Author's Notes:
-I wanted this to be pure crack-fic, but it's really more of a parody.
-As a Brit it's weird for me to use the word soccer instead of football, but I'm used to the American voices and technically they should all be speaking Icelandic, so…
-Also, sorry Mum. And Magnus. And anyone who came here for a sensible plot.

Robbie stared glumly out of his periscope and sighed. Summer was wearing on, seemingly in no hurry to leave. Every day was more mind-numbing than the last; Sportaflop became more and more hyper and the children became more and more infuriatingly stupid. He couldn't even be bothered to scheme anymore because he was pretty certain that there was no-one left on the surface who could comprehend a full, sane sentence. He winced as the candy kid started gnawing on the stick he'd just picked up that had been lying next to the lollipop he'd just dropped.
"MINE!"
Robbie flinched, and nearly brained himself on the periscope. By the time he'd finished rubbing his head and stringing together every profanity he knew, the grabby kid had seized the lollipop and was rubbing it all over his face, giggling to himself with his eyes closed. He seemed to be mumbling the word 'mine'. Weird kids. He adjusted the periscope so he could see the rest of the playground. The gadget kid had his VR goggles on and a controller in his hands, but was lying on the ground motionless. Well, not quite. Every few seconds he twitched, and Robbie wondered if it was his duty as a human being to see if the twitching wasn't just a form of death-spasm. Prank kid seemed to have had the same idea, as she was lying next to him, poking him with a stick. Then again, her glazed eyes gave him the impression that she could just as well be poking an inanimate object. Pink kid was nowhere to be seen, and he wasn't sure if that filled him with relief or dread.

And then, the thing he'd been waiting for happened. Sportaflop fell out of his airship. Unfortunately, it had been drifting rather close to the ground, so the landing was more of a thud than a crunch. Still, it was satisfying for the three seconds it took for the elf to hop up off the floor, brush himself down and look round self-consciously before opening his mouth.
"Anyonewanttoplayagame? Iwanttoplayagame!"
Great. His sentences had now transcended to the realm of single words. The sound of screaming started up, distant at first but quickly growing in amplitude. A moment later and it was ear splitting. A short pink blur had appeared in his field of view and was bouncing up and down, much like Sportaflop, who hadn't stopped moving since getting up from the floor. The two were talking over each other, neither paying the slightest attention to the other's words- sentences- sounds... Whatever it was, it was pretty much unintelligible. He panned round to the other children, to see if they had reacted at all to the arrival of their hyperactive hero. Gadget kid had woken from his trance with a deathly groan that sounded something like 'soccer'. This was echoed by the other children, excluding the one bouncing enough to make him feel sick. The chanting became louder and louder, until it broke through the babbled 'conversation'. Sportaflop produced a soccer ball from nowhere, kicked it really far away and then sprinted off with the kids to retrieve it. The noise faded, and there was no-one in sight. Robbie took this opportunity to go and have a nap.

He awoke some unknown time later to the sound of screaming. It was surprising how quickly he had gotten used to doing that. A look through the periscope informed him that candy kid had managed to stab himself in the back of the throat with the stick he'd been chewing. This was then removed by pink kid, who was promptly tackled by grabby kid with a war-cry of "MIIIINNEE!". The throat injury turned out to be a false alarm as there was no blood anywhere and the crying had stopped in favour of laughing hysterically at the brawl between pink and grabby. That did nothing to stop the shrieking of Sportaflop's crystal, however. Robbie's estimate was that it had been going off for about a week by now, at varying levels of intensity. Either it was broken, or it knew that the degrading state of the town and its people had put everyone in permanent danger. He preferred the first option. As prank kid threw herself on top of the other two, Sportaflop screamed. He didn't actually say anything, but kept it up for long enough for the scrapping kids to notice. Once they did, they started screaming too, which meant that there were four of them making enough noise to wake the dead. Robbie took a moment to put on his industrial ear defenders before continuing to watch. Sportaflop was still bouncing, which made him look simultaneously comedic and disturbing, which would probably account for candy kid standing in silence with his mouth hanging open. He couldn't see gadget kid this time, but he wasn't too worried.

The odd scene carried on for a few moments more, now in silence on Robbie's end, until grabby kid spotted the forgotten soccer ball and swapped his attention to that instead. This re-instated the game, and Robbie bore witness to the most poorly executed game of soccer physically possible. There didn't seem to be any concept of teams, which turned it straight away into a free-for-all, and only two of the people playing seemed to know which limbs were supposed to be in contact with the ball. Grabby was on the floor trying to, well, grab the ball. Prank was throwing herself at it head first for reasons he couldn't fathom, and candy had mistaken it for a gobstopper. Pink and Sportaflop had given up going for the ball and were instead attempting to kick the people on the floor instead, as these were much easier targets. He could see the Mayor in the background, ambling along with a completely vacant expression. Sportaflop had obviously spotted him too, as he suddenly somersaulted backwards and cartwheeled over. The elf's mouth was forming something Robbie couldn't read, so he took the ear defenders off to listen. He was assaulted by the yelling of four children and grimaced, putting the defenders back on. There probably wasn't going to be anything worth hearing anyway. Sportaflop vaulted over a wall and the Mayor followed - without the vault, which meant that he would walk into the wall and bounce off it, look confused for a few seconds and then repeat the process. Sportaflop didn't notice.

Robbie glanced at the clock he kept in the corner on top of that pile of junk he'd been meaning to sort through but had never quite found the time to be bothered to do it. Eight o'clock. He turned back to the periscope to see Sportaflop grab the soccer ball and sprint off - presumably in the direction of his airship, which had been drunkenly sliding through the sky on its side for most of the day. The kids thought that this meant they were playing football, and threw themselves at the elf. He came crashing down on top of the ball, and the combined weight of five people was enough to burst it. Sportaflop froze, and the kids crawled back in shock. They watched as their hero carefully lifted himself off the ball, sat up, then cradled the flaccid fabric to his chest. He sat there, staring into space. Robbie took the defenders off, genuinely wondering if he'd hear sobbing. The only sound in the field was that of the Mayor bouncing off the wall. Eventually the children got bored and wandered off. Fifteen minutes later the Mayor did too. An hour passed, and Sportaflop was still sitting there motionless. The sky grew dark, and he watched the elf mourn the floppy ball. In between watching the evening infomercials, of course. By about eleven o'clock he was ready to get some sleep, so he took a final look through the periscope to see that the elf was still there. In the distance, he could see the airship slowly nose-diving to the ground until it hit a tree and began to deflate.