::Mutual Cat Daddies – Unlikely Partner::
The moment of impact was sufficient to kick enough adrenaline through Dee's system to wake her the fuck up. Mismatched tracks of stimuli came together as a split second of pure horror pulsed its way through her skull, remembering all the times as a child that she'd been told that all manners were out the window if she were grabbed by a stranger. Associated memories flared as well, remembering all the times that she felt certain that she was being followed, being watched, or that there was someone waiting in the wings every second of every day for her to let her guard down so she could be snatched away. It was a sort of psychological switch that threw her into action before she rightly knew what was happening.
The weight which had impacted her back threw her slightly forward, her arms throwing out to either side as her knees bent and sent her center of gravity low- those were reflexes. Her next move was to draw her elbows in, bringing her forearms up to bar her face- just in case there was a rag soaked with sleepy drugs involved in this equation. Finally, the rubber heel of her boot planted itself into the ground, the other leg dipping deeply to throw her mass forward as her upper body bent along a violent downward arc; the mixture of the motion and the twist was intended to throw off whomever had impacted her back before they could get a sure grip.
The move was a success- the mass of the person who had hit her was that of an adult, someone who already had to bend awkwardly to get at her, and who had not expected her to remain standing. Their knees had been unsteady, and she'd drug them slightly around and down. The seconds more she was allotted to understand this allowed her to act accordingly. Bigger than her meant wider than her, and she'd swung them off-center enough to make a target available. One hand clasped over the other, and left arm poured additional power into the right as the sharp point of that joint was sent back into the gut of the person atop her with as much force as she could muster.
There was a distinct oof, as well a stream of cursing- or at least the tone was of someone cursing. She didn't recognize the words. Arms that had been half-wrapped around her shoulders to get a grip went almost completely lax, and gave her the opportunity to duck away from the person's grasp entirely. She turned herself down and out, backing up several steps and re-orienting herself with quick glances that gathered only the most necessary information. Her assailant appeared to be an adult male dressed in black with reflective patches of sliver, who stood wheezing and holding his gut just a few feet away from the light of the streetlamp. She didn't see any additional men, but she didn't trust the darkness around the light- anything could be hiding out there.
That's when a key detail jumped out at her- the man was Hispanic. More than that, those reflective patches? They weren't patches, they were tin foil.
She blinked. No way. No fucking way- a chaos minion? Butters was in the fucking hospital, and last she checked he didn't currently have the money to hire anyone. Even if he had gone into one of his puckish moods and found the funds to pay migrant workers to do his dirty work whilst he was bedridden, what was he even playing at right now? Was he part of the cat conspiracy?
No time, no time, time to make some fucking time-
Flexing her ass to rip one and halt the clock gave her precious seconds to scout. She was able to leave behind an afterimage of herself in rotten-smelling smog and wander freely, dealing her assailant an extra punch in the head with her first five seconds to further daze him before she began searching further outside the shine of the streetlamp. Tired legs were forced into a jog as she made a wide circle in the dark, seeking any hint of someone nearby that would be giving orders- either another minion with a walky-talky or a cellphone, or maybe even a foil-clad commander in the style of General Disarray; Dougie's retired alter ego after he quit the chaos crew a couple years ago. While she found neither, what she did find made her heart sink- more minions, a total of three, waiting in the dark in case she made a break for it. There was a word for this sort of situation- surrounded.
No doubt if Kenny were here, he'd be working through advantages and disadvantages in his head. The kid came up with plans on the fly like it was his goddamned dayjob. She, on the other hand, quickly defaulted to two options; either rewind the past two hours and hope her memory remained intact enough to inform the others that Chaos was involved in some manner, or smack the nearest sentry in the skull to give herself an opening to bail.
The latter sounded like more of a sure thing. In the last seconds she had before time resumed its normal ticking, she approached a crouched Hispanic man who was blocking the sidewalk behind her original position. It was the way she'd need to run if she wanted to get back to her partner, and it also led into the shitty part of town... a broken area of fences, junk, and half-constructed buildings that she happened to know quite well. In a flat out run, through the trash jungle, she suspected she'd be able to lose them. Wrapping one fist around the other, she used the combined mass of her hands as a bludgeon on the crouched man. Raw power for the strike coming from her shoulders as well as a downward bend of her entire body, and the muted echo of the smack getting caught in frozen molecules of air was a sound she knew well... and found intensely satisfying.
The hands of the clock slipped back into motion, and she was suddenly back where she'd been standing before. The disorientation lasted for a split second, but she didn't give herself time to shake it off. She was already tripping backwards as she heard two men curse fluently in Spanish- the one before her and the one behind her. It was the opening she needed to get the hell outta there.
