Kyle groaned as he slowly came to his senses, his eyelids shut tight and jaw feeling extremely uncomfortable against the rough surface of whatever floor he'd been lying on for god knew how long. Actually, it wasn't just his jaw - his entire body was stiff and complaining, and he immediately rolled on his side to at least offer himself a better position. His fingertips came across fragile, little pieces of dirt, and he cringed on instinct, drawing his hand away. Wherever he'd gotten after passing out in the bus, the place was disgusting.
"Ah- ah-"
He could hear one of those cheesy love songs playing somewhere in the back of his head; the tune was gnawing at his brain cells but luckily hadn't grown to its worst volume yet, just made him wish he could feel two lean but firm arms locking around his waist. There was also a strange blur of smells floating around, and it bore something sharp and sugary and at the same time weirdly refreshing; Kyle unconsciously linked it to his morning routines, to radio stations and newspapers, to yawns and elaborate task lists. He opened his eyes, skipping the guessing part, and went straight for the answer.
"Keep it-nghh… on…"
"Aaah-"
Kyle did find an answer… but not the one he'd been looking for.
"What the…"
He found himself locked in a cage – a real cage made of real steel, one of those kinds people used to keep various animals imprisoned. Kyle's heart picked up rate as he realized his freedom was limited, but he didn't concede to panic, probably due to the fairy tale that was still keeping its clutch on him and forcing haziness upon his already bleary mind. His thoughts refused to flow properly, dragged him back towards the railroad and the house beyond it, and when he stood up, he did so calmly. His phone was gone, he must have dropped it in the bus.
"Damn."
ManPig was nowhere in sight, and that gave him an opportunity to approach the cage door and stick his hand out to search for the latch. While doing so, Kyle checked his surroundings.
The cage was situated in a vast, poorly lighted room – a basement, most likely – and the ceiling was placed so high he wouldn't be able to reach it even if he climbed on something big like the glittering rainbow turtle that was sleeping outside the bars a few feet away. The walls stood wide apart from each other, and in the far corner of the room a narrow stairway was going up to the floor above. Surprisingly but not quite, said ceiling, stairway and walls were covered with red hair, and so were rare pieces of wooden furniture, several paintings hanging around and dull lamps. Kyle couldn't get it what kind of a weirdo ManPig could be to have an urge to decorate everything in such an absurd manner.
"Faster, faster-"
Then there were cages - a dozen of them standing flat to the walls around the perimeter of the room. Each of them contained at least one prisoner, almost all of them naked, and Kyle (thankfully, still fully clothed) quickly grasped it that everybody in here was either a ginger or completely bald. Considering the room-shaped tapestry ManPig was in the process of making, it was no longer a secret where all the hair was going to. Kyle's eyes darted from one person to another, and he noticed that they weren't much interested in finding a way out of their prisons: they mumbled to themselves with content faces, sat quietly behind the bars and stared into empty space.
He recognized a few people from the newspapers: Craig's father was among them, and so was Kenny's mother, both of them unharmed. In the cage next to Mrs. McCormick's were the three missing elementary school children, dressed up and satisfied with their current residence, without any clue as to where they actually were.
After a minute of observing, Kyle discovered that all the cages had the same latch, a simple one that didn't require a key to be opened. He raised his hand and felt the upper bars until his fingers brushed against a sliding bolt - he pulled it aside, and the door opened with a miserable creak. The man walked out, carefully avoiding the red carpet under his feet.
"AH-!"
A loud gasp rose on his left and startled him, albeit slightly. Kyle finally noticed all the moaning that was patching through the romantic music and turned his head to look at the source. His glance fell upon an old TV stand by the stairway, and for a moment he glued his attention to the frantically moving bodies on the screen: the rhythm, the nakedness, the sounds of sexual intercourse unfolding between several masked men and a single woman – he was staring at homemade porn. The working VCR nearby indicated that it was a recording, and while such a display would normally disturb Kyle and push him towards turning the machine off, this time he just shrugged and averted his eyes. A colorful box was lying on top of the VCR – Hotline, collector's edition.
