Mysterion and Red Handed

Chapter 9

Glowing Letters

If there was one thing that Red was getting more and more pissed off about, it was the damn demons! It wasn't enough that they were so much stronger than her, oh no! Now it was like they were playing a game with her, like she was the balloon and they were the little kids trying to pop it. She'd turn around and there would be a giant spider sinking its scorpion-like tail into the crown of her head. She'd wake up completely healed, and find her body hanging upside down from the end of a demon's long, prickly tentacle. Then he'd drop her and she would fall into a mess of acid, which boiled her alive. Then she'd wake up again, just to find another monster trying to chew on what she had left behind.

"Fuck this!" she screams and she pulls the jump rope out from her belt. The teeth were grinding into her stomach, chewing on her bones, and she had to stop the tears of pain overwhelming her. She adjusted herself enough to see the beast's fish-like eye. With a strong whip, the jump rope slapped the eye with a loud "crack". The monster roared and she slipped between its jaws like jelly. With a thud and a crack of brittle-bones, she landed hard on the rocks.

The monster danced like a scratched child. One large, pinkish foot stamped closer to her, the other actually on top of her. She was dead in an instant.

And awake again, though this time she had been left alone. She laid there for a few minutes, to relax, to breathe, then stood up and looked around. The demons had scattered, obviously bored with their new toy. She sighed in relief and checked her jump rope. The handle was shattered, cracked right down the middle. She'd have to buy a new one.

Mysterion had told her to stay in the cave, but the swarm of tiny, flesh eating ants had flushed her out just after he died. She knew nowhere was safe, nowhere was painless; she'd have to keep moving, if she didn't want to die. Again.

Slowly, the girl walked past mushroom trees, coughing at the gas coming off of boiling lakes. She stared up at the sky, hoping to see the portal open, but all she saw was blood red clouds and large, atom looking things floating around. She had a sinking feeling that she was too far from the cave to see the portal, or worse, that Kenny couldn't open it after all.

But no, he promised he'd come back. She just had to give him time.

There was one thing peculiar of the place; the rocks. True, nothing here looked natural, but these rocks looked more unnatural than anything. They were like city ruins, some shaped like broken pillars, some like the stones of a pyramid, and they were scattered everywhere, buried in the chaos that she hated more and more.

She walked at least half a mile before she reached a large cavern, one too large to jump. She glances over her shoulder, at the mess she left behind, and then turned back. She couldn't go back there; something was telling her to keep moving. Survival instincts probably; despite it all, she's always been a survivor.

There were two ways to go from here; one was a slightly diagonal stone like bridge that connected one side of the cavern to the other. It looked solid enough; plenty of stone support underneath. The other way was a fallen stone pillar, with a triangle end. But it was too tall to climb, and the thing looked too aged, crumbling even as it just laid there.

Red turned to the smaller bridge. That looked the smarter way.

Red took one step, and the ground went front underneath her. Stones crashed and rumbled and she fell, fell, scraping against the cavern wall, against spikes that stuck out in all directions, her eyes useless in the darkness, her body being thrown around like a beanie baby, until it lands solidly on the ground, knocking the wind out of her.

She stands up and tests herself. A few scratches, a missing left ear, and she can't feel her left pinky finger, but all in all, she's not in the worse of shape.

Red takes a look around. She must have fallen at least a quarter of a mile; that bloody sky is too high up for her to see anything more than those weird clouds and floating atoms. The actually cavern itself is too narrow. The walls on either side of her can't be more than five feet from each other, and she's starting to feel claustrophobic.

"I fucking hate today," she mumbles as she pushes herself past fallen rocks and broken spikes. The blood spilling from her ear is starting to make her woozy, but she keeps moving. There had to be a way up somewhere.

"If I ever get out of here," Red mumbles to herself as she jumps from one rock to another, "I'm kicking my dad's ass, the cults' asses, and Kenny's ass…oh…"

Before her, the cavern opened by a few feet, and past fallen rocks and decayed demons, a room was half hidden before her. She pushes herself into it, squeezing through, and turned.

The walls were glowing.

A world away, Mysterion was jumping from roof to roof, thinking to himself on all he had to do. He still wasn't sure on how to save Hannah yet, and there were still the cultist to deal with. If what the leader had said was right, then the old gods were woken up, and that only meant even more trouble for the town of South Park.

