I'm not going to tell you all that much about the plot, so just read and find out.
I will say, though, that I do not own South Park or any of its characters, nor do I claim to.
Moonlight shone into the curtainless window, cracked slightly to allow in the night's cool, gentle breeze. The light illuminated the cloor below the windowsill, and fanned outward to light about half the room.
The clock on the desk showed 12:45 a.m. and the darkness that hung outside the house confirmed the presence of this unholy hour.
Both the mother and the father of the household were sleep, snoring away peacefully in their bed. No doubt, they were dreaming up new situations in which they could ground their son. They weren't sadistic parents, though, merely overprotective.
Too overprotective, in their son's eyes. Over the course of his still-young life, he'd been grounded for more things than he could- or cared to- remember. Everything from losing his set of keys to the house, to not coming home in time to help out with the household chores. And he couldn't even help the latter, seeing as he'd been in an alternate dimension, working (and fighting) his ass off to save the world from a hoarde of evil critters bent on destroying all that was good.
Granted, his parents hadn't known about that little fact, but that was beside the point.
The young man longed for the days where he would be able to do as he pleased, without having to fear almost constant retribution from his parents for every minor infraction. He was only in the fourth grade, though, and those days that he so fondly looked forward to, were a long ways away- so for now, at least, he was forced to do things a little bit differently.
Normally, he hated breaking the rules, and in such a sneaky manner as he was doing. These were desperate times, though, and besides, there was a really good reason for his actions.
He, Leopold Stotch, better known to most everyone as Butters, had recently procured a copy of Hello Kitty: Island Adventure II.
Butters had gotten the game from his parents two or three weeks previous, as an "early birthday present." This had more than slightly confused Butters, seeing that his birthday was still a full three months away.
It didn't ultimately matter to him, though; he was the one who'd chosen the original Hello Kitty: Island Adventure over World of Warcraft, despite all the ribbing he'd gotten from Cartman and the rest of the gang over it.
He had fun with it, and his parents approved of it. What else could he possibly ask for?
Plenty, but that was besides the point.
Smiling contentedly to himself, Butters loaded up the game, tapping his fingers impatiently as the load screen popped up and the game readied itself for play.
Not long afterward, the main screen came up, presenting Butters with the gameplay menu.
"Hmmm... Single-player or MMO..."
Butters' smile grew more pronounced as he clicked the MMO option. This game was, to him, everything that World of Warcraft was not- clean, safe, and free of griefers trying to kill your character at any and all costs.
It also had a lot of the good things that could be found in games like WoW: the ability to interact with fellow players from around the world (though the number of players who actually felt they weren't too "mature" to play Hello Kitty Island Adventure II was rapidly diminishing), the great feeling that comes from leveling your character up or completing a particularly challenging quest.
Hello Kitty: Island Adventure II was, beyond an iota of a shadow of a doubt, Butters' favorite game. Ever.
Just as the world was about to finish loading, the load bar flickered, then paused. After a moment, it continued loading, but soon repeated the process.
Butters' smile flickered as well, and after a minute of no progress on the load bar, his half-grin dissolved into a full-on, all-out frown.
He muttered something under his breath, inaudible to anyone that wasn't standing an inch or two away from him. It didn't matter, though- he was the only one in the computer den, and Butters knew he had at least a few more hours until his parents came to check up on him, just like they did every night.
A minute later, the question of why the game wasn't loading, was answered in the form of a blue-grey bordered pop-up.
"Your computer may be infected with viruses," the pop-up stated. "Renew your antivirus protection to allow for the best virus detection and renewal."
Butters snorted.
"Well... we could keep it... if it weren't so damn expensive...
He clicked on the "No, thanks" button on the pop-up, and it went away; a few moments later, the game finished loading. The load screen was replaced by an island paradise scene, complete with leafy palm trees and large coconuts laying in the sand, close to the trees from which they fell.
For a game designed for younger kids, it had pretty good-quality graphics.
Taking the portable ear-piece off the table, Butters stuck it into his ear. He spoke a few words into the mic device, and the tinny echo in his ears confirmed that the device was still working. Using the directional pad, he began to maneuver his character around the world.
Butters' custom-made character was truly a sight to behold. It appeared to be a cat at first glance, but what cat had a prehensile tail at its disposal? The ears were slightly larger than a normal cat's ears, as well, and the front and hind paws ended in only two clawed toes, instead of the usual three (or four) that felines usually possessed.
The most odd characteristic of Butters' character , though, was (by leaps and bounds) its head. The head was about as long as the character was tall, with a few strands of hair poking down over her face.
And yes, Butters was playing a gender-bender.
His character was certainly not one that could be mistaken for anyone else's.
Butters continued to walk his character along the shoreline, (in real life) imagining what it would be like to walk hand-in-hand along the shore, his Kitty- his love- by his side...
Butters flushed a deep crimson, as his fantasy continued to play out in his mind. No one besides himself- not even his best online friends- knew of the depth of the crush he had on Kitty. The way her eyes sparkled when you did something in-game that she particularly enjoyed, the sheen on her fur as the artificial sunlight glistened off it... To Butters, Kitty was the most beautiful thing that he had ever laid his virgin eyes on.
(Yes, even more beautiful than the waitress at Raisins that he had loved for so long.)
Suddenly, a voice came through his earbuds: "Hello there, Butters1911."
Butters recognized the voice, seeing as he'd heard it multiple times during the course of both the first and second games.