"What the hell…"
He focused all the rationality he had remaining on finding his way out of the building and back to the farms. Kenny was somewhere out there, looking for him, and so could be Stan and Craig. Kyle knew that he needed to get to them, to tell them what was hiding down here, to help them seize ManPig and release the captives…
He was about to head towards the stairway when Kenny's mother giggled through her blissful happiness and attracted his attention, making him halt.
"Hm-m…"
Kyle considered walking up to her cage and trying to talk to her. Telling her that her son would come and rescue her no matter what. Then, however, he shooed the idea away: he'd witnessed plenty of ManPig's magic already and doubted that Mrs. McCormick would respond if he addressed her. She was a subject to the spell, and if Kyle wanted to wake her and everyone else up, he'd have to find the source of the charms first, sort out its mechanism and destroy it.
He tore his eyes away from the woman and grabbed the wooden rail-
"Yes, my dear son told me it is ready," a muffled feminine voice seeped through the closed door above. "The bags should be down there! Come on, my friends, let's take them and make more of our purifying drink!"
Kyle bolted back to his cage on instant. He hadn't processed it, just knew that someone was coming down, and his feet acted on their own accord.
"How many bags?" a raspy yet friendly masculine voice asked. "Three, like usual?"
"Two, I believe," the feminine one responded. "We weren't expecting any visitors today…"
Kyle barely managed to shut the latch and drop to the floor, shifting on his stomach sideways to the wall - this way, he would be able to watch the visitors and pass as a feeble minded lunatic if he had to. His reduced emotional condition would only help.
Three people descended the stairs, and Kyle recognized two of them as the farmers from yesterday evening – they'd been tending to the cows when he and Kenny had arrived on their spy operation. The third person was an elderly woman, whom, he thought, he'd also seen somewhere… but he couldn't recall where exactly, it must have happened a long time ago.
"On the shelf?" one of the men asked.
"Yes."
They approached the rainbow turtle, and he opened a cell of its thick, round shell, making Kyle wonder if the animal wasn't an illusion after all. He took a brown bag out and opened it, presenting the contents to the woman - with a nod, she took a pinch of whatever was lying inside and loosened her fingers, letting it fall back down. Kyle squinted his eyes.
It was hair, but definitely not the type that grew on people's heads.
"What a gorgeous and precise work," the woman said affectionately, pressing her old, dry hand to her chest. "My son is a real master. Such a good boy, such a kind heart…"
She took the bag and waited for the other one to be handed over.
"We will need more of this…" the idle farmer said. "Business has been going great so far, we can't rest on our laurels."
"That's right," the other agreed, closing the cell. "The town adores our coffee shop. Needs it. We have to aim higher."
The woman all but glowed with pride at their eagerness. "My dear boys, our shop will become the cradle of their salvation. Now let us return to the mall and restock our supplies."
"Yes, ma'am!"
"Wait."
Kyle's breath slowed down, his eyelids falling shut as one of the farmers suddenly stepped towards his cage.
"Ah." The woman smiled – Kyle didn't see, but he heard it in her voice. "Of course. Our handsome prince, finally where he belongs… here, with us."
More steps indicated that all three of them approached the bars. Kyle thanked the fairy tale for the first time in his life - without it, his heart would have been beating like a giant hammer.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" the woman said. Despite the admiring words, she sounded so grim as if her favorite pet had recently died. "It used to look fabulous when it was longer… I saw it once before he had it cut."
Kyle let out a trembling sigh. He lay there, on the dusty, cold floor, and these people were watching him from above like he was nothing but a low life.
"My son was so devastated when he saw it this short mere days after their first encounter... So many people he could have saved with such fine material. So many dreams… Didn't even want to see this boy anymore, so hurt he was. But now look, here he is, lying in his chamber, in his magnificent bed - so quiet, so peaceful."
"It will grow back one day," one of the men reassured her.
"Yes, it will," she said. "It certainly will… Come, my boys, let us go back now."