He was going to need help.

Three boys lazily walked down the sidewalk, all in separate directions, all wearing their pajamas and looking half asleep. Mysterion waits until they stop right below him, and then jumps off of the roof he had been waiting on.

"Kenny?" Kyle asks, rubbing his left eye, "why'd you text us?"

Mysterion stares the three down. Cartmen was missing his jacket, wearing just an aqua pajama shirt with a bear's face in the middle. Stan had his jacket zipped up and fastened, but his hat was on crooked and his black hair was sticking out. And Kyle had his hat on right, but his orange jacket had been thrown on carelessly over his pajamas, and left unzipped.

Mysterion didn't feel the least bit guilty for waking them up.

"I need your guy's help," he says.

"We're not playing super hero anymore, Kenny," Cartmen snaps angrily, "you guy's killed it when you all turned evil! Alright? It's no fun anymore."

Mysterion turned to Cartmen, trying hard to keep himself calm. "I'm not playing," he says.

Stan fixes his hat. "What's going on?"

"Remember the cult of Cthulhu? They're up to something; they decided to sacrifice Hannah and I to the old gods, but I don't know why."

"Sacrifice? How?" Kyle asks.

"They sent us both to R'lyeh, where Cartmen sent us."

Cartmen's head cocks slightly. "How the hell do you keep getting out of there?" he asks under his breath.

Mysterion ignores it. "I need your guy's help; I need to open the portal and rescue Hannah before it's too late."

"No."

The three boys turn to Cartmen, who's standing with his fists down at his side.

Kyle gaps. "No? Dude, we have to save her."

"I'm not playing Kenny's stupid game. He's been blowing us off for weeks, always hanging out with that girl instead. Why the hell should I help him?"

Mysterion lost control then. In a blink he had Cartmen pinned up against the building's brick, his arm pressed against the boy's neck, and his face looking as intimidating as he can possibly manage. "Because, fat boy," he shouts, "you've never been to R'lyeh, you have no idea what it's like that; what kind of hell it is. Hannah is there, all alone, probably getting chased and eaten by demons, and you're just going to stand here and say that you're not playing? I should fucking kill you for that, you fat asshole!"

"Kenny, Kenny chill out," Stan says, pulling Mysterion away. Cartmen whimpers in the corner like the toddler he is. Mysterion takes a few deep breaths to calm himself down again. Then he turns back to Stan and Kyle.

"Sorry I…I just really need your guy's help on this one. We have to save her."

Kyle and Stan give each other one look, and then their eyes are back on Kenny, their eyebrows down and at a 'V'.

"What do you need us to do?"

There's a knock at the door, and the cult leader has to chug the last of his before he thinks to answer it. A body flies past him and slams hard into the staircase railing, and the cult leader laughs. "Watch it Ron, those lightening shocks are a doozy," he calls as he heads to the door. "Hey, guys, I think the pizza's here!"

But when he opens the door, he doesn't see the pizza man. Instead, there are three little boys there, all dressed in tuxes with various other accessories: a top hat, a monocle, a cane, and a mustache.

The cultist turns his head. "Yes?" he asks.

The fattest one does the talking. "Hell good sir, we're here looking for a VIP tour of your extraordinary cult here."

The cult priest scowls. "Get out of here, kids!" he snaps.

"Sir, I don't think you understand the special circumstance that we are in presently," the boy says, "you see…" and here, all three boys display their IPhones, with a VIP app pulled up and loaded, "we are VIPs."

The cultist takes a second to respond. "…oh! Oh well then right this way! Sorry about that."

"Quite alright," the fat boy says, and the three walk into the man's house, tucking their IPhone away.

The man takes lead of the tour. "Ok," he says as he shows them into the living room. There are cultists everywhere, all laughing and drinking, some throwing their robes around as if it's a Frat party.

"Well, as you see here, we're all just in the middle of a little party," the leader says.

"I see… and what is this party celebrating?"

"Why, the return of the old gods, of course. See we've finally found out how to release the gods of our religion, to rein darkness on the world for thousands of years."

Stan scratches at his mustache. "You mean Cthulhu."

