Author's Notes: First steps into Imaginationland and the first moments of surprise and shock as well. This chapter won't be as long as the previous one...by a slight margin.
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Four Years Later
The other side of the portal ended up in an enclosed forest in which two grassy avenues were linked to it. The field they found themselves was in was fairly big, but not massive. The forest encircling them was very thick – trees of such dark brown colour and amazing deciduous beauty stood side by side in a circular formation which only broke formation to give way to the grass avenues. The avenues themselves would lead further into the land – guiding fellow characters and walkers to the nearby villages and regions of interest within this specific area of the land.
The young angel boy took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a few seconds. "Ah...home...how this air of purity and sounds of peace are about to be troubled..." He whispered to himself – looking around and balancing a smile and a frown on his face. For he knew what was about to happen, would be something that would test the very existence of not only this great realm, but also the survival, existence and even destiny of the four that stood behind him.
"Phew, thank God we managed to get through that one." Stan spoke. "Last time I went through a portal, we all know how well that went."
"Well good to hear you're alright." Kyle responded.
"Yeh...thanks for staying behind me back there." He smiled to which Kyle smiled back. If only Stan knew just how much a single smile from him meant to the red-haired Jew.
It was a secret that nobody else knew apart from Kyle himself. It was something so secret, so close, so personal and so emotionally amplified, that even the slightest sign of expressing it made Kyle tremble in fear of what negativity it could cause. The situation would get so bad that at times, Kyle would wish that he never did start having these feelings and thoughts in the first place. But like he already realised, nothing can stop what is destined to become real and true. And in Kyle's case, it was something that he had to stop from revealing at such an easy and early stage. And every day that passed, Kyle would always say the same thing and think the same words in his mind to himself – the very three simple words which summed up Kyle's physical and emotional problems for the past 4 years or so. I love Stan, those words always sent a warm buzz to his heart and a cold chill up to his head. I have a crush...on Stan, he would go on – further emphasising the problem he now faced with living with the reality that remained permanent in his mind and his soul.
Ever since the age of 10, Kyle saw Stan as more than just a best friend. Hell, a "Super Best Friend" didn't even come close to what Kyle saw them two as being. There were loads of times that people could have picked on, he realised over and over. And it was true, the amount of times Kyle showed a close feeling and attraction to Stan in more than just a friendly way was as clear as crystal. There were too many moments in the past four years for Kyle to remember, both because of the amount and because it was too shameful in his opinion, but he could recall every single one of them as if he kept a collection of them like records. I'll never forget moments like that, he thought, despite how embarrassing and pathetic he thought it was. He wasn't proud or comfortable with his own feelings, and in this case, sexuality, but like before, it was something he knew he couldn't change no matter how much he tried. I guess I wasn't destined to like girls, after all, he realised – further realising that the guy he would choose to be his hopeful lover, would be his best friend Stan Marsh.
Everytime he got near him, everytime Stan talked to him, everytime he talked to Stan back, everytime they stood together and did things together just the two of them, Kyle would get both a welcoming and fearful buzz of love and attraction towards Stan. Everything about him he believed was perfect; his grabable black hair, his sparkling blue eyes, his manly voice, his magnetising and caring attitude, even the way he walked...everything that made Stan Stan, made Kyle become the true Kyle even more. If only he knew, was the one thought that got Kyle down. Not only because he wanted to tell him, but also because he didn't know HOW to tell it. It was a secret that maybe shouldn't be told - an answer that maybe still had to remain in the shadows of the question.
But one thing was certainly sure in Kyle's mind. One day, THAT one day someday...I'll tell him, he would justify with every ounce of positivity in his body. I'll tell him everything...and then...MAYBE...we can be happy...the smile would never not rise. ...together.
"HEY...KYLE..." Kenny yelled – bringing Kyle's thoughts back to the present. "You just gunna stand there or what?!" He continued bringing to attention the fact that all except Kyle had begun walking down one of the grass avenues and were already quite a distance away from him. Running a bit and finally catching up, Kyle stopped right next to Stan's side and followed along with the rest in walking.
"So, where are we going?"
"I dunno, ask angel boy here."
"We're just heading to a nearby location first – it's not far from here."
"Yeh that's what you said back home in the fields." Kenny rolled his eyes again.
"Oh jeez...I hope this ole' nasty soar person gets what's coming to him. I sure don't like seeing characters...ummm...getting...y'know...killed off." Butters added – not that anybody was listening to him.
