Kenny, Kyle and Stan looked defiantly at Cartman. No one moved, not yet—tense, they waited to see what his first move was.
And it turned out to be a cowardly retreat: he turned around panting, opened the door of the basement and locked it behind him.
Running away like a chicken. How typical of him. It was so pathetic they could only roll their eyes. They had no hurry chasing him: locking oneself in the basement wasn't such a smart move after all. The door was locked with a digital password but there was no need to rack their brains: Stan only had to use his drill to destroy it. While entering, he saw wires in the frame which suggested him that the door was going to electrocute them if they failed to guess the code. Of course, the rat had put traps inside his lair...
"So you escaped Timmy's mindfuck, huh?" He said, descending the stairs slowly. "Or did he never get to be in full control of you?"
"You were so unfair to me..." They couldn't see Cartman but they could hear him somewhere in the basement. "All I did was make our childhood dreams come true..."
"As if it was our childhood dream to see our family and friends in danger, then be hated by everyone and fight people who are dear to us." Kyle was about to go first, but Kenny grabbed him and took the lead, a frown on his face.
"You wanted to be famous, you wanted the glory, but glory never comes with no risk. And all I've done these months was just remind you the first rule of stardom..."
Kenny moved slowly, attentive to all the shadows in the staircase...
"...You gotta be ready for all the people out there who will take any chance they get to crush you..."
There was a snap. The step Kenny had just laid a foot on opened suddenly and half of his body dipped. Kenny then started to scream, his voice muffled by a loud screeching. Blood splattered all around. Kyle and Stan quickly helped him get out of the trap; when they managed to do it, half of Kenny's body was gone.
He couldn't die and all of them were aware that he would have his midsection back in a moment, but that was extremely painful and hard to watch.
The fucker had filled the room with traps indeed. Stan looked around, trying to find more mechanisms.
"You're really sick, Cartman!" Kyle exclaimed. "I already knew, but now I've got no doubt about it!"
He really wanted to go down there and kill him, but Stan stopped him before he moved. He pointed somewhere in the ceiling. A sensor directed at the bottom of the stairs, which triggered a gun resting in a corner. Kyle nodded and shot his lasers at it. The explosion made Cartman jump. When his friends ran towards him, he grabbed a rifle and shot with no second thoughts. The shot got Stan in the shoulder.
"Three guys with superpowers against one who doesn't have any. That's so heroic." His voice trembled, like the coward he was.
"Are you gonna give us lessons after what you've done?" Kyle grunted, after taking a look at Stan's wound.
"Why should we make things fair for someone who's stabbed us in the back?" Kenny finally joined them, his body recovered—his clothes had not, he was half naked but in that situation that was something all of them overlooked.
Understanding that he was going to be shown no mercy, all pale, Cartman tried to shoot again. Kyle used his lasers to make him yelp and the gun drop from his hands. He shot another one when he was about to pick it up from the floor, making the phalanx of his finger disappear. Cartman held his hand letting out a howl. He raised his head to his three friends.
"...You wouldn't kill me..." He said with trembling voice.
"The old trope?" Kyle frowned, his severe expression not changing.
"You've already killed my mom. You could allege it was an accident, but killing me on purpose...You're getting the chair. Except you, Kenny; you can't die—but they can throw you in jail and let you rot in there for eternity..."
"You know what? I'll die with a smile on my face..." Kyle replied, and his eyes glowed, preparing for the definitive shot.
Cartman breathed deep.
"We used to be friends! More than that! We were bros! Look at this place! All the good times we've had in this basement! All the adventures, enough to have a shit bunch of seasons in our own TV show!"
"Nostalgia will get you nowhere." Stan couldn't move his left arm, but he still had the other to hold his weapons with.
"Why are we even wasting our time listening to him? Why don't we kill him now? Our friends need us." Kenny said.
"Kenny, listen to me." Cartman turned to him.
"I don't want to."
"We laughed together a lot, didn't we? Remember the time when we took Butter's dad's drone and found Craig's mom naked, the bush she had between her legs? The prank with ketchup on Mrs. Nelson? That time you spent inside my body—it was cozy, wasn't it?"
