Waves lapped up against the side of the ship as it cut it’s way across the Caribbean Sea towards the Florida coastline. Balls Nasty had bought his way onto a ship that made the ten hour journey from La Perdita to Miami once a week. Mostly for the tourists, but also for people with family in the US to visit regularly. Nasty sat on a cushioned seat with his shotgun laying across his lap. Mounted on the ceiling above him was a cube hold four TV sets. Several similar cubes hung throughout the ship to keep the passengers entertained on the long cruise. But Balls Nasty was not being entertained. He was confused.
Barley audible above the racket of a hundred simultaneous conversations and the occasional unsupervised child, a cartoon was on the TV facing him. To his surprise it was called ‘Vanguard: Defenders of Earth’. As he gaped in confusion, one of the characters was summing up the episode, “Well, we may have stopped the evil Dr. Knell’s diabolical plan to turn Thunder City into his reptilian minions with his monstrous Reptilarator Ray; but he has once again managed to slither out of our grasp and escaped to plague us another day.”
“Well, Danny,” another character said, “maybe if you’d let me go after Knell, he wouldn’t have escaped. My keen senses and sharp reflexes are second to none.” Just that moment a bucket of water falls on his head and soaks him.
“Ha, ha,” laughed a third. “Looks like you’re all wet, Dirk”
“So true, Eurostar,” Danny laughed.
“Drrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx!” Dirk yelled. A tiny, muppet-like cartoon dragon runs and hides behind Danny, peeking it’s little head out over his shoulder nervously. The rest of the group, besides Dirk, laugh as the scene fades out.
“What the fuck?” Balls Nasty runs his fingers through his tangled mane of hair. The mullet swallowed his fingers whole as it declared to the world that though the front was short and declared that there would be business as usual, there was still going to be a keg party blastin’ bitchin’ Southern Rock.
The cartoon was yet to be over. A new scene faded onto the screen. Two kids on skateboards are riding through a park without any pads or helmets. “Betcha I can jump higher than you off that ramp,” one kid challenged.
“You’re on!” the other responded. They roll towards the ramp. As they take to the air, their boards fly out from underneath them causing them to fall backwards. As they come crashing towards the ground, their falls are stopped by two sets of arms reaching out and catching them.
“Grimm! Ozzy!” the two yell.
“Hey, where’s your safety equipment?” Ozzy asks, for some reason in an Australian accent, as they put the boys down.
“We don’t need those things. We’re tough like you guys,” the first boy answers.
“We may be tough,” Grimm, whose skull face was pulled up around the sides to cause a look of a comical smile, begins lecturing, “but even we wear safety equipment when necessary.”
“That’s right, Grimm,” Ozzy agreed. “You’ll never see us take off in the Stormloader without first fastening our safety belts. We’re tough because we’re prepared.”
“Exactly. A fall like the one you guys took could cause serious injuries that the proper pads and helmets can help avoid,” Grimm handed the two boys a set of pads and helmets as he spoke. “Remember, kids, that safety is cool for everyone. Even if you’re indestructible like Ozzy here.”
“Yeah, or else you might end up looking like Grimm here,” Ozzy giggled as he pointed to his partner’s face.
“Huh?” Grimm responded. Ozzy put his hand on the man’s shoulders, and everyone began laughing again as the scene faded out to the closing credits.
“I don’t get any of this,” Balls said as the theme song closed the show with a big Vanguard: Defenders of the Earrrrrrrth! Nasty noticed a little boy walking buy with a comic book that had ‘Vanguard Adventures’ across the front. He seized it and began flipping through the pages.
“Hey!” the kid complained.
“Piss off!” Nasty replied as he found an ad in the middle of the book. There he was fighting a bunch of junkyard robots to save the Twinkies for the good kids to enjoy in their treehouse. There, on the last panel of the page, he was smiling with a half eaten Twinkie in one hand with the other giving the thumbs up. The word balloon read: Those Junkbots should have known that Balls Nasty wouldn’t allow them to steal the greatest snack in the universe.
“That’s it!” Balls Nasty shouted as he threw the comic to the floor. “They left me for dead at the bottom of the ocean. Then, they make a mockery of all I stand for with this humiliating schilling for Hostess Twinkies. Delicious sponge cakes with a cream filling. I have had enough. Revenge shall be mine.” He stood up and pumped his shotgun for dramatic effect since he really didn’t plan on using it here and the fact that there weren’t any bullets for that action to chamber. “Everyone knows that Balls Nasty is a Moon Pie man.”
