Chapter 31: A Strange New Britain

The next morning and the boys' iPlane was flying smoothly and slowly across the clear blue skies; nearly as high as where the clouds would have been. It was 6am the next day; leaving only 11 hours left until the missiles somewhere on New Britain were to be launched. All five lads had been asleep the entire night from the moment they were up in the air until now. They all had their heads leaning on the chairs at different angles however Marcus had the delightful usage of two seats; meaning he had the chance to lie down and sleep rather than sit up and sleep. Stan, Kyle, Cartman & Kenny had been wearing their usual clothes that they wore all the time back in South Park for the whole of the flight whilst Marcus still wore what he always used to wear; a shirt and a pair of jeans along with a hat which he hadn't took off his head ever for about a week now.

Everything was going smoothly until the plane started to shake slightly. The shake then quickly turned into a rumble as the shake became more violent. All five lads were woken up by it and their emotions quickly turned from confusion to shock and then finally to slight fear.

"Marcus, what the hell's going on?" Kyle shouted.

"I dunno." Marcus looked at the control panel and noticed a red light bleeping and flashing in front of him. "Oh s---, the Lithium-Ion battery that's powering this thing is dieing and the computer's screen's got a huge crack on it."

"Is that bad?"

"YEH, IT'S BAD. Dam, this'll teach me never to buy off eBay again; especially something's that made by Apple."

"Well do sumin Marcus, can't yer' fly this thing!"

"What do I look like, a Japanese person! I don't know how to fly a plane; especially this kind of plane! I can see land just below, grab onto anything tight that you can see, looks like we're going down for a crash landing."

Stan, Kyle and Cartman held onto the sides of their seats and panicked like mad. Kenny was too afraid to hold onto anything. He pulled out the strings on his hood in fear and screamed slightly. Finally after a few minutes of fear and worrying, the plane finally slammed down on the ground with a big thud. Sliding across the grassy land, it finally came to a stop when it crashed into a tree; causing the broken tree to snap and crash onto the glass of the front of the iPlane. After the noise of damage and malfunctioning equipment slowly faded away and a bit of smoke and dust was clearing, Marcus pushed the damaged door to the plane away which was now crippled and facing up. He got out and suddenly fell down onto the ripped up grassy ground after getting so dizzy from such a crash. The others slowly crawled out of what spaces they could find in the Plane's smashed up body with Stan having Kyle leaning on his shoulder. Marcus finally managed to shake off the dizziness he had and pick himself up.

"Everybody alright?"

"Yeh dude, but I think Kyle's leg's injured."

"Ah right OK, hang on." Marcus placed his bag down by his side and picked out a can of Medical Spray. Shaking the can slightly, he started to spray some of it over Kyle's leg. After a few minutes, Kyle was able to stand himself up without Stan's aid. Marcus walked over to the side of the plane and picked up his sword which he found lying by the side. Strapping it around his body and then putting his bag pack back on, he slowly ran up one of the hills at the side to see what was on the horizon. It had seemed that they had landed just next to a path which was right next to a beach. The surroundings around the five lads were covered in lush green countryside and beaches to the side. Although naturally beautiful, the land had a dream-like feeling to it; as if none of it was real even though it clearly was.

"Right we best be going. By my calculations we've got just under 11 hours to get to wherever the missiles are. We best follow this path; I guess this must take us down South across this island."

"Dude, where abouts are we?"

Marcus pulled out his map and compass and checked. "Looks like we're……right on the border of New England & New Scotland; we're right on the North Eastern coast. This entire island is just a reflection of Britain so it looks like we'll have to follow this path south. Right, let's go."

All five lads began to make their journey down the path and through the countryside-style environment of this island. Marcus was the only one who had a bag-pack on now since the boys couldn't find their bags in the crumbled remains of the plane.

"Hey Marcus, by the way what was in our bags and why were they so heavy?"

"Well ummmmm…errrrr…" But just as Marcus was about to continue, a huge explosion was set off where the plane was. It wasn't the plane itself that exploded, but it was the stuff inside the boys' bags that exploded and caused a huge bang and cloud of dust and flames to appear. "Ah, well I thought maybe I could use the explosives and bombs and stuff I had stored to blow up the location where these missiles were based."

"Marcus, you put explosives in our bag packs, are you mad! What would have happened if we still had them now, one of us could have died. God, I couldn't imagine how we would have felt if one of us had died." Stan spoke; at which Kenny looked at him in a slightly annoyed tone.