They continued on down the avenue – trees either side and the grass differing in length and shape in every part. At the end of each avenue would be the odd river, lake, stone-patch, hill, bridge, cave etc. Following on from that would be the extension of the avenue into multiple other avenues with signs posted by the sides to navigate characters through them to their requested location. A few more minutes onward, they had reached asplit in the road.
In front of them lay two signs – each one pointing in a different direction.
Left:Moldwill Village
Province Border :Right
"You see that..." The angel pointed towards the left sign. "That is the village that was attacked as told in my story." He then pointed down the avenue that led to the village. "It is still picking up the pieces from the attack. I would return there to offer my aid, but guiding you four to the location we must go, is of highest priority."
"So...what's this 'Province Border' then?" Kenny asked. "Where does that one go?"
"Come...this way..." The angel spoke –apparety nothearing Kenny's voice, but the four could tell that he had so. Following the angel nevertheless, the four found themselves walking down the other avenue towards this 'Border' region.
The angel then took out a map from underneath his clothes and spread it out for the four guys to see. "See...we are here..." The four took a peak over his shoulders. The map showed the birds-eye of a forest region dotted with several lakes and village regions along with plenty of open fields, mountains and in the far right corner of the map, a white line that signalled a border with some other region of land. But none of the four took notice of that particular element, it was the village that they were more focused on. "As you can see, one of the exit points of the village leads to an open field followed by arched hills and eventually, a set of mountains. It was here..." The angel sighed a little. "...that the young character I mentioned in my story – the one in possession of our precious "object"...was found dead by the side of one of the hills."
"Dead?! How!?"
"Gunshot to the leg and heart – he had no chance of survival."
"Oh jeez!" Butters cried out – letting out the most sympathy and emotion about the case out of all four of the guys.
"Well...what happened to the "object"? Did that boy you were also talking about, get it or sumin?"
The angel sighed deeper. "Yes, I'm afraid so...it has become an even worse situation than we feared. Now that he has that "object" in his possession, the crisis and indeed, the situation as a whole has deepened beyond anybody's imagination."
"Oh ha ha...yeh, nice one, with the whole 'anybody's imagination' thing...because we're in...Imaginationland...and it's full of..." There was brief silence from Kenny. "Oh Christ..." He rolled his eyes again.
A few more minutes up the avenue, they were beginning to come to another cross-point where the avenue they were on, broke off this time into three different avenues. The angel looked down at the map and double-checked that he was in the right location as they had told him to come to. Let's hope this works, he hoped in his mind. The idea that had been made, not only brought its risk, but also the fact that it would change certain aspects permanently...forever. I hope they'll come to understand.
As they reached the centre of the next divide, the angel turned around, sighed a little and looked back at the four guys again. "OK, listen well. I'm going to head off for a few minutes to look for a certain character who'll brief you on what's happening at the moment and what we need you to do first off."
"Woah woah WOAH...hang on a minute..." Stan interrupted. "You're leaving us here?"
"Yes, I'm sorry that I have to leave you, but I won't be long."
"Won't be long? Yeh right..." Kenny brushed it off as if it meant nothing. "How do we know you'll be back – you could easily just leave us here."
"I assure you, my primary goal is to lead you to your first destination. My assignment isn't over until you fulfil the task of reaching it, I assure you." The four guys still looked a little unsure and uneasy, but were positive enough, for the time being, to go along with what the character promised. "Please...just trust me."
"Alright alright...keep your head on, we'll stick around here. Just don't be too long alright – some of us haven't eaten today at all, y'know." Kenny spoke – recalling that he had only had bread-on-bread and a glass of luke-warm water today.
"Don't worry, I won't be long." And with that said, the angel made his way down the left avenue and out of the guys' line of vision.
A few minutes passed and the guys decided to sit around a bunch of tree stumps nearby – right next to a bed of yellow flowers. At the moment, the four were discussing what this young boy looked like and what kind of so-called terrible and sinister plan he was coming up with, with this "object" that the angel had recalled several times.
"I bet it's a goth..." Kenny rolled his eyes. "...they're always planning some kind of painful thing...only this time maybe it's on a really giant ridiculous scale."
"Oh, come on Kenny, goths don't cause pain on others – they cause pathetic-minded vocal and physical pain on themselves, that's all." Kyle responded in his typical talk-back tone.
"Hey, I thought emos only did that kind of thing." Butters spoke in a soft voice.
"Shut up Butters!" All three shouted – causing Butters to curl back up to himself again.
