At Starlight City Park, several young kids are running around having the time of their life in the playground. Some are sliding down the long colorful slides, others are climbing the dangerous monkey bars, and some are even swinging on the swings.
However, despite the kids’ enjoyment, the parents watching them are all concerned about the group of high schoolers all in the sandbox.
“Can I play in there, Mommy?” A child asks their mom.
“No honey in fact we’re leaving,” The mom says as she takes her child and storms away from the sandbox.
In the sandbox, The Three Ts look baffled at the mom & child leaving.
“What’s her issue?” Tim-Tom questions judgmentally.
Tim-Tom turns his attention back to the sandbox where he is holding a long wooden stick. Outside of it are Alex, Marcus, Elizabeth, & Ronnie sitting on the woodchips.
“Uh, why are we here again?” Marcus asks.
“Oh that’s because Tim-Tom’s a visual learner,” Tim says before questioning, “Or is it visual teacher or-”
“Whatever it is, he’s quite the good artist,” Tom admits, “You should see some of his paintings.”
Tim-Tom clears his throat, a bit embarrassed at the praise, before he crudely draws several circles into the sand with the stick.
“Yeah, those sure are something,” Ronnie teases.
“I get nervous under pressure okay?” Tim-Tom defends himself before explaining, “All right, this is just a guess but from what you’ve told me, it’s clear that there are numerous different sellers of this junk. Which means this isn’t just one person doing this. It’s a coordinated attack on the school.”
“Yeah, it looks like they’re trying to make it into some sort of black market,” Tom theorizes.
"Exactly," Tim-Tom replies before he begins to draw a big circle and begins to connect the tiny circles to the big one, "now that means that they need someone to organize the whole market and do so in a very efficient and easy way so all the sellers know what's going on."
"I should've done this instead of fighting for money," Alex thinks out loud, causing Elizabeth to elbow him.
"So wait, if that’s the case then all we need to do is find the ring leader to end the market?" Marcus asks.
"Exactly," Tim-Tom says.
"So we know how they operate but how is that going to help us?" Ronnie asks.
"I'm getting to that!" Tim-Tom snarls.
"Yeah, give my man some time!" Tim The First Thug defensively retorts.
Tim-Tom clears his throat he says, "Nowadays there are many ways to tell people information like by sending emails or making a group chat, but these kids are high schoolers and amateurs, so all we need to do is find just one of the sellers and we'll..."
Tim-Tom points his stick at a tiny circle and then follows the line connecting it to the big circle, he smiles as he finishes saying, "Be able to trace this back to its roots!"
As Tim-Tom finishes he hears both Tim & Tom clapping for his well-articulated explanation.
“Wow that actually makes some sense,” Ronnie remarks, “You guys really are experts at this kind of thing.”
"Why thank you," Tim-Tom begins to respond snarkily as he rubs his nose, "this is why everybody calls me The Golden Goose of Starlight City."
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Tim & Tom stop clapping as everyone else there cringes at the name.
"Just... stop giving yourself these cringy titles dude," Tom The Second Thug begs.
As Tim-Tom sighs, Elizabeth recalls something, "Hey we just need one seller's phone right?"
"Uh, yeah," Tim-Tom responds.
"Well, I may have an idea of someone who we can talk to" Elizabeth responds.
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The next day, a young freshman by the name of Cameron Dots who is walking to class in Starlight High. Cameron is a short kid with short dark brown hair, glasses, a white shirt under a blue flannel jacket, black pants, and red shoes. As the freshman is walking to class he notices his fellow classmate, Elizabeth Moore, also walking towards him.
"Oh hey, Elizabeth, do you want a..." Cameron begins to say before noticing Ronnie, Alex, & Marcus are behind her. He finishes his sentence by awkwardly saying, "Pencil?"
"Well looks like we found our first seller," Ronnie says with a smirk.
"If y-you guys want I can get you a 4-pack," Cameron says.
"Listen shorty you can either do this the easy way or the hard way," Alex says while cracking his knuckles.
Cameron begins to sweat nervously as Alex glares at him, he then stomachs up the courage to ask, "Y-y-y-you wa-wuh-want a 16-pack?"
"No, we want this," Alex says as he manages to snatch Cameron's phone.
"H-hey, that's mine!" Cameron says.
"Don't worry, we're just trying to stop this whole black market thing," Ronnie says while Alex scrolls through Cameron's message app.