Unsteady feet nearly slipped on the icy sidewalk, the rubber soles of her boots being the only thing that assured traction as balance centers got back with the program, and her brain accepted that she was at a different position than the one it thought she was at. With the weight of her bones swung about, she threw herself into an all-out sprint that built momentum with every lunge. In seconds she was past the sentry, who was still contending with his sudden headache and unable to block her escape. In a few seconds more, she was far enough from the street lamp that her eyes began to adjust to the night time conditions and pick up the shapes of the world beyond the immediate engagement zone.
She let out a yelp as she came face-to-face with a truck that had been sitting with its headlights off, but now blasted her with high beams. The sudden light seared her retinas, and sent her skipping off in a 90-degree angle to the left to avoid what instinct told her was a possible head-on collision with the vehicle her assailants presumably arrived in. The engine had been off while it had been hiding, but she could hear the starting roar and grumbling chug of the diesel monster coming to life as she was forced off the road before she could actually make it to the wrong side of the tracks and the maze she intended to lose these guys in. Instead, she was cutting across an empty lot- heading north... and the truck that she'd just ducked away from didn't seem to have a problem with going off-road.
Cock- titties- fuck- balls- cunt- shitraininhell- belzebub'smanyheadedtentacledick- fuckFUCKFUCKFUCK!
Fear did a great deal to make on forget fatigue and weight, and a plan gone awry in the first thirty seconds inspired a great deal of that fear. Fight or flight was in full effect, and whilst Dee was heavily weighted towards fight on most days, flight was the right decision when it came to taking on an old diesel truck on one's own. Heavy boots and exhausted limbs were motivated into a flat-out sprint that she'd certainly be feeling in the morning, and she intended to be groaning about that in the back of Ms. Stotch's car on the way to see Butters get out of the hospital, not wherever these assholes intended on taking her. She was crashing through undisturbed snow, at least a foot of it, sprinting lunges throwing her up above the the thick layer that fought to weigh her down, bouncing over the terrain with no idea of what could possibly be waiting under that white blanket to trip her and send her crashing forward on her face. Behind her, she heard the roar of the engine, and the beams that had blinded her were now throwing her shadow before her- as if it intended to escape without her.
Lungs were bursting, her heart was in her throat, and a vicious stitch was forming on her right side as she forgot to breathe properly. Running for long distance demanded paced breathing; in through the nose, out through the mouth, to create a steady underlying rhythm. At current? There was no room to think about that or even fall back on well-trained habits. Outright panic had her gasping sharply and grunting on the exhale through gritted teeth. There was barely enough active thought left in her head to identify a couple of trees that were growing up in this empty lot and realize that if she directed herself close to them the truck would be forced to go around them, which would buy time.
Time was good. Time was always good.
She couldn't look forward. She put her head down once she'd directed herself at the trunk of a maple that had already shed its leaves and stood naked in the night. Vision was unimportant; she had a course locked in and it was all about putting down as much distance as humanly possible. At next glance up, the tree was significantly closer, but the truck's engine was louder. Gaining on her, despite having to contend with the snow cover as well- it was too much to hope it might get stuck.
At the far end of the lot, maybe ten yards beyond the tree she was about to pass, she noticed another vehicle. Another set of headlights. They weren't facing her- no, it's nose was pointed to her left; pointed towards town. More than the headlights, however, the cab lights were on. It made it possible to see the size and shape of the car, to understand it was a nondescript compact, and get a glimpse at the occupant.
For the second she could manage to process anything, she almost wanted to believe she was seeing things... then again, she didn't want to believe her imagination could be that cruel.
Eric fucking Cartman was in the driver's seat. He was still dressed as the Coon, identified by the ears still on top of his head and the mask still firmly tied over his face. He was actually turning himself in the driver's seat, she realized, the upright seat itself suddenly dropping into a reclined position so that The Coon could wiggle his bulk about and open the rear door, shoving it wide before sitting up straight again.
Even panicked, she knew full well what an escape route looked like.
Behind her, the truck's roar grew more subdued; slowed down slightly to tack around the tree she'd passed so close to. Every single one of those extra seconds was going to count, but she'd give it to Cartman- the vehicle was perfectly lined up for her to charge at the opening he'd made with everything she had left.
"C'MON ASSMASTER, GET IN THE CAR!"
Yep, that was Cartman. If there had been any doubt left to pound through her temples along with her pulse, it was blasted away as she heard the kid shout through a rolled-down window. As if in response to him, the truck snarled as it maneuvered around the tree and put on speed again.
Would they risk crashing into another vehicle?
She didn't want to find out. The distance was closing. The world became contradictory in the way that arriving at the edge of the lot seemed to take an eternity, but if she recalled the span of time between the tree and dive-bombing into the back seat of the understated sedan she would have recounted it as taking no time at all. An excruciating instant, less than a minute, and she flew through the open door in a blur of snow and wild red hair.