"Well, whatever this dude's doing, we better just find him, tell him to quit it and get the hell out of here before our parents come home."
"Totally."
Unknown to the four, on the other side of the circular region connecting all four avenues, in the midst of the dark shadow-covered trees, they were being watched by a bunch of dirty-looking human-looking orcs.
"Well, what do we 'ave here?" The first orc spoke. "Looks like we got ourselves some Creators in this World of Imagination."
"Oh, Creators huh?" The second orc spoke in a much lower tone. "The very same as our Lord and Master?"
"THE very same." The first orc answered. "And these little meat-sacs are the very ones that our Lord ordered us to look for."
"Such a coincidence we should find them in this place..." The third orc entered. "...is everything set up?"
"Yes..." The first orc looked back. "...they should be moving towards IT in a matter of time. Once then, it will all be different."
The second orc laughed. "Who could imagine such pathetic little creatures as they could possess so much power."
"True..." The first orc focused his thoughts. "...power which our Lord will find VERY useful, indeed." With that said, the three orcs departed from their hiding spot and returned back into the depths of the forest.
Back at the stumps, all four guys had gone silent – locked in their own thoughts about different things; Stan about what this young boy was planning, Kenny about food, Butters about Goths and Emos...and Kyle about Stan and the ever-continuing feelings and thoughts he shared for the black-haired boy that sat exactly next to him.
Suddenly, as if from nowhere, a voice called to them. "Hey gaywads, what's going on?!" All four of them looked up almost instantly towards the direction the voice came from and were all immediately surprised at the person who now stood in front of them.
"Cartman?!" Kyle called – the most shocked of the four.
"Well, who did you expect dumb-ass..."
"What are you doing here, Cartman?" Stan asked in his usual tone.
"Huh? Well, I'm the one who should be asking that question...I was brought here by someone freak with wings."
This shocked all four even more. "You mean, that angel dude?"
"Yeh, why."
"Dude, we've just this minute been brought here by that guy. He's just left us here and he's been gone for 10 minutes now."
"Really..." Cartman spoke in what sounded like a surprised voice. "...well, he left me on my own too, so I thought I'd take a look around here and what do I expect, but you four fags sitting here like douches."
They spoke a little more for a few minutes – most of which was full of Cartman mocking what all four of them had to say about the situation. They eventually got to what the angel had told them about what had happened in the village.
"So...that character got chased and shot...and then he died."
"Yeh..."
There was brief moment of silence which was soon broken by Cartman bursting out with laughter. "Man...that character got owned!"
"This isn't funny Cartman..." Kyle spoke, now annoyed at Cartman's ignorance.
"Dude, it's TOTALLY funny – a character getting killed and shot. Guys, that's not tragic, that's genius."
"Oh, get the hell out of here Cartman if you're gunna be here. We're here for the same reasons so we'll see yer' at wherever we're supposed to be going."
"Alright, whatever you say." Cartman walked off – still giving off little laughs under his breath.
"Dude, what's his problem?" Stan asked.
"I dunno Stan, I really don't."
"Fellas...HEY, FELLAS!" Butters called to the other three – running back towards them.
"What is it Butters?"
"I've found something, I've found something!"
"Found what?!"
"...something...strange and wierd and stuff."
Butters began to lead the other three to the location he had found what he was looking for again. It was a little up one of the separate avenues and wasn't far from where they were.
"How did you find what we're going to see."
"Oh well, I saw a little flashing thing when we were sat chatting with Cartman...and I...y'know...decided to follow it."
"A flashing thing?"
"Yeh, it sorta was...y'know...kinda close to us and as I followed it, it got further and further away. I kept following it and then it just disappeared all of a sudden. The next minute...I find these." Butters then turned their attention to the thing, or in this case, things that he found on the ground. There across the avenue of grass was a little black box made of metal. "What do you think it is?"
"I dunno, but I wouldn't go near it."
Suddenly, Kenny spotted more. "Look, over there!" He pointed to three identical-looking black metal boxes. The stranger thing was that all four boxes were aligned as if in a square formation spread across the width of the grass avenue. The four guys walked over to the furthest metal box from them and had a quick look. "Yep, they're all the same."
"But...still, what do you think they are."
"Oh jeez, you think they could be like, little black metal monsters or sumin?" The other three quickly looked at Butters and gave him odd looks. "Well, I think they look like little black metal monsters...I hate little black metal monsters."
