Hi everyone, and I'm sorry for the long update (again)! I was having trouble with the site! Please don't hit me! Hope you all enjoy this chapter... I did.
TigerTank: I'm trying not to laugh, but it isn't working.
Baron Hausenpheffer:Hmm... now there's an idea...
Ri2: Yep. Yep. Yep.
eternalnemesis: Don't worry, I'm sure I'll find some more cliches to bash somewhere.
Lucky: No, I really do like 3D Link. I also thought that it would be fun to branch out with Ganondorf a little more than usual, so he won't be completely cliche... just mostly cliche.
Georgianna: Um... right. Glad you liked it.
Lizai: No, she's not annoying, she's just... she's just... um... well, okay, you're right. She IS incredibly annoying. But it's fun to write.
Amarantha Whisperquill: blushes furiously I'm flattered, really! Thanks!
mew katt:Thank you!
The Sage of Time: I'm trying to poke fun at my own Sue, but since most Sues are basically the same, I'm not surprised she sounds familiar to you. I'm glad you like it!
Chapter eight… It's EVIL!
The desert man chuckles darkly. "Yes, Link, it is I! And now that I've got your beloved Princess Zelda, nothing can—"
"Beloved? This isn't a Zelink!" Link interrupts.
"Beloved? Link is destined to be mine!" Riana says hotly at the same time.
Ganondorf ignores them. "Now that I've got the princess, nothing can stop me! I'll turn the sky back into that shade of brown you get when you mix random crayon colors! I'll fill the world with even more random monsters than there were before I took over! Heck, I'll pour Kool-Aid mix into Lake Hylia without sugar! I can do whatever I fancy, and you, my dungeon-crawling friend, are powerless to do anything except bow to your new king!" His lip curls, and his standard Chuckle of Evilness issues from deep inside his throat.
Riana whips out a golden bow set with diamonds, fits an arrow into the string and cocks it so quickly that her movements are all a blur. "You will release my sister at once," she commands, "and then you will return to imprisonment in the Sacred Realm where you belong!" Her voice is so authoritative that Link and Zelda both get a sudden urge to apologize to her.
Ganondorf sneers at her. "Who is this, Link? Even though I can sense the purity and goodness that radiate from her soul, which surely would turn other, less experienced shriveled hearts back to the light, she is no match for me!"
Riana's face remains adamant, although her sapphire eyes well with tears which have healing powers and can turn lead into gold. "I am none other than Princess Mariana Susana Starlight Bell Skydream Amethyst Phoenix Sonatina Jubilee the Life-Giver, the Water Spirit, the Chosen One of Destiny, the Sword of Hope, and the Goddesses' Avatar! I am the very one you left for dead so many years ago! I am the only one you fear! I have returned, Ganondorf, and I will not let you get away with your evil plots!"
The Gerudo King staggers backwards, dragging Zelda with him. "No… no," he whispers in sheer terror. "Not you! Six ancient Sages, a mystic princess with Sheikah powers, and a guy wearing a sock on his head with more weapons than I have evil plots don't scare me in the least, but I would face them all together in a heartbeat if it meant never seeing you again!"
"You have threatened this world for too long!" Riana cries, almost glowing with righteousness. "Begone!"
Ganondorf screams as if her words have stabbed him through the gut like a sword, and he clutches Zelda's face even tighter, as if she is a buoy in the ocean of pain in which he is being drowned. "Curse… you… Princess… Mariana Susana Starlight Bell Skydream Amethyst Phoenix Sonatina Jubilee the Life-Giver, the Water Spirit, the Chosen One of Destiny, the Sword of Hope, and the Goddesses'… Avatar… curse… you!"
Riana lets fly her arrow, showering the room in sparkles, and her aim is true: she hits Ganondorf in the face. There is a blinding flash of light, but it is the kind of light that only bothers evil people.
The Gerudo man howls in agony, his eyes streaming involuntarily. "I will have my revenge!" he screams, whipping out his cloak and wrapping it around himself and Zelda together. "Watch your step, Heroine of Time! I will come for you!"
In a puff of dark smoke, he vanishes, and Princess Zelda goes with him.
"Zelda!" Link yells at the empty air, as if that will do any good. "Zelda!"
Riana sinks to her knees. "I failed," she whispers quietly. "I didn't… didn't rescue my sister…"
She begins crying softly, and before Link can stop himself, he asks, "What is it?"
"Oh," Riana sniffs, wiping her eyes on the back of her hand, "it's… it isn't anything… I just…"
She bursts into loud tears at this point, and in between sobs she chokes out, "I c-couldn't save her just like I couldn't save the man I loved!"
Oh boy, Link groans to himself. Here we go.
And Riana launches into the longest, most detailed account of her tragic past yet.