"Well thank God you left them there before they were about to blow up. Imagine all the fuss that'd been caused if someone saw yer' leaving a bag behind on purpose that was full of explosives. But I didn't know they were going to explode now. I guess the impact from the crash must have triggered one of them off."

And so the five lads continued their journey across the island; following the grey cobbled path as it weaved its way through the island's countryside, through vast forests, past quite a few large lakes and even up and down a few hills and small mountains now and again. 11am had arrived and there were now only 6 hours left. Time was getting short and Marcus knew that. But just as they walked across a wooden bridge and out into another open area of land, all five spotted what looked like a city being built on the horizon. City buildings that were half built and what looked like rows and rows of roads and motorways were being constructed on a flat bit of land about a mile away. As they began to walk again, they heard a bunch of bushes behind them starting to shake. They had no idea who or what was causing the bushes to shake, but Marcus didn't want to take any chances. He pulled out of the guns that he had equipped to his open jacket and aimed it upwards; ready to fire it. And just as he was about to strike on the bush, a little boy popped out of the bush with a strange smile on his face. And surprise surprise, it was none other than that annoying British character; Pip.

"What the hell, Pip!" Stan spoke.

"Oh, hello there lads. Didn't expect you to arrive on this marvellous isle, but then again, the Government did say they'd be sending loads of people to this isle. Have you been set here?"

"Errrrr, yeh."

"Oh that's jolly good, I'm so glad to be seeing some people I know. I'm so full of happiness once more. I love the Government so much; I knew they wouldn't let me down."

Marcus pulled the four boys away to talk to them. "Guys, who the hell is this kid."

"His name's Pip. We don't like 'em, coz' he's really annoying and his accent pisses us off."

"Yeh, I hate stupid French people!"

"Cartman, he's not French, he's British."

"Ohhhhh, so that's why his voice is weird."

"Anyway, I think he's one of these brain-washed people who's been transported to this island. I guess they never got to listen to all our music and stuff. We best find where this missile base thing is and quick." The lads all turned to Pip again "Errrrr listen kid, you haven't seen a stronghold or fortress of any kind around here have you?"

"Oh no, none of the sort. But even if I did, I don't think the Government would like me saying anything about it. Although I did see a funny looking large building when I first came here. I believe that was the first place I went to when I came here; oh yes, it was a very weird place."

"Where?"

Pip pointed to an odd-looking black building directly to their right. "I believe that it is that building that is off in the distance. Oh yes, what an odd structure that was; it certainly wasn't anything I've ever saw before."

"Yeh, thanks. Alright guys, let's go." The five lads began to make their way down the path that led off the main path; now heading towards the big black building in the distance.

"Oh, can I come with you? I have no friends here yet and I would love to accompany you on this marvellous journey."

"Errrrr no thanks. We'd prefer it if you didn't come." Stan replied; turning back round and walking off.

"Oh but I would love to…"

"He said NO YOU F---ING FRENCHY-SOUNDING SON OF A BITCH, NOW PISS OFF!" Cartman shouted.

"Alright then, cheerio!"

"GOD, French-sounding British people piss me off!"

An hour later and the five lads had finally reached the location of the big-black building. The structure was infact a mammoth-sized stronghold based on the top of what looked like a large area of caves and underground caverns. As soon as the five lads had finished walking slowly down the slightly steep trail to the bottom of the gigantic canyon that the stronghold and caves were based in, they stepped up to the huge black metallic double doors that were the only visible entrance into the caves. At this point, they were below the stronghold which was based right on top of all the caves. As the double doors automatically and slowly swung open, they walked into the darkness of the cave passage; unaware of what may lie inside.

As the cave passages went deeper into the caves and into the ground and the light inside them got dimmer and dimmer until there was complete blackness, Marcus passed all four boys a torch each to shed some light on the area so that they could see where they were going. Finally after a few minutes walking down a fairly steep path in one of the cave's tunnels, they finally made it into the main section of caverns. Like before, there was hardly any light inside. Only the light from the torch gave any possible visible view inside. However unaware to any of them, an infra-red camera was planted on the ceiling of the area that they were in. And watching them from within the main stronghold was the main MI6 General and his two main officials.

"Now sir?"

"NOW!"

