No credit is taken for the characters in this story; that is reserved to the owners of the show
"Not getting into this game, Rigby." Mordecai shook his head in frustration. "I'm sorry."
"D'awgh, but why?"
The duo had woken up an hour earlier to get a chance to try the new videogame they purchased the day prior before they had to attend their jobs; it had just been a couple of weeks since its release, and it had garnered loads of buzz, both in the gamer community and the News Media blog-shpere, even before it came out. It was a very hyped-up product, having been the first one to come out of a small, relatively new developer. It had been presented for the first time at an Electronic Entertainment event Rigby and Mordecai attended, by its creative director, a woman named Marissa, who did not introduce 'Jute for Everyone' nor she talked about her game at all, but instead used her time on the spotlight to deliver a speech about the trends several modern games follow and why most gamers don't bother to complete story-based videogames. The lecture bored several guests, including Mordecai, to tears. His pal payed close attention, nevertheless.
Mordecai wasn't looking forward to Marissa's creation. He knew the game was viewed and appreciated by hardcore players as an anomaly, and that outside of that, it didn't do anything for people who were tired of you-who shmucks preaching their thoughts through ungodly heartless products. Rigby seemed oblivious to Jute for Everyone's reputation and was excited to get it, so he didn't make any comments about it until they began playing:
"It's not clicking with me." the bird explained himself. "It's too experimental, and it has no clear main objectives; there are no obstacles or enemies to beat. This shouldn't even be a co-op game; you could play perfectly without me."
"And just because it lacks those things, does it make it a bad game?" his friend argued. "It was getting really fun!"
A moment of silence interrupted the exchange of opinions, during which Mordecai tried to locate Rigby's position in the map they were working on. When done, he continued talking:
"This is a game you could play forever. There's not a final boss to tell you where's the end." the jay remarked. The raccoon threw away his controller.
"Well, yeah, but..."
"I thought you liked those!"
Rigby grunted as he began his sentence from the start:
"Well, yeah, but this game is about a different perspective on how we enjoy our videogames in the present" Rigby clenched his fists and pulled them closer to his chest, as if he adopted an initial hand-in-hand combat position. "The chick who came up with this project has stated so. She wanted to share her own approach to the main focus of several modern videogames, which is the characters and the plots. This is not about the captivating story or deep characters, at least from the get go. She thinks no story is more fascinating than the one we come up with ourselves, so she thought gamers'd be enthralled by what their own imaginations could do on a TV screen."
Mordecai couldn't be more perplexed.
"And this is what maturity has done to you."
"Maybe." Rigby answered as he cogitated what Mordecai had told him. "I just memorised every word of her speech when she showed the game at that Expo. It's exactly what she says; look it up."
"You've been really weird since you visited that house."
Rigby went 'UJGH' and stood up, to make sure the bluejay would pay attention:
"It's not that, dude. I'm trying to describe you a work of art."
"Art? Yeah, sure."
To Jute for Everyone's credit, the first levels were pretty decent. Short, to the point, perhaps a little too easy, like an Internet game you'd play on a PC. Their fashion and the tasks they had to complete to move on to the next one were remeniscent of the retro games he loved playing with Rigby. And yes, it was divided by levels as a nod to those gems. Very nice, indeed. But the groan-worthy parts made their presence when they got to Level 20, where they were assigned a character each one. And the game made a horrible twist: the missions were non-sensical, the colours suddenly brightened and became a nuisance, all the characters they encountered were obnoxious, the cheerful music from past levels went silent, and if they didn't reach their target or accomplish their goal within the time limit, they unexplicably died and had to start over.
"It has some really likeable parts" stated the bluejay "but I wish it had more of those instead of moments where my character just wanders around aimlessly along with scenarios played over and over again, just with different characters and layouts."
Art, he repeated.
He appreciated videogames as much as his partner did, but he couldn't be serious this time. Mordecai left his controller on the floor, stood up and started walking away towards the entrance of the house.
"Hey, where are you going?"
"I remembered I had important stuff to do besides taking care of the snack bar today. I'm gonna leave early" he added as he opened the door and went through it "you can stay here with your art-UGH?!"
The bluejay almost slipped with some flyers that were left in front of the door. He picked up one.
"Yo, what is this?"
"What happened, Mordecai?" Rigby inquired from inside the house, as he had already started a new game.
"Aww, it's an ad for that Art Exhibition Fair they're doing in the park." His eyes opened wide as he realised:
"I forgot! Today we must set up some space to mount the galleries from the exhibition in the park!"
"Oh...Seriously?"
"Yeah! C'mon, dude. We've got no time to lose"
"Well..." Rigby turned the TV off.
The two were rushing to the central zone of the park, a spot very far away from their usual meeting point, the outside of the house; they didn't find anyone there, so they just kept searching for a trace of their co-workers. From the middle of the field, they could see everything in their surroundings more easily. North...East...South...Benson!
...
