A/N: Rejoice one and all! I have beaten the sickness! The sickness is down! I am victorious! Now enough of this banter and on with the story. Or as I'd like to quote one of my favorite lines, "And now for something completely different…"
Chapter 4
"It never gets any easier!" Pixel complained as he dropped the game controller on the floor. "There's no way I can reach level 40 without spending my skill points! It's impossible!"
Stephanie just sighed. "Can't we do something else, Pixel? You've been playing that thing for three hours now!"
"Not until I advance to the next level!" Pixel's eyes remained glued to the screen.
Stephanie turned to Ziggy, who was drowning out Pixel's constant whining by sticking gummy worms into his ears. When nudged, the boy looked up and removed a worm from one of his ears.
"What?" He asked.
"Why don't we just go on without Pixel?" Stephanie suggested.
Clyde, who had been staring out the window the whole time, chuckled to himself and turned his attention over to Pixel and his game.
"What are you playing?" He asked, going over the screen. "Oh, cool. 'Dominion 3000'. Yeah, I always have trouble with the dungeon spiders myself."
Pixel gave the boy a surprised look. "You play the 'Dominion' games?"
With a nod, Clyde took over the game control and stared at the television screen. "Of course I do. The games are usually a bit difficult and demanding at first but if you know what you're doing, you'll find out things are always easier than you thought."
After thumbing through the controls, Clyde managed to take Pixel's game sprite to the next level and returned the controller back to him with a grin. "You see? Not so hard, is it?"
"What the…" Pixel was stunned and amazed. "You managed to level him up 20 times than I expected and without spending my skill points!"
Stephanie leaned in closer to Trixie. "Do you have any idea what they're talking about?"
She just shrugged. "They're boys. What did you expect? I gave up trying to understand them a long time ago."
"I don't know." Stephanie gazed at Clyde for a bit. "Sometimes they can be a bit intriguing. Like there's something about them you just can't place your finger on."
"Huh?"
Stephanie shook her head and shrugged off her thoughts. "Nothing. Never mind."
Inside his airship, Sportacus finished his patrol of the town and took a seat at the pilot controls. He activated a video screen and punched in a few keys, activating some sort of communication signal.
"Connecting to satellites." The computer voice said. "Destination?"
"Home." Sportacus answered, sitting back in his chair.
"One moment, please."
The video fizzed for a moment until a green line ran through the middle. Sportacus looked up at the ceiling and calmly waited for the connection process to finish and sighed heavily.
"Sportacus?" A female's voice startled the hero, causing him to fall back on his seat.
"Ma!" The hero in blue said as he sat back down. "It's me!"
The woman displayed on the video screen was young-looking, with a long, golden mane and wearing a gown of purest white. She was, despite her youthful appearance, Sportacus' mother Jezelle.
"I know my own son when I see him." The woman snapped. "And isn't it just like you to call your mother whenever it suits you!? Where have you been, huh? Why don't you ever call your dear mother like you should!?"
"Okay, I'm sorry!" Sportacus tried to dodge his mother's temper. "Yes, ma! I… I understand! Could I… please, could I just… could I say something, please!?"
The woman rolled her eyes back. "Okay, what?"
"I have to know for sure if Clyde is completely well enough to travel on his own."
"Why, has something happened? Has he had another attack?" The woman leaned in towards her screen. "Has there been an incident you haven't told me about yet?"
"No, ma!" Sportacus sighed. "I just don't want him to get uncomfortable. You know what happens when he tenses up."
She nodded. "Yes. Losing his parents was hard enough for him. But to have this… this illness, follow him for the rest of his life… it's unimaginable the pain he must be going through. The loneliness."
"I know. I guess LazyTown is the perfect place for him to relax. The kids are friendly, he seems to get along well and Stephanie's already transfixed on him. I can tell."
Jezel thought for a moment. "Stephanie? That pink cheerleader you always speak of?"
Sportacus nodded with a grin. "Yes."
"Rotten isn't going to be a problem, is he?"
Just then, Sportacus' eyes widened with fear. "Robbie! Oh no… I completely forgot about him! He's always coming up with some wild and wacky scheme to get rid of me!"
"Sportacus, you must speak with him! Knock some sense into him if you have to!"
"Wait, wait…" Sportacus finally calmed down. "I'm getting ahead of myself. Robbie isn't really evil. He's just… goofy. He doesn't really mean what he says most of the time. And even when he does succeed, it usually backfires and Robbie always turns out to be the good guy in the end."
"But are you sure it won't affect Clyde in any way?" She warned him. "If the tension builds up, it could get out of control and consume him. His heart rate is already abnormal. We don't need it getting any worse than it already is."
Sportacus paused for a moment then looked at his mother. "It's okay. He'll be fine. I'll make sure of it. With Stephanie's help and the rest of the children, he should be fine. Besides, he's got his meds with him. That alone should be able to sustain him."
"I hope you're right, son." She smiled. "You just take care of him. He's the only nephew you've got."
Sportacus chuckled a bit. "He's so much like his father."
"That he is. But I can see more of his uncle in him than anything. Good night, son."
"Good night, mother."
Robbie gazed through his periscope and watched as the sun went down. The kids were now heading back home and today's daily activities were finally coming to an end.
"Oh, thank you!" Robbie clasped his hands together. "No more noise!"
With a sinister giggle, Robbie walked over to his machine and ran his hand along the smooth, leathery seats.
"Now all I have to do is bring them in one by one!" He said to himself. "But how to do it? Hmm…"
Robbie glanced across the room and rushed over to a box of inventions he hadn't used in a while. After sorting through the junk, he pulled out a small, metallic ray gun with a lightning bolt crossed out on the handle.
"My energy drainer!" Robbie grinned. "Of course! If I use this to drain out Sportadorka's energy, he'll be as helpless as a… a… oh, forget it! He'll just be helpless! Haha! Rotten, you're a genius!"
Outside, Clyde and Stephanie were walking home and talking to each other as the moon slowly started to ascend.
"I didn't know you knew so much about video games." Stephanie said, her hands together.
"Well, what did I tell ya? I'm a nerd!" He joked.
Stephanie couldn't help but giggle. "But you're a cool nerd."
"Isn't that an oxymoron?"
"Probably." She shrugged.
Once they reached Stephanie's home, the girl in pink slowly turned to Clyde and gave him a sincere look.
"Listen, Clyde." She started. "…Again, I'm really sorry about… you know. Bringing your illness up."
"It's no problem." He reassured her. "I'm just glad I have someone to talk to about it."
"And you always will."
Another awkward silence fell between the two until Stephanie broke the ice with a nervous titter.
"Well… I better go in. Your uncle will be back any minute." Stephanie started to turn away.
"Yeah." Clyde nodded. "I better… go back to the Track One."
"Good night, Clyde."
"Good night, Stephanie."
