Author's Note: Wow, I never expected that I'd get any reviews, nonetheless four lovely and intelligent reviews such as those, but I did! So a big thank you to the reviewers so far! I think it's safe to say that I love you guys!
This chapter is chocked full of Robbie, with an always-fun trip to the backstory department! Yay! Also, I hope you don't mind, but I am also introducing an OC (orig. character) in this chapter. Never fear, she's not a Mary Sue! In fact, I think she's one swell gal. Hope you like this chapter! It's long! Review because you know I love it :)
Love, Scoutsdream
Robbie made it to the billboard without barely breaking a sweat.
"Those damn kids… tricking me into exercise all the time, planning schemes to foil Sportacus, the hectic costume changes, the running around and setting traps… now I'm all healthy. Disturbing."
He lowered himself into the secret entry to his underground home, making sure to close the lid after himself. Not like anyone would come to see me anyways, he thought begrudgingly.
Robbie slid down the chute that led to the inside of his house, and landed with a light plop on a pile of pillows in his large blue living room.
"Funny, I don't remember putting those pillows there…" he said as he stood up.
Suddenly a hand from behind him grabbed his shoulder lightly. "BURGLAR!" he yelled, his heart palpitating as he jumped onto his chair and turned to face the intruder.
His intruder stood smirking at him, a tall and beautiful blonde woman wearing glasses, dressed head to toe in black.
"GENEVIVE?" he shouted, cringing slightly.
"Miss me, big brother?" She laughed lightly, her cold gray eyes flashing, so similar to his.
"NOT REALLY, NO!"
"You haven't changed one bit," she mused, running her hand over one of his orange shag-covered inventions. "Still decorating like you live in Tackytown, I see. It's charming, really."
Robbie stuttered for a minute before he could comprehend everything that had been transacted in the last thirty seconds. "But you're… not supposed to be here! You're supposed to be…"
"In Iceland? Oh, I know. But you know mom and dad, they went to the grocery store, so I skipped out... across the Atlantic. Besides, I missed the place. How long has it been?"
"Fourteen years."
"Has anything changed since I've left?"
"Lots. None of it good, all of it bad."
She crossed her arms and sat down on the pile of pillows. "Tell me all about it."
Robbie got a piece of cake out of his Cake-O-Matic 3000 and sat down in his chair, his heart no longer beating from fear. After all, it was only his little sister.
Robbie and Genevive Rotten had both been born in Iceland, but had moved to Lazytown when their father's sister Rhonda Rotten, Lazytown's librarian, had fallen ill. Robbie's Father, Robert Senior, had sent both of his children to Lazytown to take care of her, and go to the local schools in order to get a better education.
Growing up in Lazytown was a dream come true to the two kids, who were fascinated by all the strange things in their new country. Although they had extensive knowledge of the English language, they had a hard time understanding all the slang and confusing phrases, in the beginning. After a couple of rough days, Robbie and Genevive became the talk of Tri-City High, the high school that harbored kids from Lazytown and two of the other nearby towns. Their popularity spread over all three towns and they quickly became known as the cool kids of the area. Both with striking good looks, sharp intellect, and penchants for being the class clowns, they could take on the world. Not to mention that Robbie Rotten was the star athlete on the Tri-City track team, and could outrun the wind without effort.
Robbie graduated at the middle of his class, but still graduated successfully with full plans to attend a college in Texas with a full scholarship from his running. But Robbie's luck took a turn for the worst, and he ended up fracturing his leg in two different places the summer before he left for college, also the summer his aunt finally died. Even though his aunt left him a large sum of money, his scholarship was revoked, and he became an embittered individual with nothing to do but stay in Lazytown and watch his younger sister shine where he had failed.
Genevive had graduated two years after Robbie at the top of her class, and ironically received a scholarship to the same college Robbie had almost gone to. Every year at Christmas, she would send Robbie random memorabilia from her college, including an extremely fetching mug with a picture of Texas on it. And every year, Robbie became more and more angry with Genevive, as he began to believe she did it to spite him and anger him even further, and he was partially right. Genevive didn't mean to turn her brother so wrong, but she had to live up to her last name sometimes, didn't she? After she graduated, she returned to Iceland to live with her parents and look for work.
And so Robbie moved underground into a dark world much more different than the happy town above him, the one he used to know. From the age of twenty on, he spent most of his days in darkness and solitude, the way he came to know Lazytown, until one day seven years later, one little girl showed up and opened the can of worms. And those worms were very noisy and loved to dance and attracted Sport Elves in too-tight blue outfits. Though he wasn't really one to talk.
Now eight years after that pink brat came into town, Robbie found himself gorging on cake and telling his little sister about how stupid Lazytown was now that it had the addition of Sportacus and Stephanie. At least Stephanie only came during the summer, though.
"All I want is some peace and quiet. Some 'me' time. There's not nearly enough hours in the day to both sleep AND have some quality 'me' time, do you know that?"
Genevive sighed. "Every hour of every day of your life has been devoted to yourself, you idiot. You're extremely self-centered and immature."
"Shut up, you are being so mean!" he yelled, as he covered his head with a pillow. He didn't want to get advice from his stupid sister.
"Robbie, listen to you. All those years in this hellhole you call home and you still have that accent. Don't you ever get out?"
"All the time, I get out. I can't do anything else but 'get out', especially when it comes to foiling that stupid sport jerk and his pink little minion. Besides, I like the accent. It adds some mystery to my persona. Besides, I'm the villain. Villains have great accents. I have a GREAT accent!"
"You're barely a villain. Let's face it, Robbie. You've never killed anyone, you don't like hurting people… physically anyways… You're just very easily annoyed. I suppose I have something to do with that, what with me stealing your scholarship."