Kyle heard them retreating but didn't move an inch, thinking about what he'd just heard. Apparently, if his "chamber" and "bed" were anything to go by, the three visitors were enchanted like the rest of this place but not with the same amount of power behind it. That could be because the elderly woman was ManPig's mother – or at least Kyle assumed so from her speech and the repulsively decorated room full of red-haired captives.
The other thing was the two brown bags filled with hair that…
The door above closed with a loud thud, and Kyle rose to his feet, wrapping his hands around himself as he turned towards the neighboring cage. A naked, shaved man was lying flat on his back in there, and on his chest, his hands and his feet was nothing but pale, dirty skin. He didn't have any pubic hair, either. Kyle checked a few other people and saw that they were completely bald as well. Combined with what he'd seen fall from the woman's grasp, it could mean less than few things…
She'd said they made it in the mall. Coffee that the town adored. Kilometer queues and countless steaming white mugs, Kyle knew only one place that fit the description.
"Jesus fucking Christ…"
After a moment of weak gagging reflexes, he re-opened the cage and proceeded towards the stairway, listening closely to every little sound he could hear through the unending music. The coffee makers seemed to have already left, and he didn't think ManPig was chilling on the ground floor: the man probably had his hands full with the police, otherwise he would have been sitting down here and undressing his new prisoners… which made Kyle remember the woman's words once again. She'd said that her son was kind, that what he had been doing for all this time was for greater good. Every person down here was alive and unharmed, no signs of beating or else, and perhaps ManPig actually thought he was doing something right. The whole thing smelled like mental hospital, and Kyle couldn't understand it at all.
He crept up the stairs and opened the door as carefully as he could, peeking through the gap to see if he was alone - like he'd thought, the room was empty. It was a kitchen, a medium-sized one, with old wooden cupboards and peeling wallpapers, with plastic basins for cloth washing and dozens of sticky fly tapes hanging from the ceiling. With his eyes, Kyle searched the place for a phone but didn't find it; however, his eyes lay upon a freezer - on top of it was a handgun. Kyle didn't think twice before snatching it; even with the fuzzy layer suffocating his common sense, he still maintained a thread of awareness and thus decided that being armed was better than- well, not being armed.
As soon as he touched the weapon, a flash of warmth radiated from it and lunged through his veins: despite seeing this gun for the first time, Kyle felt like he knew whom exactly it belonged to. He made sure it was loaded, internally thanking Stan and Kenny for teaching him how to do it.
Next thing he saw was a window; he rushed towards it, pushing tiny pixie creatures out of his way. Outside he saw a painting made by a madman: there were normal things like stables, farm houses, the pasture field and the forest that encircled the area… but then there was also everything Kyle had seen during the minutes of hallucinating: sparkles, candy trees, watery orbs flying in the air, blazing colors – all of that and more, but much stronger.
ManPig wasn't anywhere in sight, yet to his surprise Kyle spotted police officers hiding behind what could only be described as empty air, lurking among covers that didn't exist and evidently carrying out some kind of a crucial mission. Unlike the people below, they seemed to retain a fracture of their consciousness, but… unless ManPig had become invisible together with everything they were using as tactical advantages, Kyle was pretty sure they had it worse than he did. Craig and Stan were leading the maneuvers from behind a half-ruined fence, and he hurried out of the house to talk to them.
"Hey!" he called out.
Stan didn't notice him, or he did but didn't think it necessary to look over his shoulder. Craig, on the other hand, quickly turned around and lifted a finger to his lips, hushing Kyle with a deep scowl. He waved his hand, urging the man to approach faster, and Kyle complied without another word.
"What are you doing?" he asked upon joining the two men. "Have you seen ManPig?"
Craig stole a glance at the officers under his command before responding.
"We're trying to catch The Twilight Pegasus," he said in a tone that sounded far too grave to fit such a ridiculous situation. "He's tough, has been evading us for the last half an hour."
"A Pegasus," Kyle repeated in disbelief, watching the grass field before them: it was innocently empty save for the armed members of the force. "You can't be serious…"
"The Twilight Pegasus," Craig corrected him. "You don't understand, Kyle. He's behind it all."