"That was a long time ago, when you were almost bearable." Not showing doubt, Kenny approached, his fist prepared to hit him.
"Did you ever have that kind of fun with these two?"
Kenny stopped.
"What are you doing? Why are you sacrificing yourself for them? They never cared about you. It was always Stan and Kyle, the super best friends, just the two of them, like a couple of fags. You think something's changed? Their moms always looked at you, working our ass off to earn a buck, and said: 'that's what comes from not picking up a book', and they never defended you. They brag a lot on social media about their holidays together, have they ever considered asking you to join them? They always threw into your face that you spend your money on liquor and girls. Did I ever do that to you?"
"...You were not precisely a good friend, Cartman...You mocked me too..."
"They're using you as a shield, dude. As if it didn't matter that you feel pain...Who cares about Kenny McCormick?"
Kenny glanced at Kyle and Stan.
"Dude!" Stan frowned.
"It's not true, Kenny, you know you've always been our friend!" Kyle exclaimed.
Kenny knew Cartman had said no lie at all. He knew things about him Stan and Kyle didn't. He knew that he would never be as close to them as they were between each other. He was not irreplaceable for them. He was not special...
However, Kenny turned toward Cartman again, getting his somber expression back.
"You messed with my sister's future. That's something I'll never forgive you for."
Cartman flashed his teeth in an insolent smile. "...I mean, did I really ruin it? You know deep down that no one in your family will get out of the landfill."
That was more than what Kenny could take. He jumped on him, letting out a roar, not noticing it was Cartman's intention all along. Probably all that cowardly attitude was just a facade to make them get close enough. Kenny realized too late. Cartman quickly grabbed his arm and handcuffed him to the table with a bracelet he had attached to it.
Kyle darted towards them. Cartman turned around—that was all he knew before he was suddenly blinded, letting out a scream. What Cartman had done was grab his clawed glove from the same table and take a swipe at his face. Stan held Kyle when he stumbled, then him and Cartman struggled. During their fight they knocked down two chairs and slipped with a basketball on the way. Cartman got to make the drill fall from his hands. Stan had been working out ever since he became Toolshed, but moving someone as corpulent as Cartman was not easy. It was almost impossible. Also, Cartman was not playing fair, sinking one claw in the shot in his shoulder. Cartman pushed him with his big belly and grabbed the hammer in his belt. Pinning him down with his foot on his chest, he tried to smash his head. Stan got to avoid one of the hits, the next was sure to impact against his skull, if it wasn't for Kyle pouncing on him.
"The stupid Human Kike always ruining everything!" Cartman complained grabbing him by the hair and hitting his face against the table.
Kenny used all of his strength to drag the table and approach. He got to move close enough to kick Cartman in the back, making him release Kyle. Cartman ran after him, his claws ready. Kyle sent him a gust of air that pushed him to one side.
Cartman fell on one of the fallen chairs, impaling on its leg.
Stan used his powerful cutter to free Kenny from the chain. After a brief, friendly handshake, both of them walked to Cartman.
He tried to get up. It was very hard to him, but somehow he managed. There was blood everywhere, and taking the chair leg out didn't help. He placed his hand on his chest as if that would be enough to make the bleeding and the pain stop. He breathed with a bit of difficulty.
"...I will not die like a dirty villain...I'm not the villain of this story...you are..."
He was so deranged...All the things he had done to make a fantasy come true, to make what he understood was justice...
Stan really wanted to smash his brains in, but he turned to Kyle. It seemed he had recovered his sight completely. He glanced at Kenny. He nodded.
Perhaps, after everything Cartman had done to him all of those years, it was justice that he was the one to do it.
Kyle stood in front of Cartman. His eyes glowed, charging up.
"Not you! Not a fucking J-!"
And he did it. His brains were blown out by what he hated the most in the world beside hippies.
The others needed them, but they needed a second to rest. They found a first-aid kit inside the house and used it to clean their wounds. Stan managed to take the bullet out. Kenny found clothes to cover his nudity with—it had to be Liane's, since Cartman's were too big for him.
Sat on the sofa, they didn't talk or move for a short while.
