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Toll Booth Blues By Kyence Disclaimer: WEP owns these characters, but they are not as sick as me! I should have known something was up. I should have suspected something was amiss. But, as usual, I do my best to the make the most out of a bad situation, and it never works out for me. Being the Crown Prince of Doom is no easy task. The day started out typical enough. My father, the old King Zarkon, looking 3 inches from the grave but never letting someone get close enough to push him into it, bellowing about my careless wasting of the Empire’s resources. Naturally, with my suave demeanor and natural charm, explained that those servants deserved to lose their heads; after all, they lost my favorite pair of socks. You may not think it’s such a big deal, but try wearing my boots with scratchy, starchy socks that you hate and see if you don’t wanna blow up a planet afterwards. No no, go ahead, I’ll wait. See? Now give ‘em back before I cut you! Ahem, anyways, he mentions the forty robot guards I hacked up the day before. That was easy enough to justify: they were blocking my way, and I was running late. Of course, I am completely assertive and looking my old fish-man straight in the eyes throughout all this. He gives up and sighs. Heh, nobody and I mean NOBODY can beat yours truly in a staring match. He rubs his temples and groans. “And I suppose you want to go to Arus with yet another Division?” he asks me. Well, duh, why else would I speak to him? What am I going to do, ask him to go fishing with me to make up for all of those lost years? So, I reply with all of my well-earned confidence, “Yes, Father. I feel today is going to be the day.” “You said that yesterday…” “But I really mean it this time…” “…And the day before that…” “The Law of Averages is on my side now…” “…And the day before that…” At this point, I stopped and waited for the warm halitosis to knock me off my feet as You-know-who started one of his hissy fits. He really does look like a woman in that get-up of his, and the tirade is actually quite funny when it’s not directed at you. He really needs to get laid, just between you and me. I can tell you nothing loosens me up after a hard day of plundering like some sweet woman. Surprisingly, he didn’t yell or scream. This should have set off an alarm in my head, but it didn’t. “Fine. Go then.” And wouldn’t you know it, I did. I made sure my hair was all nice and shiny and sheen, with no knots or tangles. I checked my teeth to make sure they were their brightest and sharpest. I wore my best uniform and even settled for my second-favorite pair of socks, my “first-time-I-saw-Allura” socks. (My favorite pair of socks were my “first-time-I made-physical-contact-with-Allura” socks, so you can see why those servants deserved to die for losing them.) Now, I am all ready and groomed for a fine day of aggressive courting. Hagar was trying to tell me something as I was going into my command ship, but naturally I wasn’t listening. Everything seems on the up and up, right? Nothing unusual, right? Hah, listen to this: We near Arus’s orbit, when there’s a strange apparatus circling the planet. It resembled a sort of barricade. “This stuff wasn’t here yesterday, what gives?!” I shouted. A guard was going to answer me, but I punched him in the face first. Hey, I was angry, and I hate surprises. “Umm, Your Highness?” A distant guard addressed me. “What?” “I am receiving communications from the barricade.” “And?” I yell, growing impatient with this insipid exchange. “Well, they will allow us to pass…” “Hah hah! No one messes with Prince Lotor!” I cry out triumphantly, raising from my seat and giving myself a hearty pat on the chest. “…On the condition that we pay first…” “Hunh?” My celebration promptly stopped. I couldn’t believe my pointy ears. “Are you telling me what I think you are telling me?” I leered down at the guard. Even though he was dozens of yards away, he was recoiling and looking for the quickest exit. Other guards wisely kept their distance. “…Errm…yes, it’s a…toll booth…Your Highness…” I can’t really recall the next minute or so; I black out sometimes. I exercised my battle skill, I can tell you that much, because what I remember next is half the guards are running like sissies while the other half are Doom pudding. I can slice and dice like no one else! “Hey! Everyone who’s still alive, back to your stations!” I command. “This ship will approach one of these ‘toll booths’ and we will see if it can stop ME!” So, it does, and we near the tollbooth. I see a sign that reads in crude Arusian: “Do not backup. Severe thruster damage.” There is a stupid laser projection blocking the way that has black and white angled stripes in it. “Open up my frequency,” I order. The next thing I hear is a weary, overworked voice reiterating, “4000 space credits.” “No.” There, that’ll teach ‘em. “Four thousand space credits please,” the voice, repeated in the same monotone of a smoking zombie in an undead union, obviously not realizing to whom this wage slave is speaking to. “I…I don’t have 4000 on me.” “Please wait for my supervisor.” “Arrgh, to hell with this! Just ram the damn thing!” I command. The engines accelerated to a high power output and it seemed like this odd desperate plan of Allura’s would fail like so many of Hagar’s robeasts. The ship zoomed forward…and abruptly stopped. After 2 feet. Now, there was an indent of a horizontal laser on the front of my command. Simply lovely. “Blast! Let’s get out of here!” I demand, ordering the ship to retreat. Now, remember that sign? I bet you did. Well, in all of my frustration, the memory eluded me, so when the ship’s reverse thrusters were activated, that was when the steel spikes from a lower beam of the barricade shot into the chassis of my ship. By the time I got home, it looked like I had a run-in with Voltron, and I was only too happy to lie about that. The next day, I brought fifty thousand credits with me. I figured I could get some sort of discount by buying in bulk. The same dull voice greeted me with the toll price to which I happily said I’d pay. “By the way, do you have any deals for buying a bunch of toll passes at once?” “Of course, sir,” the dry voice said. “E-Z Pass. Just put the sticker on the outside of your ship, and every time you pass through, it gets deducted from your bank account.” I grit my teeth. I could feel my eye twitching as I asked,” Why didn’t you tell me that yesterday?” “The program started today.” “RRRRAGGGGHHHHH!” The day before wasn’t a complete failure. I paid, and got the E-Z Pass thing and was able to cause some havoc before heading back to Doom for some Skull Tea. For the rest of the month, it was almost like old times, pre-toll booth. I even received another slap on the face from my beloved Allura in that time. I haven’t washed that cheek since. Sigh. But then…when my bank statement came in… “DADDDDDDYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!” Yes, that’s me, wailing like a little child as I ran frantically towards the throne room. I flailed my arms as I held the crumpled statement in one hand. “Yes, my mature son?” my sarcastic father replied. My lip quivered as I pointed to the numbers, or lack thereof, in my account balance. “Ah, it looks like the E-Z Pass must have overcharged you. Sometimes if you go through once, it charges you two or three times for one pass. A glitch in the system that’ll take some time to get out I’m sure…” he explained far too calmly for my benefit. “But…but my money…” I whimpered. “Oh, quit your whining!” he snapped. “When I was your age, I didn’t have money for tolls. You know what I did? I took the Space Subway. That’s right. And I rarely had money for that, so I had to hop the turnstile! So don’t complain!” And that is why I am on the Space Subway today, telling you my story. So, please, help a poor lovesick prince out and give me any spare change you have into this little jar…OW! Heh heh, nice try kid, but you missed the jar…OW! OUCH! Hey, pelting credits and coins hurt! Ahh! Stop it people, or I’ll kill you al…ACK! Fine, I’ll try the next car over! Doo-doo-doo, hmm hmm hmm, ahh, this looks like a giving crowd, much better than the last one. Excuse me? Everyone, can I have your attention please? I have a story to share with you all, a sad story. It goes like this…I should have known something was up… |