"Behind what?"
"He's the one who's been kidnapping chocolate sheep and eating them," Stan answered, throwing a haven't-you-read-the-latest-newspaper-? look at him. "Lily Bell is practically losing her mind."
"Lily Bell." With a heavy sigh, Kyle pressed a palm to his forehead. He couldn't believe this circus. "Who the hell is Lily Bell? You're supposed to be going after ManPig, guys. Doesn't the name ring any bells?"
"Not really."
Suddenly, Stan sprang to his feet.
"Shit, he's making a run for it!" he yelled, aiming at nothing. "Craig! If he makes it to the rainbow, all is lost!"
"Don't worry. He won't," Craig assured him.
The officer grabbed his walkie-talkie and brought it to his mouth; as he began to bark directions left and right, mark sniper spots and reassign groups, Kyle could do nothing but come to terms with the fact that he was on his own here. The officers ran about, hopped over absent obstacles and took cover in open space, and it became painfully clear why ManPig was not interested in such a company.
"Ugh…" Kyle's hand slid down from his forehead, and he pinched the bridge of his nose. "Alright, okay… Can one of you give me a cell phone, please? I need to make a call."
"Dude, it's not time for that!" Stan hissed, annoyed by the continuous attempts to distract him.
"It's urgent, Stan," Kyle argued. "Give it to me, and I will leave you to… whatever it is you're doing."
"Fine! Jesus Christ, man…"
The phone was swiftly pulled out of Stan's jacket and tossed into Kyle's hands; the latter fulfilled his part of the deal as well and took a few steps away, scrolling down the contact list. Cartman's name came up, and Kyle contemplated dialing the detective for he alone wasn't taking part in the seizing operation... Then, however, he decided against it and scrolled further until he saw the contact that made his heart beat faster. He pushed the green button a little too fiercely and pressed the phone to his ear.
"Come on… come on…"
Beep- beep- beep-
"Stan! What's going on there?!" Mysterion's voice jolted into Kyle's ear on the fourth beep, loud through the speaker and heating the man's insides like a burning torch. Kyle took a couple of shaky breaths, trying to calm down.
"Sorry… Stan's not available at the moment," he said with a twitching smile, clutching the phone tighter. "Want to talk to me instead?"
He heard a gasp. Seconds later, a relieved exhale followed it.
"God, Kyle… I'm so happy to hear you," Kenny mumbled. "Are you safe?"
"For now, I think so," Kyle answered. "Listen, Kenny, I've been to the basement where ManPig keeps those he kidnapped. Everyone's alive. Your mother's there too, she's okay."
"I knew it…" Kyle could almost physically feel some of Kenny's anxiousness drifting away. The line went silent for a short while, and then he gathered himself and continued talking. "Good. Now, you're calling from Stan's phone, so I'm assuming you're with him?"
"Yeah. He, Craig and the rest of the police are having it pretty bad. They don't give a damn about ManPig anymore, just run about the field, trying to capture an imaginary Pegasus."
"The Twilight Pegasus!"
"Right."
Kenny chuckled. "Is Cartman there? If he is, record that asshole. I want to see it with my own eyes."
Through the spell, the man's voice was already igniting enough to send Kyle's stomach into a set of pleasurable flips; his laughter struck Kyle even harder, drained his self-control and patience, made his lips dry and his throat prickly. It was becoming difficult to talk.
"…he's not."
"Damn shame. Anyway, I've been trying to come up with a way to resist ManPig's magic here; people all over the farms and U-Stor-It are affected… but now that you're within his range and seem to be doing okay, I might as well walk right in. You've got to be careful, though. Better hide somewhere and wait until I-"
"Wait," Kyle cut him off. "It's not that easy."
Kenny trailed off for a moment, puzzled.
"What do you mean?" he asked. Worry returned to his voice, and Kyle shook his head, searching for the right words in the ocean of please, come here, I want to feel you.
"I'm not okay," he admitted, biting his lower lip. His every fiber was against him saying what he said next. "Shit, dude, I'm affected too. Your voice is driving me crazy, I… I want to touch you so bad. I really do-"
"…woah."
