Maybe he could work with this. Robbie crossed his arms, covering the crystal that continued to flash and beep on his chest. He cocked his head back to look up at the roof of Ms. Busybody's house. He could barely keep a straight face.

"Need some help, Mayor?" he called. Up on the roof Milford Meanswell hung from the gutter by his fingertips. The portly man wriggled and grunted, trying and failing to pull himself up to safety.

"Oh, Sportacus, thank goodness. I was cleaning the gutter for Ms. Busybody and I slipped! Could you get me down?"

Robbie leaned against the fence and allowed a lazy grin to grace his face. "I don't think you need any help with that," he drawled.

So long as he was stuck being Sportacus there was no reason he couldn't have a little fun. He would get the Mind-Me-Matic back and figure out how to fix it, of course, but what was the rush? Until then, having the sports elf's body at his disposal might be more useful than he'd first thought.

One of the mayor's hands slipped from the gutter and he swung wildly on the remaining arm. He scrabbled and kicked at the side of the house.

"Oh! Oh my! Sportacus, please, do something!"

Unfolding his arms Robbie stepped away from the fence into the yard. The mayor had been tending Bessie's flower bed before going up onto the roof and left a wheelbarrow full of a mixture of soil and fertilizer. Robbie raised one leg and planted his foot on the cart. With a powerful kick he sent it barreling across the lawn.

The wheelbarrow slammed into the side of Ms. Busybody's house. The back door opened soon after as the woman came out to see what all the noise was about. At that moment Milford lost his grip with his remaining fingers on the gutter and dropped like a stone. He landed in the wheelbarrow, sending up a spray of soil and fertilizer across Bessie's front.

The crystal stopped beeping and flashing. Robbie flicked a speck of dirt off of its casement. "No need to thank me. All in a day's work." He snickered as he turned away, ignoring the indignant squawks from Bessie and the groans from Milford.

Robbie jumped over the fence and clicked his heels before landing. Mischief always energized him, and in Sportacus' body he was wired as a fully charged battery. It was difficult not to break into a run for the sheer thrill of being bad. He could go anywhere in the guise of the hero and do anything. And he knew just what he wanted to do next.

Pixel lowered his head and scrubbed his fingers through his hair. "I can't make heads or tails of this," he said. He shot an accusatory glare at the headpiece lying on his desk, hooked up to his computer. "It's unlike any code I've ever seen before."

Ziggy stood by the window in Pixel's bedroom with his ray gun clutched in both hands, ready to act at a moment's notice. He'd come along with the computer kid to keep him company and to keep guard against any "space bandits," or Stingy, whichever came first. The little boy turned and looked over at his friend. "What's wrong with it?"

"It's weird," Pixel said. "There's definitely some sort of data stored on this thing but it's encrypted. I've ran it through every analysis I can think of and the most I can get out of it doesn't tell me much. This bit here," Pixel pointed at some of the characters on the screen, "looks like it received an executable file from somewhere and tried to launch it. Then over here," he dragged his finger across the screen, "is a failed attempt at halting the installation for whatever it was, but then it's also sending out some other file here, and..." Pixel leaned back in his chair and sighed. "And then whole thing crashed. It's all mixed up."

"So there's no way to fix it?" Ziggy asked.

"I didn't say that," Pixel said, straightening back up. "But it doesn't look like this part from the headband can function by itself. There's got to be another piece somewhere, something sending and receiving these commands back and forth."

"Oh," Ziggy said. "But you only found one headband, didn't you, Pixel?"

"Affirmative," Pixel said in a grim voice. He swung his chair around and stood up. "I've got one last algorithm running. If I can restart the primary program then maybe it'll give us a clue what it's trying to connect to." He walked across his room to join Ziggy at the window. "It's going to take some time to reformat. What do you want to do until then?"

Bam!

Something struck the window and made the glass panes rattle in their frame. Pixel and Ziggy jumped back and took cover against the wall on either side.

"Was that a soccer ball?" Ziggy asked.

They peeked back outside in time to see another object hurtling through the air. Its arc was not high enough to reach the window and instead hit the house a few feet lower. The boys came out from hiding and peered down, watching it bounce and roll off into the street.

"That one's a basketball," Pixel observed.

"Here comes another one!" Ziggy pressed his face against the window and Pixel pushed him aside so that he could see too.

A football cut across the sky in a wicked spiral. It sailed right over Pixel's house and out of sight. The longer they watched, the more sports equipment they saw flying through the air besides the balls. A hockey stick came shooting like a javelin and clattered against the side of Pixel's house. A pair of roller skates tied together by the laces spun around in a crazy dance and wrapped around a lamppost like a bola.

"Someone's launching all that stuff," Pixel said. "Come on, Ziggy, let's check it out. This could be trouble."

"Don't worry," Ziggy said, raising his ray gun, "I've got your back." They rushed out of the house and followed the trail of sports equipment littering the streets.

Craning his neck Sportacus spied out from around the apple tree. The community garden was empty. With mincing steps he crept in among the vegetable boxes, casting a furtive glance over his shoulder. The kids had been naturally suspicious to see Robbie Rotten by all appearances trying to take down the airship today. It would be easier if they didn't find him here next.

He had to do it, though. He was starving! At the sight of all the vegetables ripe and ready for the picking his stomach gave an anticipatory rumble and the hunger pangs intensified. Having some sportscandy might solve a few of his problems. It was a good place to start, at least.

Slinking up to the first garden box Sportacus looked around one last time before digging in. With one hand he pulled out a bright orange carrot and crunched it up with gusto. With the other hand he plucked a plump tomato off the vine and took a big bite, the juices bursting on his face.

His chewing slowed as he rolled the food around in his mouth. Something about the sportscandy tasted… off. The flavors were not how he remembered them. The carrot should have been sweet, but instead he found himself swallowing a bitter mixture. The tomato too was unusually sour. It wasn't as though they were spoiled, yet they could hardly be called delicious.

Not quite sure yet, Sportacus choked down the last of the vegetables and turned back to the apple tree. One of the branches dipped low enough that he could just reach up and grab the apple dangling down on its stem. He polished it on his vest and looked it over carefully. Its skin was shiny and red, a fine specimen. Slowly he brought it to his lips.

When he bit into it he had to face the truth. Even the apple was grainy and bland on his tongue. That wasn't the worst of it, though. As much sportscandy as Sportacus ate, it did nothing to remedy his flagging energy levels.

It was disappointing but not too surprising. Robbie's tastes were greatly skewed towards processed sugars. The man's taste buds couldn't register the natural sweetness of a fruit or vegetable when they were used to candy and cake. Not only that, it seemed that Robbie's whole body was conditioned to run on refined sugar to get any sort of energy boost.

Maybe Sportacus really was going through a sugar meltdown, but not in the way he was used to. In his own body too much sugar made him weak and sluggish. In Robbie's body, perhaps it was because he didn't have enough! Even his headache could be from a sugar withdrawal. Could it really be that simple? Tossing the apple away Sportacus left the garden to find out.