"So you admit it!" he shouted, almost jovially. "I was so right! You wanted to hurt me!"
She rolled her eyes. "I've never loved anyone more than I've loved you, big brother. But I stayed away for so long because I knew you had sore feelings about me living out your dream. But now that I'm working a boring job in Iceland, I'd much rather be here in Lazytown eating cake and plotting the next plan to make all the kids lazy, just like you. So I can't really do anything but write you letters. Which reminds me, did you get my last?"
He reached into his vest pocket and produced the red envelope. "I was about to throw it away, actually."
Genevive got up and walked over to look at Robbie's costumes. "Fine, do what you want. Even though you never reply, I know you read them. Nice costumes… hey, that was YOU who stole my dress?" She was pointing angrily at a go-go dancer outfit in one of the glass cases. "I hope you know I looked everywhere for that."
"You're welcome. I was doing you a favor. You looked really dumb in it anyways," Robbie moped as he sat sideways in his comfy chair.
"Do you really wear all of these?"
"Of course I do! Do you know how hard it is to be a villain?"
"No. You have no real reason to be a villain, anyways… Listen…"
Robbie fell silent, as did Genevive. "What are you talking about? I don't hear anything," Robbie said.
"Exactly. No noise. So don't complain about your problems and enjoy the silence for a while."
Just then, the telephone rang. "Eh, spoke too soon, I guess. Who'd be calling you, anyways?"
Robbie rolled out of his chair and walked toward the phone. "I have no clue. No one ever calls me, except when Bessie calls me on accident."
"Can I answer it? Please? If it's Bessie, I want to talk to her! It's been years since I've seen her."
Robbie looked at the ringing phone and looked back at his sister. "If you really want to answer it, go ahead."
"Haha, yes!" Genevive ran to the phone and picked up the receiver. "Hello?" she demanded in a gruff voice and phony accent that sounded nothing like Robbie.
"Who is it?" he mouthed at her.
"Hello? No one, I guess," she shrugged. "Hello this is Robbie Rotten speaking! I'm a big softie and I only pretend that I'm a super badass villain because I'm bitter about my past! To whom am I speaking to?"
Robbie bristled at his sister's insults. He was even if they were in fun, and even if they were partially true. He stamped his foot in protest. "Stop being mean!"
"I'm only telling our silent friend the truth," she retorted as she hung up the phone. "Robbie, no one was on the other line. I was probably talking to some telemarketer. Or a fax. Do you have a fax machine?"
"What does it matter anymore? You've basically ruined my life. Or at least, you've ruined the self-image I've cultivated for myself over the years. Way to go.
"At least that pink little geek made her friends apologize to me today. They threw a ball at me! Well, maybe they didn't throw it at me, but it hit me! And she made them apologize. That was kind of nice."
Genevive nodded. "That does sound nice. Hey, do you still have that periscope that you use to spy on everyone?"
"Why? You don't actually want to see any of these gross people, do you?"
"Well, of course I do. Now where does this pink girl live?"
"Town Hall. Meanswell is her uncle," Robbie said as Genevive located the periscope.
"Oh, very nice. Oh! I see her! She's not pink, it's just her hair that's pink!... Oh. Oh, Robbie. You need to come see what she's doing." Genevive motioned for her brother to come to the periscope.
"But I'm so comfy!"
"This is worth it. Come here!"
Robbie dragged himself out of his chair and over to the periscope. Genevive stood back with a triumphant smile on her face. "Well, have a look!"
He put his eyes to the periscope and saw a blob of pink swimming in front of his eyes. He adjusted the sharpness and observed Stephanie, sitting at Bessie Busybody's desk, looking at a phone directory. "So what? She's probably going to call one of her… stupid friends to go and play loud ball with her, or something."
"Robbie, look at the phone number she's staring at."
He focused in, and saw his own name and phone number on the card in the rollodeck, the one that the girl was staring at. Her hand hovered over the phone, looking as if she was about to call someone.
Genevive jumped up and down. "How cute! She has a crush on you!"
Robbie blushed. "That is so not true! She is probably going to prank call me… any minute now!"
"You always were great with the ladies. Well, as fun as it is to hang out underground with you, I for one, am surfacing to do a little grocery shopping for you. Cake is good, but having Cake-O-Matic sludge 365 days a year isn't exactly a good variety in diet. Did you know that the refrigerator in the kitchen is completely empty?"
"What? I have a KITCHEN?" Robbie asked as he watched his sister get in the tube that would take her back up to the surface.
--- --- --- --- ---
Stephanie was confused. Why was there a woman answering Robbie's phone? Why was the woman pretending to be Robbie? What had she been saying about Robbie not really being a villain? Obviously it was someone Robbie knew very well… why else would she be answering his phone?
After she'd heard Robbie's voice saying something to the woman and the woman answered him in her natural voice, she'd hung up the phone.
Her stomach felt sick. Why did I do that? I'm so stupid, she thought as she stared at Robbie's name and phone number in the rollodeck. She couldn't tell how she was feeling. She couldn't shake the fact that Robbie Rotten had a member of the opposite sex in his own personal quarters. Anger? Not even. Disgust? No… Robbie was a grown man and had every right to keep female company… although what single women did Robbie know? Jealousy? No.
Well, probably not…
She almost picked up the phone again to call back and see if the woman would answer, but thought better of it.
All this thinking about Robbie makes me want to eat cake, she thought. How dumb is that? I'm probably going to have a sugar crash all thanks to stupid Robbie Rotten. Great.
Stephanie put on her jacket and left a note for her uncle, saying she'd gone to the store, even though she knew he wouldn't come back before her. Knowing Uncle Milford, he'd probably come home right as I finish frosting the cake… right in time to eat it, thought Stephanie with a laugh. And with that, she set off for the town grocery store