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

[king-of-koopas.livejournal.com]

"Fine! Jeez!"

Bowser grabbed the guy's leg, stopping him from trying to crawl away, and shook him upside-down until a few coins and a wallet fell out. THEN he threw the guy away.

"HAPPY now!?"

[badassfreakingoverlord]

"Slightly," Zetta said. "But I'm really starting to wonder about this position of 'Koopa King'. That wasn't some very effective tyranny right there, I shouldn't need to tell you to mug a guy..."

[king-of-koopas.livejournal.com]

"Tyranny isn't about me being able to mug people! It's about having minions do all the mugging FOR you," Bowser snorted back.

[badassfreakingoverlord]

"Exactly," Zetta said smugly, as his minion scooped up the wallet.

[king-of-koopas.livejournal.com]

There was a beat.

"Wait, what's THAT supposed to mean!?"

[badassfreakingoverlord]

"It means 'good minioning, Bowser'!" Zetta said as he looked over the haul.

[king-of-koopas.livejournal.com]

"No way! I REFUSE to be a mugging minion! I can live with graciously contributing my awesome muscle, but this is one step away from being Rookie Lackey Number Fifty-Nine! I demand a 50% cut of what that sap had!"

[badassfreakingoverlord]

"Ten percent!" Zetta counteroffered.

[king-of-koopas.livejournal.com]

"Sixty percent!" Bowser shot back.

[badassfreakingoverlord]

Wait, this isn't how it's supposed to -- "Sixty percent of the net!"

[king-of-koopas.livejournal.com]

Bowser blinked. "The net WHAT?"

[badassfreakingoverlord]

"It's the profit. The amount remaining after expenses and stuff." Clearly, the Koopa King had a few Koopa Akkountants to handle this sort of thing.

[king-of-koopas.livejournal.com]

But of course! Why do math when you could DELEGATE people to do math FOR you?

"WHAT expenses!?"

[badassfreakingoverlord]

"Taxes, of course," Zetta said. "For example, the Mugging Tax requires that a portion of all mugged moneys be paid to the Overlord."

[king-of-koopas.livejournal.com]

"That's the dumbest thing I've ever HEARD! You're just making these taxes up off the top of your head!"

[badassfreakingoverlord]

"...you've never done that?" What was the point of HAVING power if you didn't make an occasional arbitrary and capricious decree for the purpose of making the lives of others hard?

[king-of-koopas.livejournal.com]

"Of COURSE I have! And I know it when I see it, pal, so don't even THINK of pulling it on me!" Bowser snapped back, looking SERIOUSLY offended for a change.

[badassfreakingoverlord]

Huh. He was oddly upset by this. Zetta weighed his options -- keep the minion content, or stand fast. The decision proved easier than he thought: make sure the stolen property was not on his own person.

Obligingly, the minion skimmed off some of the money before offering the wallet over.