The three guys hoisted Robert onto their shoulders.
"What?" Robert spluttered. "Put me down at once!"
"Sorry dude!" Tyler yelled. "Not happening!"
They started running towards the arcade, chanting loudly, "BRO! BRO! BRO! BRO!"
There was also the distinct sound of Robert screaming.
When they reached the arcade, a large building called Dan and Bob's, the crew immediately burst in. The guy at the counter looked up from the play script he was holding and raised an eyebrow.
"Bro Time?" he asked, and Owen grinned.
"You know it, man!"
"Don't let me stop you." The counter guy pulled a shoebox from under the counter, labeled "RESERVED FOR NEW BRO." Inside was a sack full of tokens, which he gave to Sam.
As the three ran to the video games with Robert, Sam yelled back, "THANKS SHIN!"
Shin nodded. "No problem."
Owen and Tyler deposited Robert in the middle of the room and ran to go play whatever. Despite the fall break, the place was almost deserted. Most people were probably at home doing sensible things like sleeping all day.
Robert, however, had long since been denied that luxury. "Why can't I just go home?" he whined. "I just want to go back to bed."
Sam caught up to them. "Bro, just play one round of this shooter first," Sam said. He led the rich snob to a simple first-person shooter game, put in some coins, and picked up the plastic gun. "It's simple. Point the gun at the screen. That little blue target is where you'll hit. Pull the trigger to shoot. You want to shoot those guys, not the other ones."
As Robert watched, spellbound by the flashing lights, Sam stepped on a pedal. "And you step on this to reload, since you'll run out o bullets pretty fast." The gamer guy finished the game. "Dang it. I usually get a higher score than that."
"But... It's over 9000," Robert said.
"Look at this." Sam navigated to the leaderboard screen. The top ten scores all had his name.
"Preposterous," Robert scoffed. "Give me the tokens, I want to try."
And try he did. Sure, at first he was terrible at it ("SAM WHY ARE THEY SHOOTING AT ME?!" "Calm down, just put up the shield"), but he got better. Within an hour, he had improved to the point that he was #10 on the leaderboard.
"Great job, Robert!" Sam clapped him on the back. "But, you know there are other games too, right?"
"Really?" He looked around and saw a Doodle Jump machine. "I'm going to try that one... Wait, where's the gun?"
"That's not a shooting game, that's jumping..."
The afternoon passed quickly, and Robert learned how to play a few of the games with Sam's assistance. Owen and Tyler would occasionally recommend a game they liked or challenge him to another, but for the most time they kept to themselves, lost in the blinking graphics. Finally, night was fast approaching, and the arcade was going to close in 15 minutes.
"Dude, we need to leave. The arcade is closing," Tyler insisted, tugging on Robert's sleeve.
"I suppose I can't utilize my wealth to let them allow us to stay?"
"No. No you can't."
"Fine. How many tokens do we have left?"
Owen rummaged in the bag and came up with nothing. "We sure used a lot of them!" he remarked.
"Fine, let's go." On the way out of the arcade, Robert gave the bag back to Shin along with a hundred-dollar bill.
"What's this for?" Shin asked.
"Fill it with more tokens for next time - at least 350." He hesitated and added, "Keep the change."
The athlete smiled. "Thanks."
Outside, the bros promised to meet up again later during the break. Robert walked home, giddy, and forgot that his mother was going to be furious.
He walked into the mansion, a huge grin on his face. His mother swooped in. "WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?!" she screeched.
"At an arcade," he replied, still dazed and happy.
His mother swelled up and opened her mouth, but after that Robert forgot everything she had said. All he remembered was that she yelled at him a lot, then sent him to his room. And go take a shower, she added.
As he flopped down on his bed, he grinned even more hugely than he had earlier.
Today had been a great day.
A figure paced around a room, deep in thought.
"So," he said. "The Pen Lord has arisen."
He smirked. "Well, in my opinion, PENCILS ARE BETTER." He proceeded to laugh a mad cackle that would have been intimidating had he not been clutching a giant pencil.
The figure in the cage rolled her eyes. "Oh my gosh this is so stupid."
"Shut up, Bridgette," Mal said. "You're just jealous you don't have an awesome cape like mine." He threw it over his shoulder in an attempt to look cool.
"I left my awesome cape at home." She glared at him. "Which is where I WOULD be had you not taken me at a party."
"Oh, come on, I made an awesome ninja."
"You literally walked up to Charlotte and said "oh, I'm going to borrow Bridge for a while", headlocked me, and stumbled off here."
"In STYLE."
"It was anything but that."
"SILENCE, PRISONER!" He brandished his pencil at her, which began to spark.
"Okay, okay, sheesh..."
"Anyway, I'm stepping out for a little bit. Don't escape."
"Wouldn't dream of it."
The skinny emo walked out of the room. Bridgette made sure no one was watching, and pulled put her phone. She opened a new message.
L-
Got captured. Will spy on PG until further notice.
Also, someone help me, as PG seems to be brain-damaged and/or stupid. Probably both.
I know I'm being kind of rude, but he really is annoying.
-B
Writing for the Pencil God is fun. c:
(And if you're a Mal fan, thinking "WHY IS SHE MAKING HIM ALL OOC?", my argument is that if Mal fangirls can make him a cuddle toy who'll totally date them, that's technically OOC as well. If that's acceptable in the fandom, altering his personality here goes by the same principle. Logically, that makes perfect sense.)