"-and I can't turn it off. If you walk in, you'll feel the same thing. I'm scared to even imagine what might happen if we see each other, Kenny. It's too dangerous..."
"But we don't have any other options left," Kenny argued. "We both know I'm strong when it comes to temptations, so if you stay out of reach, that may be enough to keep me on the right track. I'll find ManPig, knock him and his magic out, and it'll be over-"
"And if it won't?"
"What?"
"It may be more complicated than we think. I've seen his mother - her and the farmers, too. All of them are under the spell. Have been for a while now, and… uh…"
Kyle caught a smooth movement with the corner of his eye. He tilted his head, scanning the field for the third time: with all the officers running about and the illusions unraveling it was rather challenging to see anything. He hummed and looked closer.
"Kyle?" Kenny called him. "What's wrong?"
"I don't know…" he muttered. "I think I saw something…"
Then he saw it again. Another movement came from behind one of the candy trees, and a huge masked man in a dark coat wandered into his view, carrying a pair of scissors in his hand and observing the officers. Kyle shuddered as he realized that he knew that coat and he knew those scissors, and he sure as hell knew that mask. It was no other than ManPig himself, coming home from wherever he'd been hanging out before. Kyle gulped; he was standing in plain sight.
"Fuck, it's him," he whispered, lowering himself to his knees. He had to find a place to hide, and the closest corner belonged to the house he'd come out of earlier. "It's ManPig."
Kenny's breath hitched. "Did he see you?"
"No, not yet." Watching the man, Kyle started to move towards the building: if he stayed on his spot any longer, ManPig would surely notice him. He didn't want to get caught by the psychopath again.
"I'm on my way," Kenny promised him. "Hide."
Kyle got to the house unnoticed and hopped around the corner, heaving. "I… I got your gun," he choked out. "Found it in his house. Not sure I can shoot him..."
"Do whatever you can to stop him. I'm almost there."
"Okay. Okay… Be careful."
Neither hung up; Kyle crawled to a bunch of crates settled by the wall and sat among them, looking through the gaps in case ManPig decided to come all the way here. He took out the gun, kept it in his hand and ready. It would have been great if magic hadn't been marring his sight and music outplaying the noise coming from the other side of the house, but Kyle supposed he could bear with it. As long as he stayed focused-
"There you are."
He nearly jumped out of his skin.
The voice that greeted him hadn't come from his left or right. Low and distorted, it had come from above. Petrified, Kyle looked up and met the eyes of an animal; ManPig was standing on the roof and staring him down. The man moved his fingers, and the scissors clicked into place.
"You must return to your room," he said. "We aren't finished yet."
"Kyle?!" Kenny's voice rang through the speaker.
Kyle wanted to say something, anything, but his tongue refused to listen and sewed itself to his jaw. ManPig caught the sight of Mysterion's gun in his hold and tsked in disapproval. "You shouldn't be carrying this. You're supposed to be helping me."
Having said that, the man simply walked off the roof and fell, landing on his feet right beside Kyle. Kyle felt the dirt shiver under ManPig's weight, jumped up and backed away. Stan's phone fell to the ground.
"I'm not going back," he hissed, pointing the gun at the maniac. "Turn the magic off. You know how to do it, don't you?"
ManPig watched him without answering. Or, rather, watched the gun in Kyle's hold. Kyle couldn't see the man's face but somehow knew what expression he was wearing.
"You must return," ManPig repeated. He sounded less patient now. "You have already betrayed my trust once. Do not make the same mistake again."
Kyle had no clue what he was talking about. The only thing he knew was that ManPig stepped towards him, and he stepped back at the same time.
"Don't come any closer," he warned. "You may have your magic, but I bet your skin is not bulletproof."
"I haven't harmed you before," ManPig pointed out, continuing to approach. "But I am capable of doing so. Let go of the weapon and come with me."
Kyle pressed his lips into a thin line. "No."