The leader shakes his head. "No no, we gave up on Cthulhu after he was sent back to his eternal sleep; we figured we couldn't be redundant and bring him back. It's already been done. So these gods are different. They're part of the same religion, but they all have specific traits, and were put to an eternal rest thousands of years ago. But we've awoken them, and for doing so, they have granted us tremendous power!"

Kyle can't help but dodge his head away from their shop teacher, who's slurring his words in the corner, probably too drunk to notice his students anyhow. "Powers?" Kyle asks.

Just then, a man runs past them, his entire body on fire but he's not burning at all. The flames are black and red, and he's laughing as he runs around, half drunk and near naked.

The cult leader chuckles. "The old gods needed vessels in order to survive in this world. Unlike Cthulhu, they don't have any true forms. So we lent them our bodies, and in return, they give us god like powers."

A man suddenly falls from the ceiling. How he got up there to begin with, none of the boys had seen.

"Godlike power huh?" Cartmen muses and Kyle slaps him on the back of his head. "Don't even think about it fat boy," he whispers, "We're here to figure out what the cultists are up to, remember? So we can save Hannah."

Stan kicks his cane away. "Dude, have you noticed how emotional Kenny got about rescuing her? I've never seen him get so worked up over a girl like that."

"That's not true; remember he turned into a mindless Gray's Antony watching zombie for that one chick last year."

"Dude, that was for a blow job. Hannah is different."

Cartmen chuckles. "That's because Hannah won't put out."

The cult leader shows them to his back yard, where a number of other cultists are training with their new found powers. Some are on fire, others are floating around like ghosts, and a few are dancing lightening between their fingers.

The man smiles to himself. "Right now, we're just trying to get the hang of things, before we actually go out and take over the world and stuff," he says.

Stan, Kyle, and Cartmen all watch as the men show off their remarkable power, and the three can't help but feel a sense of dread for their town.

Downstairs, squeezing through a small window was Mysterion, landing into the cult leader's basement. The meeting's chairs had been tucked away and folded up. The punch tables were probably all up stairs, and the only thing Mysterion saw that had any connection to the meeting he had watched all those months ago, was the podium by the left wall, with an old, leather book resting on top quietly.

Mysterion took one last glance around to make sure that he really was alone, and then ran to the podium. The book was closed, and Mysterion saw the same star symbol engraved on the cover. He flips the pages open, and stars down.

He stares down at the scribble, at the symbols for words, and he cusses. This isn't even in English! None of it! Not even a translation! Mysterion is about to slam the book shut, about to throw it across the room, until something inside him stirs, and he looks at the words again. Lightly, the symbols seem to glow a light yellow, and Mysterion watches as they mix, untangle, and realign, all in his head, and suddenly he can read it, every word.

"Weird," he mumbles, flipping through the pages. Finally he lands on the one he needs. But he can't stay and read: he can hear voices coming down the basement staircase. Swiftly enough, he tears the page out of the book, slams the book shut, and scales the wall, reaching the window and out. Just in time too; two cultists have entered the basement, and they're arguing.

"Dammit Zach, I said to shut up about it all."

"But you said if I gave you Hannah…"

"You've got godlike powers, Zach, what more could you want?" the cult leader snaps. The man takes hold of the Necronomicon book and storms upstairs. Zach is left alone, half drunk, and sobbing.

Mysterion scowls and jumps back through the window, landing just in front of Zach, who jumps, startled.

"What are you doing here?" Zach asks.

Mysterion lets his rage fill him up to the brim. "They can't bring Hannah's mom back," he says flatly.

Zach hesitates. "They…they said they could."

"And you believed them."

"I…you don't understand how it is, to lose someone you're that close to. I had to do everything I could to—"

"So you sacrifice your only daughter?! The daughter that your wife DIED for?!"

Zach suddenly seemed sober again. "My wife didn't die for anyone. She was killed. Hannah murdered her!"

Mysterion relaxed, cooling down just enough for it to merge into his town. "Would your wife have thought so?"

Zach was speechless, and didn't say a word as Mysterion left the basement and ran off, into the night, heading to the park a few houses down. The page was tucked neatly into his pocket. He unfolded it and stared at the page. The words had gone back to normal, but as he held it, they changed again, back to English.

It was the spell he needed, the symbols he had to make out of broken glass, and even how to close the portal again. There were other spells to, but nothing on the old gods.

Maybe Stan and the others had the answers.