Mirror Image

Ah, its good to be back! I've been wanting to write another SP story for a while and this one kept jumping out at me, so here it is. Hope you enjoy it!

I don't own South Park.

Chapter 1

In South Park, Colorado, nothing was quite as it seemed. The strangest place on Earth, some people called it, but, to the people that lived there, their lives were normal. It was everybody else that was strange.

Right now three boys, all fourth graders, stood at a bus-stop waiting for their school bus. At first glance, there was nothing remarkable about any of them, but there was something odd. Maybe it was the way they were all wrapped up in hats and coats even though it was a warm sunny day, or maybe it was the way they stood in a row, about a foot apart, and stared into the distance as though waiting for instructions.

At last, one of the boys spoke.

"Did you guys do that math homework?" Stan Marsh asked. He stood at the head of the line and wore a brown coat and red and blue poofball hat. His voice seemed to bring the other two boys out of their trance.

"Yeah, it was a killer!" his best friend Kyle Broflovski replied. "I can't believe Garrison did that to us!"

"Yeah!" the other boy, Kenny McCormick agreed, although it was a little difficult to tell exactly what he'd said thanks to the hood of his orange parka which obscured every part of his face apart from his eyes. It might have been "Yeah!" or it might have just been gas.

The boys looked up at the sound of panting. Eric Cartman, a boy with what some people would sensitively describe as a weight problem waddled up to join them. He stopped, breathing deeply.

"Damn, I swear that walk gets longer every day!" he said between breaths.

The other three boys exchanged glances.

"Cartman, you live like four doors away from this stop!" Stan said incredulously.

Cartman ignored him, choosing instead to wipe sweat from underneath his blue and yellow hat. When he looked up again Kyle was standing in front of him with his arms folded.

"What's going on Cartman?" he demanded.

"Nothin', I'm just standing here, that's all!" Cartman replied, frowning. "Geez, who pissed on your cornflakes?"

"I didn't get any sleep last night because of you!" Kyle shouted.

Stan rolled his eyes and looked at his watch. Barely 8.30 in the morning, and Kyle and Cartman were already at each others' throats. "What did he do this time?" he asked in a bored voice.

"He phoned me up twenty eight times last night!" Kyle shouted again, this time in Stan's face. "Just phoned me up to laugh at me, then he'd hang up, then he'd phone again like two minutes later laughing again! Twenty eight times!"

"Whoa, you mean you actually kept count!" Cartman said, snorting with laughter. "Jesus Christ, you're anal!"

Kyle seemed to let this go, although Stan noticed his hands balling into tight fists.

"So what I wanna know is, what the hell is so funny?" he asked through gritted teeth.

Cartman looked round at them, a big grin forming on his fat face. The grin was so big; it gave him several extra chins.

"Guess what my mom got yesterday?" he asked excitedly.

"Herpes?" said Stan. Next to him, Kenny fell about laughing. Cartman's mom had something of a reputation in South Park.

Cartman rolled his eyes. "No Stan, my mom did not get herpes. She got me…" he paused for dramatic effect, "an iPad!"

Stan and Kenny stopped laughing instantly. Kyle looked stricken.

"No way!" shouted all three boys.

"She's been working so hard lately; she thought I deserved a treat!"

"No! No!" Kyle said, his voice fading with every word. "It's not fair…"

"It's so awesome, you guys!" Cartman said happily. He twisted his backpack round onto his stomach, unzipped it and got out his brand new iPad. "I played with it all yesterday and all of this morning and I still haven't discovered half of what it can do!"

Stan and Kenny crowded round him with gasps of admiration, but Kyle stayed where he was, staring miserably at a spot on the grass. His green ushanka blocked most of his face from view, but, if the others had bothered to look closely, they would have seen a couple of small tears drip off the end of his nose.

Cartman, meanwhile, continued to prattle on about his new gadget like an oily second hand car salesman. Fortunately however, before he could get too far into his pitch the school bus arrived.

"Get on you little assholes!" Miss Crabtree, the driver, yelled at them as soon as the doors opened.

Cartman and Kenny got on, both muttering curses at her under their breath. Stan was next. He was on the steps before he realised Kyle wasn't with him. He turned around. Kyle hadn't moved.

"Dude, school bus!" he said urgently. He had a quick look at Miss Crabtree, who looked ready to blow. "Kyle come on!"

Kyle blinked and looked around, as though seeing the bus for the first time. He reluctantly climbed on, earning himself a foul mouthed reprimand from Miss Crabtree which he barely heard. He slumped down in the seat next to Stan, a faraway look on his face.

