World 1-1

[king-of-koopas.livejournal.com]

Bowser, acting as Zetta's VERY reluctant minion thanks to a bet gone horribly, horribly wrong, has been keeping himself busy by doing heavy lifting and drudge labor for the past couple of months... while complaining loudly, dragging his clawed feet, and generally being as obnoxious as possible, which helps explain WHY this state of affairs has dragged on for so long.

Shore leave is no different, especially since Zetta somehow managed to earn himself boatloads of money to play with.

Right now, Bowser's SUPPOSED to be hauling a small mountain of Zetta's purchases back to the ship posthaste. Instead, he's doing his OWN shopping, which involves yelling at some unfortunate stall owner while leaving Zetta's goods haphazardly piled next to him.

"-- you've gotta be kidding me! Someone's gotta be selling lava on this dump of a planet! EVERYONE knows that a castle's almost useless without a moat of molten rock, and you're telling me that you don't have it!? What kind of shoddy business are you idiots running!? And another thing-!!"

Comments

[coldhardfisting.livejournal.com]

And who happened to be at that stand idly browsing around for something cute and eye-catchy for his fiancee? Snow Villiers was. And though the crowd in general was busy and chatty, it was as such in a peaceful sort of way. That is, until Bowser dropped by. When the yelling started, Snow started quickly, and turned his head to see-- Giant turtle dragon dinosaur?

"Eaaasy big guy," he said, glancing over the things at the stall they stood at. Not as if Snow actually thought somebody would sell lava. "Lava's not exactly a common commodity, you know?"

[king-of-koopas.livejournal.com]

The Koopa King turned at the interruption, looking for this new outlet for his fury, before his glare settled on Snow. "SURE it is!" Bowser snarled. "What's so hard about 'find mountain, dig into mountain, oh look there's some molten rock, I bet some awesomely evil overlord's gonna want THIS stuff for his redecorating'!?"

[coldhardfisting.livejournal.com]

"Weeell," he replied slowly and honestly, "'evil overlord' and 'redecorating' don't really sound like two words that go together so easily in a seller's head when he's trying to figure out what kind of things'll sell."

[king-of-koopas.livejournal.com]

"Of course it is! Spikes, materials for deathtraps, chains, scrap metal, spikes, lava spikes- it's so simple that even a GORILLA has done it before!"

[coldhardfisting.livejournal.com]

"I did see some shady dealers in the more dark and creepy alleyways," he said. "But who knows if you'll come out of there in one piece."

And then Snow tilted his head slightly. "So uh. Where do you plan on taking all that stuff, anyway?" He only hoped it wasn't back to Stacy. Oh how disappointed he was going to be.

[king-of-koopas.livejournal.com]

"Do you really think I'd have a problem with a bunch of ragged alley rats?" Bowser snorted.

At the next question, he rolled his eyes. "Where else? That big dumb lump of a ship," he muttered, jerking a thumb back in its general direction. Just don't ask him WHO he's bringing it back for.

[coldhardfisting.livejournal.com]

"Hey, haven't you looked around? You're not the only big spiky armored guy wandering around here." He was actually getting quite used to the huge diversity. "Though I've got to hand it to you, you are one of the bigger spikier guys I've run into so far."

And ... oh boy. Snow let out a thoughtful sigh, glancing back in the direction they had docked from. "Don' you think that ship's got enough death traps and punishment systems?"

[badassfreakingoverlord]

"They don't," Zetta grumbled, as his minion wandered up behind. "I looked. And -- WHY IS MY STUFF ON THE GROUND?!"

[king-of-koopas.livejournal.com]

"Where ELSE am I supposed to put it?" Bowser snapped back, not at all worried by Zetta's outburst. "How am I supposed to angrily shake my fists at foolish merchants if my hands are full!?"

[badassfreakingoverlord]

"Hmm, that IS a good point," Zetta muttered to himself -- then looked around shiftily as his original purpose for hunting the Koopa King down came back to mind.

"While we're not on the ship... I have a mission for you once we get back on it. Something... more up your alley than heavy lifting. Though you're good at the lugging, I'll give you that!"

[king-of-koopas.livejournal.com]

"Of course it's a good point! I made it, after all!" If there's one thing Bowser will grudgingly admit, it's that as a fellow evil overlord, Zetta at least understands the importance of style.

The Koopa King perks up at Zetta's next comment- and more specifically, at his conduct. "Alright, out with it. What're you plotting?" Bowser growls a bit more quietly, letting the heavy lifting comment slide.

