HOLY CRAP IT'S TIME FOR ROUND FOUR

Welcome, welcome, one and all. For those new to these stories, let me extend an extra special welcome to you, as I am beyond pleased to have you. I won't hold you up for long at the top, but to get a few basic notes in.

The New Kid in these New Kid Stories is a [pansexual] Cisgendered Female who continues to present as male because, according to her, that's socially easier right now. She goes by Dee, but that is not her real name. Wendy and Kenny know she is a girl. Dee and Kenny are romantically involved, but the relationship is a secret. Kenny knows her real name, as does Cartman. Also we're in Middle School now.

The fantabulous cover image is drawn by the amazing Cortillaan. They have a Tumblr. LOVE THEM.

LAST BUT NOT LEAST: The author would like to remind everyone that this is my just for fun project. I have not watched every single episode of South Park. In fact, I'm still back in season 6 in my marathon of the series, and have seen a smattering of other episodes pretty much at random. I spend a lot of time on Wikipedia to try and get characters correct, but I do not stress over these stories, so inaccuracies to the canon are bound to happen. I am not striving for perfection here; I'm here to have fun, and I hope you are, too.

ON
WITH
THE
FIC

OWTF!

::I Want You! To Spread Propaganda – Buttlord is Less Than Diplomatic::

It was late October in South Park; the height of autumn, with more than a few suggestions than an icy winter was on its way. What few trees that were not evergreen had already made with the bright colors and shed their leaves into inches of snow that had dropped back in September, and thick cloud cover that dropped the occasional flurry had been the order for the past week or so. For this, night skies had been dark, often with only a faint impression of where the moon might had been marked by a dim yellow glow as the lone light. Where starlight failed, however, shining flakes of snow were coming down in heavier clusters, flickering in street lamps on this particular evening. They were veritable galaxy unto themselves, a swirling Milky Way blown about by the stiff autumn wind before they met the ground and drifted against the buildings and sidewalks of downtown South Park.

On a night like this, Mysterion always could rest assured that he wouldn't be seen. He was but a shape on a rooftop, muddled by intervening snowflakes, both unseen and unheard.

That said, the wind was vicious. He really needed to invest in a set of thermal underwear one of these days; sitting still at the edge of a rooftop was a fast way for limbs to start going numb, and his hood was the only thing keeping the flakes out of his eyes. All said, however, he bore it without complaint; tonight's mission was a bit different from the usual work he did, with or without his partners. Usually he defined his jurisdiction, for lack of a better term, as supplementing the local police force of South Park. He blew the whistle on graffiti artists, called in with anonymous tips when he heard threatening rumors; he'd even foiled a couple robberies over the years [though, really, those were rare opportunities]. More than that, when something decidedly supernatural was going on, something the police wouldn't or couldn't address without seeming utterly insane, he tended to go after it himself.

Oh, sure, it was dangerous... but it was hard to worry about life and limb when death was a quick escape hatch back to being safe in his bedroom at home. Pain became the major thing to avoid; suffering like this fucking cold. Sitting on the edge of a roof, wrapped up in his cape, he decided that freezing to death was one of the worst. Not the worst, but definitely top ten; if only because it took too damn long.

But, again, tonight wasn't the usual sort of thing. He wasn't hunting or tracking or listening for something he could use to tip off the cops... he was watching. The particular roof he'd camped out on this evening was Skeeter's bar, looking into the back alley behind it. Below him, on the ground, was one of the two partners he worked with on occasion; but she wasn't in costume as Buttlord. No, she was as herself, a few candy-red curls peeking out from a thick fuzzy black hood on her favorite winter coat, shoulders shrugged up and gloved hands shoved deeply into her pockets to try and conserve heat. From up here, he could just barely see the tip of her nose through all the fluff, the clouds of breath more obvious as she huffed against the cold herself.

They were here for a meeting, and he was here to make sure the other party didn't get any sly ideas.

… assuming they ever fucking show up.

"No movement yet, I take it?"

The third member of their little team chimed in, no doubt getting just as impatient... though she at least got to be somewhere heated for all of this.

"Nothing yet." Mysterion reported. "You'd think Government assholes would at least give us a time."

"This feels like a dominance play." Call Girl responded from the other side. "Making Buttlord wait is a reminder of who is in control."

There was a scoffing sound over the open channel the trio was sharing. Buttlord didn't talk on the party line, but there was certainly a sound of yeah fucking right that was made.

"And we get to wait and freeze... fuck these guys, seriously."

"Sh-h-hh! I've got movement on the corner camera, someone is coming your way from the west side."

West- Mysterion's head twisted to the right, same as his partner did an about-face from her original position. Call Girl had placed cameras around the chosen meeting place so she'd be able to warn them if this was a trap; not that these fucktards had been able to touch Buttlord in the past three years, but that was no reason to take chances.