His refusal was the last thread. With a yell, ManPig dashed towards him, and even though Kyle was aware of how to shoot properly, he just didn't have enough time to put his knowledge into action. Taken aback, he pulled the trigger; the gun fired, and his attacker howled in pain. The bullet missed his chest but scratched his forearm.
"You…" ManPig growled.
Enraged by the slight injury, the psychopath went on with the assault, and he became twice as fast. Kyle braced himself for another shot, tried to focus – his finger lay on the trigger yet didn't pull: Mysterion's feet crashed into ManPig's head before he was able to. Kyle barely recognized him thanks to a black hoodie; it was the same one he'd given Kenny at U-Stor-It two days ago.
The angle of the blow wasn't perfect: ManPig staggered but remained upright. Mysterion landed on his feet behind the man and delivered another blow right below his knees, attempting to knock him down; while it made ManPig lose his balance, he still managed to regain it and turned around, ready to confront the hero.
At this moment Kyle saw illusions surging towards Mysterion: scattering all around him, they tried to lure his attention. The maniac was bigger, much heavier than the hero, and even though Mysterion was faster and knew where to hit, he was also forced to fight for his concentration. Immune to hallucinations, ManPig had a clear advantage.
A part of the spell fixed on Kyle; he started to feel dizzy, and his hands shook, making it harder to aim. He was too afraid to fire even though Mysterion kept his distance from ManPig: they constantly moved, and he couldn't even hold the gun in a steady grip.
The hero landed a few hits on ManPig's head with his legs while the psychopath was attempting to get closer and clinch him, and though ManPig's consciousness wavered after receiving another hit and he was evidently nearing a blackout, the hero's mind seemed to be in a state much worse. The blow that was meant to finish ManPig didn't go as planned due to Mysterion's condition, so the maniac took this opportunity to grab him and throw him at the wall.
The hit got Mysterion in the head; he clutched it with both hands, and his legs twitched, hardly able to keep him up. Kyle's vision blurred as he felt something similar coming onto him: his hearing weakened, colors swam out of line art, and shadows blended into music that was becoming visible now. The world centered itself on Mysterion, every pixel and grain of reality revolved around him.
"Kyle…" the man moaned, and Kyle couldn't resist the desire to touch him. He began walking forward, mesmerized, with his hand outstretched and fingers spread, and was almost by the hero's side when ManPig stumbled into his way and blocked it. The fairy tale roared at him, infuriated at his cruel interference, but ManPig didn't listen to it, didn't even see it. With a grunt, he grabbed the front of Mysterion's neck with his fat, meaty fingers, hauled him up and then threw him at the crates. The hero's body slid down, limp, and suddenly, everything came to a stop. Kyle held his breath, wordless.
….
….
….
ManPig was coughing somewhere far, far away, and Kyle couldn't see him - or anything else, for that matter. The barn disappeared, the farms disappeared, ManPig, the police, houses – he couldn't see any of it, only Mysterion's unmoving form. Kyle dropped to his knees.
"Kenny…?"
His eyes widened when he saw blood.
"Kenny…!"
The music unwound around him, but it sounded all broken; words crashed into each other, disfigured each other, altered the lyrics.
Close youreyes- and I kill you
TommorowI'll kill you
Remember you'llalwaysbe dead
And then-
The flames returned, hurricanes swirled from pitch black, and Kyle felt like he was falling apart, burning, drowning, choking on air his lungs couldn't ingest. The world reappeared, screamed in agony, blood dripping from the pulsing red sky; fairies were tearing their wings off, unicorns impaled trees and thrashed about until their horns were ripped off clean. The magic was dying, gripped Kyle's soul and his heart as it sank, nailed its fingers deep into his brain, ruining his mind to a point where he couldn't rely on it anymore. As her host, he was doomed to vanish with it, and it was painful, hellishly so.
"You should have stayed in your room," ManPig rumbled, leaning to the wall.
Kyle didn't hear him.
All my dying
I willsend to you
Dying
Dying
Dying
Kyle couldn't understand how this could be happening, how Kenny could be dead. He raised the gun to his head.