[badassfreakingoverlord]

"Last time the ship kicked a bunch of people out of the pods, apparently some guy calling himself 'Zedd' showed up. He apparently thinks that 10,000 years of harassing one universe is enough to earn him the right to play in the big leagues. Let's just say that it wouldn't be frowned upon if some Koopa King were to make that egotist's life and evil plans a little less smooth."

Only -- ONLY -- in Zetta's mind did it make sense to add Bowser into the Lord Zedd problem.

[king-of-koopas.livejournal.com]

"Whoa, whoa, hold it! MY job description's 'Biggest Baddest Koopa King Around', not 'Villain-Thwarting Good Samaritan Twinkletoes'!" Bowser snorted. "If YOU'VE got a problem with this wannabe, YOU go knock the stuffing out of him or make him give up the 'Z' part of his name or whatever!"

Seriously, lava moats are where it's at *playing too much Minecraft*

[allnaturalseed.livejournal.com]

Oh. It's that Bowser guy, harassing one of the many, many stall owners here. She'd feel sorry for the victim if half of the people here didn't deserve a tongue lashing, if a more focused one that didn't have anything to do with a lack of lava.

Seriously, trying to buy lava? And transport it bucket by bucket or something? "Y'know, most people aren't looking to build lava-moated castles."

What CAN'T they do?

[king-of-koopas.livejournal.com]

"Well, MOST people are total wusses who wouldn't know good dungeon design if it came right up and bit them in the- oh, it's you," Bowser muttered, clearly not too happy to see her.

Then again, he was in the kind of mood where he wouldn't have been happy to see ANYONE, which he showed by turning and fixing the merchant with a glare. "And most of the merchants HERE wouldn't know HOW to stock a store if it ALSO came right up and bit them in the tail!!"

End world hunger?

[allnaturalseed.livejournal.com]

"Most people don't care about knowing dungeon designs." No one used anything you'd call a 'dungeon' in Orb, at least as far as she knew, and their lava was in use as a source of geothermal power - well under the ground, where it belonged. "It's hard to find someone to cater so such a... rare sense of taste..."

Well, if you dropped EVERYONE into the lava moats...

[king-of-koopas.livejournal.com]

"Well, how about castles, then? Or fortifications, or outposts? You've gotta have PLENTY of lava for those sorts of places!"

And a Koopaling to staff them, but that's beside the point.

Genius! *Buries world in lava*

[allnaturalseed.livejournal.com]

"Why?" There are a million and one ways to fortify a position without lava, most of them far less likely to backfire and melt your own forces. "To intimidate people?"

...that actually makes the most sense knowing Bowser, though.

[king-of-koopas.livejournal.com]

"Well, yeah, that too," Bowser admitted, waving a hand dismissively. "But you ALSO do it to keep people OUT, just in case you've got any amazing artifacts you want to store piecemeal!"

[brustriese.livejournal.com]

Signum was passing by, intent on her goal of finally finishing her family's lengthy shopping list, but she's distracted by the large...shelled lizard? Snapping turtle? Some kind of spiky dragon? By the large reptilian gentleman's rant, and curiosity getting the better of her, she just has to ask.

"How exactly does one preserve and transport lava?" she asks. "Either for sale or for transport to a spaceship?"

[king-of-koopas.livejournal.com]

Bowser's glare focused onto Signum. "That's easy! All you gotta do is-"

He paused as he realized, for the first time, that he honestly had no idea because he'd never HAD this problem before. Back in his world, all he had to do was dig deep enough and presto, instant lava.

Not that he was going to admit it. "- is... you know... look, with whatever crazy technology's running our ship, I'm SURE that a bunch of intergalactic sleazeballs like these would have SOME way of doing it!" he finished.

[brustriese.livejournal.com]

Signum follows up with what she feels is another reasonable question. "And you had plans to keep this substance heated on Stacy, or were you just going to do some obsidian sculpting the hard way?"

[king-of-koopas.livejournal.com]

Urk.

"Y... yeah, I TOTALLY had plans for that, too! Plans greater than ANYONE'S comprehension!" Bowser bluffed, trying not to let on that he hadn't thought of that at all.

[brustriese.livejournal.com]

"You just wanted lava for the sake of having it, didn't you?" Signum asks.

[king-of-koopas.livejournal.com]

"And what's wrong with that!?" Bowser growls defensively.