The transportation complete, Ganondorf pulled the heavy cloak off of Zelda, who immediately began brushing wildly at herself, feeling more than a little creeped out by his choice of mode of kidnapping this time.
"Where are we?" she demanded.
Ganondorf's voice was triumphant. "We are in the highest room of the tallest tower of the Secret Fortress of Darkness and Evil!"
Zelda stared at him, forgetting to brush herself off for a moment. "You mean you got another maze-and-trap-filled castle?"
"Yes," Ganondorf boomed, "and it is from here that I will rule the world once it's under my command!"
Zelda sighed and began to shake out her skirt. "How original."
The big man nodded in defeat. "You're right, it is getting old," he said. "But it's a tried-and-true method, and I'm not the one writing the story anyway." He shifted uncomfortably. "Sorry about all this—grabbing your face and such. But, you know, it has to be done."
Zelda gave her skirt a final shake and looked up. "Well, since the author is too lazy to think of something else that's evil that you could do, I guess it's to be expected," she replied, still a little uneasy. No matter how many times she was abducted, she would never get completely used to it.
"I would've used something more impressive than just my cloak to vanish, you know," Ganondorf went on. "I don't know what came over me. Did you hear some of the stuff I said?"
"It was pretty corny," Zelda admitted.
Ganondorf gave one short, mirthless laugh. "You call 'even though I can sense the purity and goodness that radiate from her soul, she is no match for me' pretty corny?" He turned away from her, and one gigantic fist pounded the stone wall behind him. "What is the matter with me?"
"It's a Mary Sue story," Zelda sighed. "It's no wonder all your lines are so cheezy. She's been affecting Link too, for a while at least."
Ganondorf's head snapped back around, and he stared at her. "That girl was a Mary Sue?" Zelda nodded, and the Gerudo shook his head slowly. "That explains it. Why haven't you gotten rid of her yet?"
"You can't blame us for not trying," the princess retorted. "She's such a pain in the neck, but we're having a hard time thinking of a solution."
Ganondorf mulled over this for a moment. "Alright," he said finally. "I'll go find a way to destroy her."
This took Zelda by surprise. "You will?" she asked. "But I thought you were still an evil dictator bent on world domination—"
"—who will stop at nothing to ruin the world for no good reason," Ganondorf finished, waving his hand casually. "Of course I still am. I'm the villain here, aren't I? I'm going to try to figure out how to destroy the Sue in the process of conquering Hyrule. Meanwhile, princess, you can stay in this dark, grimy hole of a room until I figure out what I'm going to do with you."
"Your evil plots aren't going to work any better than they did the last seven or eight times," Zelda said, but Ganondorf had started up his maniacal laughter by this point and wasn't listening. Chuckling his greasy head off, he strode through the door and slammed it shut.
The princess dashed forward, but a telltale click told her that the door was locked before she reached it. She tugged fruitlessly on it anyway, then pounded on it as hard as she could. "Ganondorf! You aren't going to get away with this!" she shouted as she did so. "Link will come for me!"
"No, he won't," Ganondorf countered, his voice slightly muffled.
"Yes he will!" Zelda insisted.
"He won't!"
"He will!"
"He won't—no! I'm not taking this any further!" Ganondorf said sternly. "But I'll make sure he won't come for you!"
"Yeah? How?" Zelda challenged.
Ganondorf was silent for a second, then said, "The Sue."
Zelda felt the bottom drop out of her stomach. "What—what did you say?"
Ganondorf laughed again. "I'll find a way to make him fall for the Sue. He'll forget all about you, and you'll be so upset that you will surrender. Then, while Link and the Sue are having pointless adventures wherein Link makes a fool of himself and she either saves his honor or his life, I'll blow up the world."
"What point could that possibly serve?" Zelda snapped at him.
"It's EVIL!" Ganondorf yelled back at her. "It's very, very evil! That's why I'm doing it!"
And without further ado, Zelda heard his heavy footsteps pound away from her prison.
As Riana's broken but melodious voice relays the misfortune of days gone by, Link finds himself trying not to nod off. The story is interesting enough, as is expected, but for crying out loud, can't she just get over it and pull herself together?
"…and as he lay in my arms, soaked in blood," Riana continues on, voice quivering, "I knew it w-was all my fault, because if he hadn't f-fallen in love with me…"
"Yeah, that's lovely," Link says absently, beginning to check his equipment. "Look, do you think you could tell me all this as we leave?"
Riana sniffs and looks up at him. "Leave?"
"Yes," Link says. "You know, to rescue Zelda and all that."
"Rescue Zelda?" Riana asks innocently. "Oh yes, of course, but… there will be plenty of sidequests and such that we have to take together, just the two of us, right?"
Link suddenly realizes, to his horror, that the answer to this question is Probably so.
"NO," he says anyway in the firmest tone he can manage. "Now let's go."