"You okay, dude?"

Kyle shook his head. "It's not fair, Stan. It's just not fair."

Stan didn't get a chance to speak to Kyle until recess. The fourth grade teacher, Mr Garrison, had been in a foul mood all morning, threatening to send anybody he caught talking in his class to the Principal's office. His mood hadn't been improved by Cartman getting his iPad out every time Garrison fired a question at the class. Stan smiled as he remembered how the teacher had reacted when he'd first seen it.

"How the hell did a little butthole like you get one of those?" he'd demanded.

"My mom got it for me!" Cartman had replied sweetly.

"Now you see children, this is exactly what I mean when I say that God is a sick sonuva bitch!" Garrison said. "That little bastard is the worst kid I have ever met and yet he gets an iPad. What do I get? Bills!" He shook his head. "That's why I refuse to go to church any more."

"I thought it was because you're gay," said Craig Tucker.

"Well yeah, there is that," admitted Garrison. "And there was that, uh, misunderstanding with that little choir-boy. But let's not go there!"

"Can you believe that guy?" Kyle said now, jolting Stan out of his reverie. He pointed towards the far side of the playground, where Cartman was surrounded by their classmates, all gazing adoringly at his iPad. "So he managed to get an iPad before everyone else, big deal! Why does he have to be such a jerk about it?"

"Because it's Cartman!" Stan said with a small smile. He looked at Kyle and sighed. "Kyle, why are you letting him get to you like this?"

"You know how much I wanted one, Stan!" said Kyle miserably. "You know how long I begged my parents for one! And they said they'd think about it, right? So long as I was good and I did what I was told, they'd think about it. So I did. I babysat Ike whenever they asked me, I cleared the driveway every time it snowed, I went to synagogue every weekend. I did everything they asked, Stan, and it still wasn't good enough." He paused and his lip curled with disdain. "They said I was too immature to have an iPad."

Both boys looked across to Cartman's group again.

"No Kenneh!" Cartman shouted suddenly. "Don't touch it! I don't want your poor people germs all over it!"

Kyle stiffened and made as if to march over there but Stan grabbed his arm and pulled him away towards the opposite side of the playground. They leaned against the wall, their view of Cartman now cut off by a couple of second graders on the swings.

"Don't let him get to you," muttered Stan.

"I can't help it!"

"Look, if you want a stupid iPad so badly then – "

"This isn't about the fucking iPad any more!" Kyle shouted. The second graders turned around to stare at him. "You know what Stan, I try and do everything right! I try to get good grades, I try to stay out of trouble and I try to be a good person and I get screwed over every time! But Cartman? No, Cartman's lazy, obnoxious and evil, and he gets everything he wants! What kind of world is it where good people get screwed over and bad people get rewarded?" He paused to wipe spittle from his mouth. "I just wish there was another way," he said softly.

"Maybe there is!" said a voice from the other side of the wall.

Stan and Kyle looked at each other and turned around. Alphonse Mephesto, South Park's local crackpot/genetic engineer, was leaning on the wall smiling at them.

"Sorry, I couldn't help overhearing your little rant," he said. "I think I've invented something that may help you."

"Dude, what are you doing here?" asked Stan cautiously. He wasn't sure, but he thought there was possibly some law against creepy old men hanging around outside elementary schools.

"I was looking for Kevin," said Mephesto. "I thought he came this way. You haven't seen him have you?"

Stan thought about the Professor's weird little monkey clone and suppressed a shudder. "Er, no."

"So what have you invented?" Kyle asked. Stan gave him a "what the hell?" look which he completely ignored.

"Something which may interest you!" Mephesto said mysteriously. He leaned in closer. "Do you believe in parallel universes? Worlds that are remarkably similar to ours but are somehow different?"

Kyle shrugged. "I guess."

"You say that our world rewards the bad and punishes the good," Mephesto continued. "Perhaps there is another world out there that reverses that process. My invention could help you find it." He smiled at Kyle's awestruck face. "Interested? Be at my lab at four o'clock." And with another enigmatic smile, he was gone.

Stan stared at Kyle in horror. For the first time that day, a light shone in his friend's eyes. "Dude! Tell me you're not thinking about this!"

"Why not, Stan?" Kyle asked. He looked past the now vacant swings at Cartman. "This might just solve all my problems."

Okay, that's it for chapter one! Pleeease review!

Chapter 2 up soon…