Sometimes they glanced at Liane's corpse, lying right where they left it, and felt a twinge of guilt. As for Cartman's...it was strange how little they felt. It was almost like killing a cockroach. Memories of the four of them playing board games on that carpet, watching television together, the costumes, all that came back to them but made them feel nothing.
It would, probably, in some minutes, hours, days, even. When they realized that Cartman was gone for good and they'd never see him again, he would never, ever come back to them.
Stan was the first to get up. He didn't need to say it, but he was thinking of Wendy. Kenny and Kyle got up too, not opening their mouths either. The three of them left the house still in silence.
When they reached Main Street, they exchanged a look. None of them was wearing their mask. Oh, well, they didn't need it: by that time, everyone surely knew who they were. So they didn't think about it and ran to help their friends.
But they found that they were not being harassed and slaughtered by all of South Park, but hugged, praised, carried them on their shoulders. The Mayor was delivering a speech impossible to hear with all that noise.
"And here they are, Toolshed, Human Kite and Mysterion! Seeing their frankly deplorable state, it is obvious that they were fighting a monster of some sort!" A reporter announced to the spectators. "As you know, their real identities have been revealed to be Stanley Marsh, Kyle Broflovski and Kenneth McCormick, respectively, also residents in South Park! For what we've discovered, Toolshed is the son of the owner of Tegridy Farms, Randy Marsh, a singer, guitarist and songwriter, romantic partner of Call Girl, alias of Wendy Testaburger, and father of her child. We know little about Mysterion, but as for Human Kite, we know he works for the local..."
"Guys!" Scott approached, carrying Timmy on his back.
"It was about time, dude! Things got complicated in here and we could have used your help!" Craig said to them.
"Wow, you're a mess. Did Cartman do something stupid?" Tweek asked.
The three friends did not reply. They avoided their insistent stares. The three turned their heads then towards Timmy, but it was too late: he had already read their minds. He just gave them a nod and pressed his index finger against his temple.
"Flash News: Butters ca-ca-came back and he's evil. He's tried to k-k-k-kill us." Jimmy said. Tweek approached to heal the three of them with his powers with no more comments about Cartman.
Kyle thanked Timmy mentally for him and his friends for erasing all intention of making questions from their friends' minds. Timmy winked with a tiny smile.
"Butters?" Kenny asked.
"Yeah, he showed up attacking everyone, being a prick. We managed to make him leave." Craig said.
Kenny looked away and didn't open his mouth any more, just thinking, just remembering...
"But you're okay, aren't you?" Stan asked, worried.
"Yes, everything's fine. We're made of steel." Wendy wrapped her arms around him and kissed his cheek. "This baby's gonna be born an amazon."
"And it seems we earned our respect back." Scott said.
"...Where's Clyde?" Kyle asked, looking around, because he saw there was someone missing. "Did he...?"
"Heh, don't worry, he's peachy." Token smirked, and helped him spot him in the crowd.
He was surely fine—he and Bebe were talking very, very close. In a certain moment, Clyde plucked up enough courage to kiss her on the lips, not under the mask of Mosquito, but Clyde, just Clyde Donovan. Bebe seemed to be okay with the idea: she grabbed him and gave him a back-bending smooch.
"Kyle! Kenny! Stan! You're here! We were starting to think that Professor Chaos had killed you, mkay!" Mr. Mackey ran to them and embraced the three of them.
"Hey, we know we've been hard on you, okay? We didn't know who you were, we thought you were...You know...But it's come clear that we need you. You've been a rascal, nephew, but we forgive you. Hey, now I've got more to brag about at the bar." Jimbo elbowed Stan affectionately.
"Mmmmyeah, you're not so bad." Ned nodded to that, patting Kenny with his only hand.
"I understand nothing..." Kyle confessed in low voice.
"So you're...okay with us...?" Stan muttered.
"Ahem!"
They turned around to find that their parents, Heidi too, were staring at them, their arms crossed, frowns in their faces. Kyle supposed that was his answer. He glanced at his friends and, for the first time in a good while, he sincerely smiled.
"Well, we've got a lot of explaining to do..."
There was joy everywhere, they were loved, admired and cheered, but they knew they would be fucked for some time...