"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I can't-"
Steel pressed to his temple, and he closed his eyes, saying his final goodbye. The illusions told him he had found his happiness, but he got it killed, so he had nothing to live for, not anymore. They told him that since he failed, he had to die.
"Woooah- hold on a second there, you retarded Jew!" a new voice cut in, and strong fingers wrapped around Kyle's wrist, pulling the gun away from his head. Kyle flinched, tried to bring it back to its place, but the owner of the hand didn't let him.
"Let me go!" he shouted, fresh tears streaming down his face. "I've got nothing to live for!"
"Uh huh." The voice ignored him. There was a sly edge to it that Kyle had already heard, one he couldn't stand more than anything. Cartman had always attempted to make fun of him, to laugh at him, and now he was denying Kyle his only exit.
"Let go!" Kyle demanded.
"I'd love to see you shoot yourself, believe me," the detective assured him. "But later. Right now we still need you for the case."
"Stop, just stop! I have to die! I can't live without Kenny, please, I can't-"
With a huff, Cartman snatched the gun out of his grasp. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"He's dead, you fucking fatass! Kenny is dead! This bastard killed him!" Kyle yelled. The detective threw a glance at Mysterion's body and frowned.
"Are you fucking high or what? He's not dead, shut your drama queen." He rubbed his temples, and added much quieter, "Jesus Christ, what's wrong with you people…"
Silence dawned upon them. ManPig stood idle, observing as Kyle stilled, stunned by Cartman's statement.
"…he's not?" the man repeated slowly.
"Nah," Cartman snorted. He took a step towards the hero and kicked him with his boot. Mysterion groaned. "He's just wasting his time lying around."
Kyle didn't hear anything past "nah" and rushed to Mysterion's side: the hero was starting to come to his senses, groaning in pain but, just like Cartman had said, alive. Kyle pulled him into a careful hug, avoided touching his bleeding jaw and nose. The spell was blooming once again, fable creatures coming back to life and singing along. Kyle hid his face in the collar of the black hoodie, and Mysterion pressed a warm hand to his cheek.
"Nooow, there's only one thing left to deal with," Cartman announced, still armed with the gun he'd taken from Kyle. ManPig growled as the detective raised it.
"You don't want to shoot me," he said. "I still have to save this town."
"Yeah, well, I don't really care." Cartman shrugged with his free shoulder, aiming. He fired twice; both bullets hit ManPig in his legs, and the man tumbled down, unable to stand anymore. "Should've brought a gun to the fight, bruh. Pacifist route always goes wrong. Now where is it?"
"Where's what…" ManPig coughed.
"The tape. Where's the tape. The thing that made everyone batshit crazy; you know what I'm talking about."
Kyle looked up at the detective. "What tape?"
"Some kind of a cursed ancient video cassette. Got a call from Drive Co. an hour ago, it came with the collector's edition of Hotline."
Kyle looked back at Mysterion who was still recovering, then at the house. "I think I saw a VCR in the basement. But it's just homemade porn-"
"Uh huh." Cartman interrupted him and handed the gun back, then turned to the entrance of the building. "Don't shoot yourself while I'm gone. I don't want to miss it."
He took off. Kyle had questions, many of them. He wanted to know what on Earth was going on here, why Cartman suddenly decided that a porn tape was causing mass illusions, why the detective was the only one who wasn't affected by them, why said porn tape came with a collector's edition of some bizarre game…
Mysterion's hand snaked around his waist, and his thoughts evaporated, persuaded by the spell.
"I don't understand a damn thing," the hero rasped.
Kyle pulled him closer, watching as the police officers abandoned their hunting mission all at once, straightening up and looking around in a collective attempt to grasp the situation. Craig and Stan were released too; they finally stopped giving orders and simply stood among the others, flushed red with embarrassment. ManPig froze completely.
Kyle too felt the magic shifting, lifting from his head; he heard it taking the music with it, saw it withdrawing the illusions and special effects. He and Kenny, they were free from it now.
He closed his eyes, realizing how low his IQ had been when he was under the spell.
"Me neither," he said.
Song: All My Loving by The Beatles