Their boss was standing next to an exaggeratedly leafy tree that doubled this height, scribbling on a notepad. A pair of gardener scissors rested against the tree's roots, many of which stuck out of the ground. Mordecai was the first to talk once him and Rigby had reached him:
"Benson, why are you here? We thought you were outside Pops' house. Couldn't find you anywhere!"
"And I was heading over there..." Benson explained. His employees looked fatigued. Form what he could tell, the two had been running, and Mordecai sounded a little nervous. Perhaps they had some urgency he wasn't aware of.
"Where are the others?" the bird asked, after panting for ten straight seconds.
"Are we really that late to the set up of the Art Exhibition?" his buddy seemed worried, too. Benson was able to sort out what was happening. He spoke:
"The exhibition opens tomorrow. Pops took everyone else for a ride; they went to run some errands on the city."
"Tomorrow?"
Both friends exchanged looks.
"You must've read that wrong." Rigs vouched, looking right into Mordo's eyes.
"Really wrong." Mordecai stiffly jerked his head "But still: if the gallery opens tomorrow, why not begin to prepare it now?"
"Because people are still submitting pieces of their work to the High Art Museum. The Fair will grant access to the public on 12 a.m."
That explains it.
Sounds logical.
"And well" said Benson " I was going to assign you an improptu activity due to the circumstances..."
That did not sound promising at all.
"...but since you're here, you can help by pruning this tree."
He handed Mordecai the scissors. The latter held them on his wings, gave them a beffudled look and opened his beak to mouth:
"Why?"
"Is there anything you might have problems with?" Benson wanted to know.
"No, I mean; you mentioned something about circumstances..."
"Uh, no. It's just that I want everything in the park to be presentable."
"Are you sure we must do this? Nothing more challenging or more exhaustive?" the bluejay inquired once again, still doubtful.
"Yeah. Besides, there isn't another single tree in this zone." Rigby was also in Mordecai's position.
"It's the only one. Make sure to make it stand out more than it already does." were the last instructions the gumball machine gave the duo before sodding off.
"Can you believe it?" Rigby snapped out. He, being the tiny one, was standing on top of the strongest branch, getting rid of the driest, most attacked by caterpillars, ugliest looking leaves. He passed the tool to his partner, but he didn't reply.
"Mordecai?"
"Huh?"
"You realise we wouldn't be doing this if you hadn't misread that flyer?" Rigby sounded a little brassed off. With him, everything's usually little.
Mordo was standing on the ground, awaiting for his turn to use the scissors.
"Yeah..." he mumbled and started pruning.
"Are you fully aware of what I'm telling you and what it...?"
"Of course, dude, but... I was just thinking and not giving much importance to whatever we could be doing other than this."
"Oh, I see."
"I was thinking about submitting a portrait for the Art Exhibition Fair."
Rigby almost lost his balance from the abrupt pause he made. Mordecai's alert mode activated, automatically anticipating the worst scenario he could, which involved catching the raccoon while holding a sharp object in his wings. None of that happened. Rigby regained his position.
"Man...a portrait? I thought you said you quit that stuff like, perenially after the incident with the painting of Benson."
"I said I would leave my art practices on an indefinite hiatus..." the bird put down the pruning instrument to rest his back on the tree's rough bark to adopt a more comfortable position for a conversation "Perenially...Are you listening to what you're saying?"
"But still, what YOU'RE saying is legit? You really wanna go there?" Rigby quickly climbed down to be face to face with Mordecai. "You do want to do a painting for the hammy Fair?"
"Yeah, it doesn't have to be a painting, but that's what I want it to be."
"You said you went to art school and everything you did ended up being a disaster."
"Hold on. That is true, but it didn't end there." He took a moment to breathe in:
"After all the disarray the Benson portrait caused and after everything worked out..."
"Very lucky of us." Rigby interrupted.
"Everything worked out" Mordecai insisted "That inspired me to dig deeper into what art is."
"And?" the coon stretched the pronounciation of the vowel on that one.
"Well, I did research. I met people. They me showed paintings, sculptures, installations and artists I had never heard about. And knowledge came from a very different source."
"Appreciation."
"Never have you ever used that word more accurately."
"Knew what the key word was when you talked about how you got into art. So... You know a lot of that, don't you?"
"Well, I've been more active as a non-official art curator, to tell you the truth. I haven't painted since the Benson portrait incident."
Rigby squinted his eyes.
"But I'm not afraid to do so anymore. I could blame art school for teaching and evaluating art from a strictly technical point of view, but even that was before we went through so many crazy ventures. This will be easy."
"Huh. Great" Rigby let out in satisfaction. He distractedly directed his eyes towards the gardener scissors, which had been tossed and let alone. A concern materialised in his brain:
"What about that tree?"
Mordecai felt all his new found energy and motivation cut and flee from him as the sensation in the nerves from his back brusquely reminded him of what was he resting against. Bark of sweet, sweet tree.
"Errmmmmmghhmhh...Uhhhhh..."
"It's okay as it is now?" Rigs asked.
"I haven't even touched it with the scissors in my power."
"But you have."
"Let's just go."
.