Suddenly, as if out of nowhere, the four square-formed, square-shaped metal boxes sprung to life – releasing two poles from either side which connected to one another, and one larger frame-like pole which went up and above the four guys' heads. "What the hell are they doing?" The poles soon expanded and expanded until from each side, the four guys were boxed in by a wall of spiked metal poles and bars and above them, was a roof of spread-out metal frames and sheets which arched down and had little shiny tips on the underside of each part. "Ummmm...guys." Kenny spoke in a slight worried sound.
But unfortunately, before any of them could think any further, the metal sealed shut and locked them inside it. And it wasn't long before a buzzing sound was heard. And from the boxes, through the poles, up the frames and through the small tips overhead, massive charges of electricity were shot out around each side and from out of the tips which in result, landed right across the enclosed grass and...unfortunately, through the bodies of all four guys. Stan, Kyle, Kenny and Butters all let out massive screams of pain as the 20,000 Volt stream of electricity flowed through their bodies and struck at every muscle and nerve in their body like static knives. They tried to move and through blind instinct, get out of the way, but it made no difference. The electricity and lightning bolts were rushing through every part and were covering every blade of grass in the enclosed square that was being blocked with streams of electrified poles.
The seconds felt like minutes as the pain ensued. The force was so strong that it ripped and tore holes through their clothes and eventually, burned them to a crisp. Their jackets soon turned to thin crispy fragments and their hats being shocked to pieces from all the bolts. In fact, pretty much all of their clothes were getting damaged and destroyed one way or another.
Finally after what seemed and painfully felt like a long while, the electricity bolts and lightning strikes ceased and there was silence again. Kenny, Butters and Stan collapsed and passed out almost instantly. But Kyle still had some energy left in his arms. With the rest of his body now paralyzed from all the electricity and the strikes, he dragged his way across the burned grass to where Stan was laying with his body facing up towards the sky. Kyle felt the energy in his arms depleting greatly and was using every ounce of it in order to get close to Stan. He had just got to where Stan's feet were and was making his way towards his side with his eyelids now feeling like lead weights. He tried to lift his left hand up a few inches to grab hold of Stan's hand. But as he hovered closely to Stan's dry palm, the energy in his own hand failed him – disappearing and drained completely, and the rest of his body collapsed onto the ground – his head angled to the left towards an unconscious Stan. And it wasn't long before Kyle's breathing stopped too and his eyes closed shut too.
A few minutes passed and there was still silence as the four guys lay unconscious and not moving. But just then, nine individual shadows cast their presence over the four bodies that lay on the grass. It wasn't long before the true forms of those nine shadows came into the light and surrounded all four guys. Looking down at them, they looked at one another and begun talking.
"So...these are the ones that will lead the destiny of this great land?" One character spoke.
"It would seem so...they don't look like heroes to me – they looknothing more than justa bunch of kids." Another spoke.
"Oh, don't judge a book by its cover, that's what they always say – I know that more than anybody and you all should too. The people of their World know that phrase all too well as far as I'm concerned." Another spoke – looking towards the black metal boxes. "Looks like my old stun devices worked – hope I didn't cook them...much."
"I'm sure they'll be fine." Another spoke – kneeling down and looking specifically at Stan and Kyle. "These two...these are the ones we must take extra care of."
"I presume they are THE ones, correct?" Another spoke.
"Yes...they're the ones the Council spoke of." Another spoke.
"They will be alright, won't they. They are Creators after all." Another spoke.
"BEEP-BLIP. TICK-TICK RING BEEEEEP, TICK-RING RIIIING BEEP!" Another character spoke.
"I agree, we won't find out anything just standing here. Let's get them back to our Province and begin what we need to do." The final character spoke to which a few of the characters picked up and helped carry the four guys – one over their shoulders and took them close to where their pegasi were stood in the shadows of the forest. With all nine characters on their pegasi – two to each horse with the only female character leading and with all of them keeping tight hold of one boy each, they set off and made their way back to the destination they had come from – lifting off from the air and disappearing from ground view within a matter of moments.
Stan, Kyle, Kenny & Butters were on their way to their next destination. But a new destination was the least newest thing that was waiting for them – especially...for Stan and Kyle.
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Author's Comments: Sooooo, with all four boys knocked out and unconscious, where on Imaginationland could they be heading?! And before anyone tells me, yes I know that amount of electricity could quite possibly kill a little kid, but hey, just think of it as special imaginary electricity, OK? And yes, I will be revealing the identity of all nine characters in the next chapter just in case you hadn't figured it out in the Intro. And now, I can safely say that the TRUE story starts right here, right now!