"Wait you are?" Cameron asks.
"Yeah, just don't tell the others," Elizabeth says.
"Why didn't you tell me beforehand!" Cameron asks with a relieved smile on his face.
Elizabeth, Alex, Marcus, & Ronnie look confused as they stare at Cameron.
Cameron clarifies by explaining, "I'm sick of having to sell all these pencils! Like whenever I’m in class now I gotta go ‘hey don’t you want a pencil’ or ‘hey we have a new deal on staplers’ or ‘hey before you shove me into that locker don’t you want to hear about how you can save on back to school supplies?’ it’s exhausting.”
“Why didn’t you just quit then?” Marcus questions.
“Well….,” Cameron ponders as he realizes he could have just said no this entire time, “Most of the money goes to the ring leader so I’d happily let you guys take ‘em down!”
"Well then if you show us the ring leader, we'll be able to stop this," Marcus explains.
"C-can you really do that?" Cameron asks.
"Of course, we can," Ronnie replies.
Cameron sighs before he extends his hand, "Alright, but you're going to have to give me my phone back."
Alex complies as he hands Cameron the phone back. Cameron goes to a different messaging app on his phone and opens up a group chat titled 'Pencil Dealings'. He hands the phone back to Alex.
"The last message is about a meeting all of us are going to have tonight, if you show up I'm sure you'll be able to put an end to this," Cameron responds.
Alex reads the message and agrees with what Cameron is saying. He gives the phone back to Cameron and then turns to the other members of, "All right then, let's do this."
_______________________________________________________
That night at 7, several of the members of the pencil black market are all gathered together at their hideout. Cameron Dots is in the crowd a bit nervous waiting to see if The Miracle Clinic shows up or not, however, his worries are put aside as the doors to the hideout swing wide open as Ronnie comes walking in with Elizabeth, Alex, & Marcus behind him.
“Call us Wall Street,” Ronnie remarks with a smirk on his face, “Cause we’re gonna crash the market!”
As all the sellers look confused, Elizabeth looks around the school gym and mentions, “So your hideout was here? I guess that makes sense. None of you would need to take any of the pencils off the school.”
Several of the sellers are confused as to why those four are there however Alex clears his throat as he states, "Listen bubs, we're gonna need your ring leader to step out so we can crush your stupid market."
As the sellers begin to panic, they suddenly stop as they hear chuckling coming from the crowd. Two figures begin to make their way into the center of the gym.
"You're just four freshmen and you're trying to take us down?!" a man says as he exits the crowd and steps into the center, "You guys got guts, I'll give you that"
Despite being hunched over, the infamous sophomore towers over all of them with his fang-like teeth in a cocky smirk. His long shaggy hair is dyed green, his white muscular yet flexible body has a bit of sweat from a recent workout, and his nails have clearly been chewed on a little. He’s wearing a black tank top, blue shorts, red sleeveless gloves, and no shoes.
The other person next to him is also a sophomore with short black hair, heavy eyeliner, and an all-black outfit.
“The name’s Crunch, Crunch Backson,” The shoeless sophomore remarks before looking over to the fellow sophomore, “Hey Suzy, did that sound cool or what?”
Suzy Dark, the goth sophomore, just rolls her eyes and apathetically responds, “I literally don’t care.”
"Classic Suzy," Crunch laughs to himself before he looks at the miracle clinic, "So you guys want me to close this market down?"
"Uh......yes?" Ronnie asks, confused.
"Yeah sure I can do that," Crunch responds as he yawns, causing everyone there to be taken aback.
"REALLY?!" Ronnie asks, confused.
"Oh yeah yeah, I was just doing this so I could get some extra spending money," Crunch explains while picking his ear, "but it is pretty fun to do all this. So while I can shut this down, I don't want to."
Ronnie rolls his eyes but Crunch clarifies his response, "But I'll give it all up on one condition. We play a game of 'Capture The Flag' with the entire school being available. Your group versus our market. If you win, we'll shut down business. But if we win..."
Crunch puts his finger on his neck and moves it in a slicing motion before saying, "Then your club has to disband."
Ronnie, Marcus, & Elizabeth are taken aback as to what they should do, however, Alex responds with an arrogant, "Yeah sure, we can do this easy peasy!"
"Is that so?" Crunch says with the smile on his face growing wider.
As reality sets in, Alex realizes he may have let his competitive side get the better of him.
See You Next Chapter!~