Squinted eyes watched as a pair of men in black suits came around the corner to the back of the building. The idiots were wearing sunglasses; probably part of the uniform, but it no doubt hampered their ability to see even more than Mysterion's with all of this dark and snow. They saw his partner right away, who raised her hands out of her pockets to show that they were empty, purple-gloved fingers wiggling as if she were sarcastically doing jazz-hands.

Already, this was off-script. The message that had been sent said that one agent was coming, not two. Mysterion tensed up. Down below, his partner was pointing, no doubt with a questioning look on her face.

"Don't get your panties in a knot, kid, plans change all the time." One of the agents responded without missing a beat. He sounded confident- no, cocky. Certain that he was in control. "The point is, we're here, so let's get down to business, shall we?"

One of her hands shot up; flicking her wrist forward in a predetermined signal that let Mysterion know he was up. He didn't jump down, however. No, they had a number of plans to keep this situation in hand, and the first strategy relied on a little trickery... and a powerful red laser pointer, used to train a ominous red dot on one agent's forehead. They didn't appear to get it at first, but soon Dumb noticed Dumber looked like he had a sniper trained on him, and let out a gasp of surprise before snapping a look over to the young adult who had apparently signaled for armed back-up.

"You were supposed to come alone!" He cried, though his voice seemed pretty ineffectual against all the muffling snow. "Where the fuck does a kid even hire a sniper, anyway?!"

Mysterion couldn't see the look on her face, but he was pretty certain it was somewhere along the lines of are you fucking kidding me right now?, because the agents decided to skip the protest and do what they came for... but all of their attitude had evaporated. The one with the red dot on his forehead, whom Mysterion had dubbed Dumber within his head, drew out a large envelope from his suit jacket and reached out to hand it to the teen they'd come to meet. "Alright, alright... here it is, your first job, straight from the President. Time is of the essence... so... uh... don't drag your feet."

Says the assholes who were late. Mysterion watched as Buttlord ripped the envelope open, pulling out her cellphone to use as a flashlight and read the paper she'd been given- no doubt instructions detailing the job she'd been given and how the government wanted it done. He couldn't see what it said at all; distance and snow made it pretty much impossible to even see the typeface, much less the words.

After a few moments, she put her phone away. Then, with both hands... she ripped the paper to shreds, shoved the torn scraps back into the envelope, and held it out for the agents to take it back... as gesture Mysterion read as Fuck you guys, I'm not doing this shit.

"What the...? What the fuck is wrong with you, kid?" Dumb took a step forward, snatching the envelope and crushing it inside an upraised fist... which quickly caused the red dot to dart over to his forehead, and his partner grabbed him by the arm while giving him a serious look of do you want to die tonight? Silence stretched the tension, but slowly his fist came back down, and that aggressive step was taken back. "We aren't the people you say no to, kid. We know where you are, now- asking is just a formality. Like it or not, you will do what the President wants- we have ways to make sure of that."

Right, and you guys have been trying to capture her for how long? With zero success? Take a hike.

Her response was physical, but similar; she flipped the agents the bird, her other hand getting stuffed back into her pocket. Even from the roof, Mysterion could read that posture loud and clear; Behold my field of fucks; it is barren. Get the hell out of my face.

"Why you snot-nosed punk!"

Dumber had snapped, apparently a little more ballsy when he didn't have the red dot of doom on his head and reaching into his suit jacket once more as his feet slid further apart into a stable stance for aiming from the hip and shooting- all while a shiny black pistol was yanked out of a concealed holster. It was a sudden move, sending up a spray of snow that got caught on the wind and made a brief obscuring cloud. Mysterion dove to the side on the roof, unconcerned about a way down but rather where he would jump down; he wanted to get behind these pricks before what was probably a scare tactic to get his partner to behave herself escalated.

The sound of a gunshot came as a surprise to him. It sent horrified adrenaline through his system, head yanking around almost of its own accord as he was half-way down the building, expertly using little protrusions from the brickwork to get himself down to ground level, hands currently fixed about the shaft of a chute for a rain gutter.

However, when he looked, the arrangement of people had changed... and the alleyway smelled like a garbage fire at a sewage treatment plant.

Dumber had his gun out, pointed directly at where Mysterion's partner had been a split second before... a position she'd smartly vacated, and with someone else rather directly in the way- the other government agent. Thankfully, a bullet aimed for a kid's center-chest was a gut-shot for a grown man, and the fraction of extra time it took a bullet to go through a human body was enough for her to duck and roll away from her original position. How had he gotten in the way? Mysterion suspected that reek was one of Buttlord's time-ripping farts, used to stop time long enough to put something between her and a bullet, and then get the hell out of the way.

Of course, that still left Dumber with a ready gun and a wounded partner. If he didn't have just cause before, he had it now.