She'd barely landed when the vehicle moved, forward momentum forcing the door she'd just dove through to slam shut as the car lurched from half-way onto the curb to return to the street and head towards the residential area of town.
Little by little, regular sensations came back. Dee found herself on her belly on the back seat of a vehicle that was just plain boring and smelled of pine air fresheners. There were a couple empty water bottles on the floor in the back, maybe an old fast-food bag peeking out from beneath the passenger seat. Usual things, but this was most certainly not Liane's vehicle. She knew that car, and this was not that. Puffing lungs could not stop their heaving, and she rolled onto her back to let them come back down without the weight of her body squeezing them any harder than her diaphragm already was. Shaking hands came up, half-formed into fists as her fingers trembled and her face tingled from the cold wind that had been whipping past her face during her mad dash.
Her legs felt like ropes wound from rubber bands, worked into spirals so tight that the friction edged up on temperatures necessary for spontaneous combustion. She half-expected the snow that caked her cargo pants to be steaming off in response to the mass of heat that felt like it was rolling off of her person in waves. There was an intense urge to yank off her hoodie... but she wouldn't. Not with Cartman in the front seat.
Wait, he's like... twelve. Why is he driving?
Her conscious brain was the next part of regular function to find its way back to her, and it forced her to sit up despite how good it felt to just lay in the back and be a blob. Despite age and temperament, Cartman was driving... fairly competently. He was among those who had gone through a growth spurt in the last year, so he was reaching the pedals without too much difficulty, and he even used his blinker as he turned right at the intersection before residential... which was taking them decidedly in a direction away from where they both lived.
Son of a bitch, where is he taking me?
Surprises on surprises, the ride was... quiet. Cartman hadn't said a word since her arrival. Or if he had, she hadn't been in a condition to register it. From the back seat it was hard to see his face, but she coulda sworn he felt... tense.
Something was wrong here, and it was more than the underage and unlicensed driver ferrying her to an unknown location with the cab light still on. Despite the effort it took, she motivated her legs to bend and crawled up between the front seats, clicking the button to kill the internal lights along the way- no reason to make it easy for an officer to identify a couple of joyriders in the dark. Passing up over the center storage cubby, she practically fell into the passenger seat with all the grace of a hippo getting dropped out of an aircraft.
Cartman glanced to the side as she moved up. She caught a split second of his expression- wide eyes, raised brows, tight mouth; the portrait of worry. The moment he realized she was awake enough to notice him, however, his expression changed. A wide grin broke out, and his mask hid enough that it was impossible to define sincerity.
"Holy shit that was fucking awesome- I thought you passed out like a fuckin' pussy, but you're made of tougher stuff than expected, Douchebag."
A half-smirk appeared on her face. If her heart hadn't been pounding at 200 thuds per minute, she might have, but the still-throbbing organ was doing a great deal to keep her awake. Now that the adrenaline was easing off and the dopamine was kicking in, she was beginning to catch up with all the questions associated with this situation, not least of which was where the fuck did The Coon pinch a car from? Quickly thereafter was What is he doing back in town? Didn't this fucker get kidnapped this morning? The more she thought about it, the more fantastic the whole series of events became. A final thought hit her like a ton of bricks;
The Coon just honest-to-goodness rescued me from chaos minions. Legit. That just happened.
Medusa with dildo curlers, my brain hurts.
It wasn't getting much better- the vehicle that Cartman was piloting had brought them to the U-STOR-IT at the north-western corner of town. He went past the gate, turned in a tight U-turn that wasn't quite tight enough to avoid going up on the curb for a second and violently bouncing them around immediately after, and then popped it into reverse to tuck the car against the sidewalk, facing the entrance to the place from several yards away. Duly parked, he killed the headlights and the engine, making Dee realize just how many pitch dark fucking corners were in this town at night. There was a streetlamp over the entrance to U-STOR-IT, but even just a few yards beyond it? Desolate blackness.
Note to self, headlamp might be a permanent addition to the Buttlord uniform.
"You must be wondering what happened to me, Buttlord." Cartman- no, no, The Coon, spoke in the darkness. It was that tone. He was back in character, with full drama applied to his speech. "No doubt you and the others have been searching for me since I was kidnapped today. Rest assured, my attackers were no match for The Coon, and I escaped with ease once I regained consciousness... but they'd taken me far into the wilderness, and I was forced to find my way back. Thankfully I came across a supporter of the Coon on my return to town, and they were honored to lend their car to such a super kewl hero as myself."
Translation, you hitchhiked a ride and found some way to remove the driver from the vehicle. If you were smart, you also stole their phone so they wouldn't be able to call the authorities. Grand theft auto, Coon Edition... do I wanna know how often you've done shit like this?
