries were enough to snap the entire gaggle of video game characters out of their pointless squabble. They gazed at the tall, glorious figure of Link, a tray piled mountain-high with steaming paper bags (the good kind, not the disgusting kind) held outstretched in his arms. To the weary, hungry, bunch who could barely remember the last time they had eaten, he seemed, at that moment, a beacon of divinity, a towering god. He who bears fast-food!
"Its beautiful…" whispered Darunia, a tear rolling down his cheek. Wordlessly, the ranch girl, the ageless Kokiri, the fire sage, and the Gerudo warlock sat themselves at the nearest booth and eagerly awaited their magnificent meal. They found themselves beginning to smile, for the first time in so long that their faces seemed to fumble with the expression, work at it, drop it again, curse, say "screw it" and then give up suddenly, all in the space of a few moments.
There they were on the verge of digging oh-so-deeply in, when a huffing, bruised, and tattered teenager came barreling through the glass revolving-door restaurant entrance. He was in such a fitful haste that he found himself trapped in the threshold's deadly revolutions for a full ten seconds before the portal abruptly regurgitated him, sending him rolling out onto the floor in tangle of his own limbs. He came to an inelegant stop right in front of the Hylians and their unresolved meal.
"Oh…pant…thank god…huff…I found you…gasp…before you hurt yourselves…." Drake managed to spit out through a gag of his own brown hair.
There was a moment of awkward disbelief, and then Darunia started to snivel. Link sank down in his seat, his head falling back against cheap scarlet "pleather", and his eyes closing with tired frustration.
"Oh COME ON! Aren't you DEAD yet?" He exclaimed.
"Aww…I love you to, Link!" Was his sincere reply. He smiled suddenly.
"I know you guys have gotten used to the fact that I'm an intangible being from the future, which is why you figured you didn't have to worry about me being killed in a 20,000 foot fall, right? But I forgot to mention that when we enter a world that exists in the same relative time period as the one that I come from (i.e. this one), I become just as mortal as you guys. So, could you guys like…take that into consideration…the next time you leave me in a potentially fatal situation?"
"You didn't forget." Stated Link flatly.
"Huh?"
"You didn't forget." He repeated. "I remember you mentioning the limits of your physical being very clearly awhile back."
"Oh…really? So then why did you…?" Drake began before Link interrupted.
"Oh look at the time! Guess we should be going. Don't want to miss that…er… concert…right guys? Uh, we'll just take this food to go."
The others nodded a quick agreement, and at this, Drake's eyes lit up again.
"Oh yeah! That's why I came in such a hurry! Its about to start. We've got 5 minutes! Come! We will NOT miss the opening act!" He was on his feet in an ebullient flash. He paused as he caught sight of the register employee.
"Hi Steven! I'm Drake!" He shouted.
"Er…what up? Do I know you?"
"Obviously not, or you wouldn't have to wear that tag would you? Come on guys, lets go." He charged out the door leaving the poor Hylians in his dust.
There was a collective groan as they all got to their feet to follow him.
"Why do we do this? Are we masochists?" Saria queried in an almost philosophical manner.
"Erm…cause there's something about him that's endearing and irresistible?" Malon tried.
"Nah…. He's just the only one who knows a way out of this hell-hole." Link observed.
"Oh yeah." The resignation in Malon's voice could've belonged to a Shakespearean tragedy.
Author Notes: Okay…so it was short…and pointless…and nothing happened. I'm getting a sense of de ja vu! It sort of reminds me of the entire story so far! For those of you who came here for the music content you probably expected to find in a fic entitled: Led Zelda, The Greatest Rock Band of All Time, I can only apologize, PROMISE that its getting there and ask you to please refrain from hurting me (For those of you who don't know what a "masochist" is, "please refrain from hurting me," is the exact OPPOSITE of what one would say. In a situation of angry readers intent on inflicting pain, a masochist would proceed to bend over, pull their pants down, and beg for some hard spanking something like "OOH YEAH! HURT ME BABY! SPANK ME! YOU KNOW I LIKE IT LIKE THAT!" Getting the idea? If you were offended or disturbed by that then rejoice: it's a sign that you're miraculously still clutching some shred of sanity). Unfortunately, despite the fact that I listed an apology and a promise as the ONLY things I could do, I'm not actually going to do either of them, and instead will advise you to pursue an alternate musically-related fan fiction, or better yet, PURSUE MUSIC ITSELF INSTEAD OF A ZELDA-BASED FIC! Now…if I understand reverse psychology correctly, you people should be begging me for the next chapter within a few moments…yup…begging…that's right…on your knees…with the groveling…and the toe kissing…okay, why the awkward silence and the empty whistling of the wind?