Mysterion, five feet away from the ground and still clinging to the side of a building, kicked himself away from the wall and twisted in the air to come down on the other agent elbow-first. Another stray shot rang out, but it had been as the guy was going down. His hand was mostly up, the impulsive fire going into the sky.

Within seconds, she was there. She rushed up through the powdery snow that covered the back alley, half-crouched to dive at Dumber's gun hand and yank the weapon from his surprised grasp. A sliding dive curled into a roll, her hood getting peeled back in the process and curls upon curls of unruly, dyed-red hair spilling out everywhere as a result, covering her face and leaving her briefly blind.

"GODDAMNIT BUTTLORD, DO YOU ALWAYS HAVE TO ANTAGONIZE THESE ASSHOLES?!"

Call Girl's disapproval came through the party line, loud and clear, as Mysterion used a precise strike to the back of the head to put Dumber out for the count. Dumb was on his knees, in shock, his hands pressed tightly over his gut, the envelope that had been handed back to him part of the bloody mess that now attempted to staunch his wound.

Mysterion might have had a plan for how to defuse this situation, but there wasn't time. The back door of the bar burst open, bright yellow light spilling out over Dumb as he fell over into the snow. A shadow was cast over him that was probably Skeeter, but was definitely holding a shotgun. He was up and off of Dumber in a heartbeat, turning for Buttlord and getting her by the elbow as she was half-way up to her feet to yank her quickly around the corner of the building.

"Are yous the ones causin' all the commotion back here? We don't take kindly to people causing a commotion 'round these parts."

Yep, that's Skeeter.

It was time for a quick decision; his partner had gotten her hair under control and her hood back up to keep it that way, and the pair of them were able to share a glance that agreed on the next course of action.

They were splitting up. He was in costume, after all, and she wasn't. She could step out on the street and just be a kid walking home. He, on the other hand, would have to take a more creative route.

"We'll meet back at base- Call Girl, get an ambulance, one of the pricks took a bullet to the gut."

"On it."

Buttlord responded with only a smart nod, pushing off of the wall and somehow managing to keep a controlled walk as she stepped out onto the sidewalk instead of breaking out into an adrenaline fueled run.

Mysterion, on the other hand, was heading back for the rooftops.

Base referred no longer to Kenny McCormick's bedroom, as it might have had a couple weeks previous. After some team discussion, base had been re-located to a much more secure venue... Buttlord's basement- or, as most everyone called her these days, Dee. Originally the basement room had been her father's attempt at a home gym gone woefully neglected, since taken over and utilized daily by his daughter who just so happened to moonlight as a super hero every now and again.

Dee arrived to a quiet house that hadn't expected her back until later. She could hear her parents upstairs... otherwise occupied with one another. Good, because she wasn't in the mood to try and explain why she was home early, and she didn't really want to pause at the door to take off her boots, either. She tromped snow right across the carpet, unzipping her big black coat and tossing it onto the back of the couch along the way before hurrying to the basement door. She scurried down the stairs into some sense of relative safety, all while her heart threatened to explode inside her neck.

They shot at her. They shot at her. That was new. Different. Government agents had been trying to capture her the majority of her life- for powers she held over the thoughts and actions of others, most commonly utilized through online portals like Instagram and Facebook. Without trying, she could gather massive audiences and influence them. With little more than a photo, a caption, and maybe a couple pithy tags, she could get any post to take the world by storm and, by proxy, allow the thought in that post to ride the wave of human consciousnesses until it found actionable hands.

This was hardly the first time she'd been uncooperative, but it was usually her partner who ended up in the most danger. When time and again they came to South Park in an attempt to capture her, she and Mysterion worked to foil them, and so often he was the one who ended up with guns pointed at him- addressed by the men in their cliché black suits to be just some kid who was in the way. This new status quo was a deal she'd cut back within the first week of September, when school started, that she'd work with the government agents if they'd stop trying to kidnap her and her family... but part of that deal was her right to say no if she didn't like the job.

Apparently the government had a differing opinion on that matter... and this was the first time they'd displayed a serious willingness to terminate her.

"Why the fuck did you do that?!"

Arrival in the basement brought the realization that Dee had not made it back first- of course she hadn't. She'd had to walk through the streets of South Park like everything was alright. Like she hadn't just been shot at and used her time-ripping ass at exactly the right second to avoid getting a bullet to the chest... or watched that bullet rip into another human instead, whom she had drug into the way as a meat shield for when time resumed its usual flow.

Of course, Mysterion hadn't come in through the front door. No, he'd come in through a narrow storm window above the workbench that took up the majority of the north wall... a workbench she now kept mostly clear so that he had a place to step down onto as he slipped in from outside. How exactly he opened the window from the outside was a skill she had not yet grasped, but it appeared one of Mysterion's many talents was getting past these sorts of things with relative ease.