"I wasn't able to see who attacked me, but they had been waiting somewhere in the Coon Lair to do so- which means they surpassed my amazing security. I suspect that Professor Chaos himself has ordered this operation, dodging suspicion by being hospitalized, but I have not yet identified the lacky carrying out his will, or his goal. Traditionally, this has always been his base of operations... which means we're going to stake it out until we catch some of his minions leaving so we can follow them. My Coon Sense is telling me this has everything to do with the missing cats... we can't let this lead go cold."
We. That was a dangerous word, particularly when it trapped her in a stolen vehicle with Eric Cartman for who knew how many hours. Worse when she wanted to punch him for even suggesting that Butters ordered this kind of action- Professor Chaos had done some shit in the past, that was true, but he had never ordered bodily harm on anybody. While his stated goal was bringing chaos to the world and ending society as everyone knew it, the worst he'd ever done was the toilet paper incident, and she'd helped with that during her brief stint as a villain right after the whole Mitch Conner becoming mayor thing. Conversely to that outing and its general spirit, those minions had been ready to do real harm and carry out a legit kidnapping. If Cartman was to be believed [and fuck if that was a big cocksucking if], he'd been assaulted in his basement, kidnapped, and dropped out in the wilderness where it was fully possible he could have been mauled by a wild animal, picked up by a pedo along the highway, or simply suffered death via the elements. Not to put too fine a point on it, but if Butters was going to keep a captive, she was certain he'd ensure basic humane conditions for said captive. Maybe even an extra pillow for them if they asked nicely.
Someone was using the Chaos brand, that was for certain, but she didn't believe for a second that Butters was calling the shots. This was someone more dedicated to doing damage, or at least more blase when it came to causing bodily harm.
She rolled her eyes. She wasn't down for this. Despite dead-tired legs, she turned herself to open the passenger seat and let herself out. She was already calculating the fact that home was closer than Kenny's house, and the path back there was better lit; dealing with her rude-ass grandma would be better than sitting in a car with The Coon all night waiting for chaos minions to make a move on the assumption that it was in any way related to the feline disappearances.
"Whoa, are you trying to blow our cover? It's a stakeout, Douchebag. These guys took out me, The Coon! I get that you've got over-sized balls, but walking in there right now is s-suicidal!"
She blinked. Had that been a stutter over the last word? More than that, was Cartman... afraid? He didn't admit it, not in so many words, but the fact that he wasn't driving this stolen vehicle through the fence said something that she hadn't contemplated before this point. He was showing restraint... something he only did when he was taking things seriously. When he was playing his game. She was so used to being the focus of those games, used to being one of the pawns that he drove across the board with pure assholery and manipulation, that she hadn't recognized the state with him as an ally.
Looking back, she saw that he had a hand half reached-out to catch her by the sleeve and stop her form going. His face was composed in something that really did look like sincere concern... but one never really knew with Cartman.
She didn't trust it, nor like it, but there was more to notice than that.
The first detail she picked up about his hand was that his claws were gone, making The Coon uniform incomplete- a vanity defect that Cartman would normally never abide by. The second detail... was that it was shaking. No, not shaking- he was shivering. He hadn't stuttered; he'd shivered in response to the cold creeping into the vehicle now that the engine was off... and because his clothes were soaked. She hadn't noticed before because of the rush of getting away, but there wasn't an inch of the kid that was anything less than damp.
Only her legs were caked with snow, and the discomfort was enough to make her wanna go home and call it quits for the night; but he wanted to sit here, in the dark, with someone he probably neither particularly liked nor trusted, when he could have easily gone home at this point and cried until his mom tucked him into bed with a hot meal. That was weird, almost against character, for Cartman to put up with that kind of discomfort.
A question Wendy had asked earlier that day popped up in her memory.
'What if he did genuinely freak out about his cat going missing, and we're just... well, seeing how he copes with that?'
Like it or not, empathy kicked in. She couldn't leave him. Not when there was a chance that he wasn't fucking with her. Still, she didn't abandon the hand that had reached out to open her door. Instead she raised her other hand, lifting a finger to signal to him: Just give me a minute.
"Oh, s-shit, you g-gotta t-t-take a leak or something?" His teeth were beginning to chatter as more cold ate its way into the car. "Good p-plan, don't wanna piss your p-p-pants when it's t-t-time to go. Hurry up, someone could come around any minute."
She nodded. There was no way she was gonna pop a squat anywhere he could see her, of course, and she didn't really need to pee... but she could exit the vehicle and mime as much at the corner of the fence.
The estimated time to 'take a leak' as he watched her back was more than enough to use the last bit of juice on her phone to turn it on and send out a mass text.
::The Author's Corner::
HERE WE GO!
It is my head-canon that Cartman has done enough joyriding that he's actually a fairly competent driver, as driving recklessly gets you caught all the faster, and sometimes you just gotta get somewhere.
ONWARDS!
-Buttlord