"Hey, Kitty," he spoke into the mic.
"Are you ready?" Kitty asked.
Butters needed no prompting; he already knew what Kitty was referring to.
"I'm ready," Butters said, a steely tone of determination coming over his voice.
Kitty smiled, and Butters could feel his heart flutter slightly.
"Then let's go," Kitty replied cheerily, starting to walk off in the opposite direction.
Butters double-clicked on Kitty, indicating to his character that he should follow Kitty wherever she went.
Just then, another voice came through the headset. "Butters?" it said.
That's odd... Butters thought. That sounded just like my mother...
A moment later, the voice came back: "Butters, are you even listening to me?"
In a flash, Butters realized what was actually happening. Turning around slowly, he came face to face with his mother, standing in the doorway, glaring at him.
"What is the meaning of this?" Butters' mother asked, her hands planted firmly on her hips. "Why on earth are you still up at two in the morning?"
Butters swallowed hard; he was so screwed.
"I just... I was just-"
"Just nothing!" his mother interjected. "You know your bedtime is at nine o'clock, no exceptions!"
"But, Mom-"
One venomous glare from his mother silenced him in mid-sentence. Without saying a word, she pointed in the direction of his room.
Butters understood, and hopped down off the chair, heading back to his room. As he got to about halfway there, his mom yelled from behind him, "And you're grounded off the computer for a month!"
He turned around in shock; never had his mother grounded him for that long, not even when he came back late from the alternate dimension.
That had only been for three weeks.
"A whole month?" Butters whined. "That's practically forever!"
"It's not forever," his mother scolded, "and you know it! Now just go to bed, before I make it two months!"
Butters trudged into his room, shutting the door behind him. He shut it a little more forcefully than what was probably required, but his mom didn't notice it.
Shaking her head in disbelief, she went over to the computer and started the shut-down procedure.
"I don't know what came over him..." his mom said as the computer shut down. "He normally doesn't do anything like this..."
She stayed in the room just long enough to make sure the computer was off, then she trudged back to her room, certain that she wouldn't get back to sleep for at least an hour, now.
What she didn't realize, though, was that she'd failed to remove the game disc from the CD-ROM drive, not even thinking about it as being important.
Butters would soon find out otherwise...
TWO WEEKS LATER
The South Park Elementary lunch room was rapidly filling up with kids, practically all ravenous after a long morning of learning.
As usual, the gang all sat together at one table. And almost immediately, they noticed that something just wasn't right with Butters.
"What's wrong with you?" Kyle asked.
"Yeah, man, you ain't looking too hot," added Stan.
Butters let out a melodramatic sigh. "I haven't been able to play Hello Kitty: Island Adventure II in two weeks..."
Cartman snorted with laughter. "Oh, you baby."
Kyle glared at him. "Shut up, fat-ass!"
Cartman was about to send back another insult when Kenny spoke up: "Hey, Butters, I have an idea."
Butters turned his full attention to Kenny. "Okay, what is it?"
The way Kenny was smiling, clued Butters in that he was thinking about something mischievous.
"It's simple," Kenny said. "Just sneak on when your parents are asleep."
"Won't work," Butters replied. "That's how I got grounded in the first place."
Kenny frowned; that definitely threw a monkey-wrench into his plans. Knowing Butters' parents, they probably had that room guarded pretty well, now that Butters was officially grounded.
"Well..." Kenny said pensively, "are your parents going out of town any time soon? Or anything that would make them be out of the house long enough for you to get on?"
A light went on in Butters' head.
"Yeah!" he exclaimed. "My mom and dad are going out tonight on their wedding anniversary! I totally forgot about that!"
Kenny grinned. "There ya go."
And for the rest of the day, Butters was walking on clouds- he had finally found a way to come back to his love.
Nothing could stop him now.
Or so he thought...
LATER THAT NIGHT
Butters had been home for a few hours before he'd finally gotten up the nerve to go into his compute room, for fear that his parents were home the whole time, just waiting for him to mess up so they could extend his restriction even further.
When his fears were allayed, though, he turned the computer on and, when it was finished loading up, started the game.
He was a bit surprised that his mom hadn't confiscated the game, but he only dwelled on that for a short moment before he logged into the game and, again, selected the MMO game mode.
Almost immediately, he was met by Kitty. It was almost as though... she were waiting for him.
"Hello, Butters," Kitty said.
"Hello, Ki-"
"I've been waiting for you."
Butters froze; Kitty had never said that to him before.
"Y-you have?" he stammered.
"Yes," Kitty replied, nodding her head. "Our world is in trouble and only you can save it."
"Me?" Butters asked. "But... why?"
In response, the computer screen blackened, to almost a pitch-black vortex. A moment later, a pinpoint of white light appeared in the center of the screen, slowly expanding until it filled the entire screen.
Butters was about to scream, when a lone figure appeared far into the white void. It had the overall body shape of Kitty herself, but from such a distance, Butters couldn't tell for sure.
He leaned in closer to get a better look, and felt a slight suction on his head and face. Before he could even try to react, the force magnified exponentially, and Butters was sucked through the computer screen and into the white nothingness.
After a moment, Butters had completely disappeared, and the computer screen again blackened, then re-loaded the game at the spawn point.
No sign of Butters remained in the room. To anyone passing through... they would think he was never in the room, to begin with.
If they remembered him at all.
Well, I hope you enjoyed it. Chapter two will be coming up soon!