That and getting changed quickly; the Mysterion costume was laid out on the work bench at the moment, while clothing more in line with Kenny McCormick had been pulled on in its place. Ratty jeans that had seen many a better day, an old shirt, and of course his trademark bright orange parka with clumped up brown fur trimming on the hood and sleeves were what he wore now, but the boy beneath was the same... and he wasn't happy. His tone was still the gruff bark he used as Mysterion, fists balled at his sides as he glared at her.

A month and some ago, Dee could have gotten away with not answering. She could have stared blankly at him, maybe blinked a few times, and that would have been accepted. He would have gotten no explanation from her, and simply have had to deal with the fact that she was reckless, hot-headed, and often did things without thinking... just like everybody else.

But he wasn't just like everybody else.

He was the exception.

"If you saw what job they tried to give me, you woulda flipped 'em off, too." She responded without guilt, plonking her butt down on the last step to have a seat and take off her boots. They were heavy black things, shoes she referred to as her 'big uglies' that were made to keep her feet warm and dry even in deep, wet snow. Waterproof, with a thick thermal layer, they were as good as wearing leg weights on a daily basis... they were also a bitch to lace and unlace whenever she had to get in or out of them. "Besides, they've never tried to kill me before- how was I supposed to know Captain Asshole was going to pull a gun?"

For a moment, she'd felt as if she'd won; Kenny didn't have an immediate response for her. At the same time, however, there was a terrible ball of panic that just wouldn't dissolve. One of her fears had come to pass- she'd become valuable enough to the US Government that they would accept killing her over letting her operate as a free agent. This latest drama in their ongoing... negotiations would not be taken lightly, she had no doubt.

Maybe it's better to just do as they tell me... but it was so fucking stupid!

Feet clad in thick black socks escaped her boots, and she thumped the heavy footwear together to get excess snow off of them before setting them off to the side on the concrete floor. Hands reached up for the railing to get herself some extra 'oomph' for standing, and she looked up... to find Kenny crouched down in front of her. He'd quietly come close and bent to her level, arms wrapped around his knees and giving her a long, studious look. Said look stopped her in the process of getting up, arms up and body leaned back, but frozen in her preparatory pose.

"You scared me."

His admission was carried on the back of his normal, every-day tone. Higher, smoother, sweeter; the voice of an angel fallen to earth if there ever was one.

It hit her a lot harder than his gruff, serious persona. Defenses crumbled in the face of pure honesty. Her arms dropped back down, hands to either side, lain lame as she shifted forward on the step to look him in the eyes. She still had trouble with that- looking him directly in those pretty powder blue eyes still felt as if it were too intimate, like he might look back and see something wrong with her. The reflex was to look away, bashful and unsure, but stubbornness kept her head up and her chin jutted slightly out, sticking with it for several silent moments. They were both fucking scared after what just happened... she needed to get her head back together.

With a sigh, she hung her head.

"I'm sorry, Kenny, I didn't... this wasn't the way this was supposed to go."

"I know. I didn't expect it either." He agreed softly; neither of them had cause to think the agents would use deadly force with her. They never had before; the stakes had been raised. "You just... usually I'm the one who gets shot at, y'know? And I take a hit, you undo it- or not- and we both go to school the next morning. You take a hit? … that's different."

"Hey." That thought was enough to jerk her back up, looking at him again with lips pensively pressed together. She reached out, palms sliding over his cheeks to hold his head in her hands. He was still fucking cold. "... that didn't happen. And now we know better. Now we can plan better."

He scoffed. "You mean I can plan better- if you fuckin' made the plans, we would be screwed from here to hell." His arms unfolded from about his knees, taking her hands off of his face to instead offer an assist in getting upright. He held her hands in his, pulling her up off of the stairs and the pair of them moving together into the center of the room- where a thick beige rug could protect their feet from the cold concrete. Standing next to her well-worn punching bag, he had pulled her in to hug her, and didn't seem particularly keen on letting go.

She didn't fight him; this was another situation in which he was the exception to the rule.

"We should text Wendy." She noted faintly; no doubt their third member was anxious for a full situation report and discussion of what happened.

"Yeah... in a minute."

::The Author's Corner::

HOLY HELLO WE ARE BACK

With a somewhat long chapter. Which only half-followed my outline and probably added another chapter to the projected length of this story, because what the fuck Dee you had to flip off the guy with the gun. You just had to.

GOOD TO KNOW I'M STILL AWESOME AT GOING OFF THE RAILS.

Oh, and because people have been asking and I keep forgetting- the ship name pretty much everyone decided on over on Tumblr is Mysteributt. I may or may not have drawn a shitty cartoon submarine and wrote that on the side to commemorate the name. XD

For the newbies, I run a Tumblr to post art related to the story, as well as interact with readers. It's the same username as here, so feel free to look me up.

ONWARDS!

-Buttlord