The official pressed down on a red button and within a few seconds, there was a slight explosion within the rocks of the ceiling of part of the tunnel. The ceiling collapsed partly and a massive horde of rocks of different sizes crashed own onto the ground; blocking all parts of the tunnel that led back up and out into the open. The five lads yelled as loud as they could; hoping that someone could hear them on the other side, but it was to no success. For now, they were stuck inside the caves and the dust and smoke from the explosion had got on some of the boys' jackets and hats.

"I don't think anybody's gunna here us." Stan spoke.

"Woah, that was one weird earthquake."

"That was no earthquake Kyle…" Marcus replied "…that was an explosion from a bomb. Looks like they already know we're here. S---! Oh well, with the only visible exit on this map now blocked, I guess we have no choice but to keep moving. There's got to be another exit somewhere in these caves. Come on, let's go."

The caves seemed to get more tighter as they moved on. All five found themselves having to squeeze through gaps in rocks and parts of cave walls in order to move onwards. Marcus kept looking at the map as he moved. Like the others, he had no idea where to go and was putting all his faith in both his instincts and what the map said.

It wasn't long before they came to a junction of different routes.

"What do we do now?"

"We best split up and go down different paths. Once you've gone far enough, come back here and we'll figure out which way is best based on what everybody's found. I'll go down this path."

As all five of them went down their own paths, Kenny started hearing machine sounds coming from around a near corner. As he peaked around the corner, he saw two trooper officials with guns in their hands standing next to what looked like some kind of mechanical conveyor belt device that went up as well as across.

"So they're here are they?"

"That's what the General says. He told us all to be on high alert for any activity in this area. We see 'em, we capture 'em again; that's the orders."

"Right, anyway what's all this stuff that's going up to the upper levels?"

"Oh you mean these boxes? They're just mechanical parts for the other missiles we're going to launch. They lead all the way up to the stronghold's main control sector at the top of the caves."

"I see, right we best start patrolling these areas."

Kenny quickly managed to dodge being sighted and hid behind a small pile of rocks as the two troopers walked by on the other side and down a corridor. As soon as they had disappeared out of sight, Kenny went running back to the others.

"So you guys found anything?"

"Well me and Kyle found two separate tunnels that lead down to other parts of the cave but they seem pretty long."

"Hey you guys, you guys!" Kenny shouted; running out of breath with all the running he had done.

"What is it Kenny?"

"You guys, I think I found something. But I dunno what it is."

"Alright. Guys I'll go check this out. You lot stay here while I go with Kenny and check this thing out." Marcus walked off with Kenny. "So what is it that you've found?"

"That!" Kenny pointed to the machine. Marcus was slightly puzzled by what it was. "What is it?"

"I have no idea." Marcus walked up to the control panel of the machine. "It looks like some kind of transportation device for heavy loads that goes up quite a fair amount of levels in these caves. Wait a minute…" He picked out a little blinking red light device and attached it to one of the passing boxes.

"What the hell's that?"

"It's a red homing sensor. With it, I can follow where that box goes on this little portable communication device. Now if I can download the map of these caves from this control panel onto my device, then maybe we can find the nearest open exit out of these caves." Connecting his portable device to a socket in the panel, he began downloading the 3-D map onto the device. "There we go, GOT IT." He and Kenny made their way back to where the others were.

The other three meanwhile were talking to one another.

"Guys, there's just one thing I want you both to know incase we don't make it out of here." Cartman began.

"Sure Cartman what?"

"Well…it's just…I wanted to say…that even though we've had our bad times over the years y'know and all that, I just want you to all know…that I love all four of you guys……except you Kyle; I hate you so much."

Kyle showed signs of slight annoyance but he still expected it coming. "You're an asshole Cartman."

Finally, Marcus and Kenny finally met up with the other three again.

"Alright guys, I've got good news and I've got bad news."

"What's the good news?"

"The good news is that I've managed to find another exit out of here that leads right into the heart of the stronghold where the missiles are based."

"And the bad news?"

"The bad news is that it's located right on the other side of these caves; meaning that we've probably got a few miles-worth of walking, based on how these cave tunnels and caverns are constructed and shaped. It's one hell of a maze down here. Right, I suggest we go down that tunnel; the one you two were talking about before."

As the four boys began to walk down one of the corridors that led down into the larger area of the caves, Marcus looked back slightly and felt a cold chill behind him. The temperature inside the cave dropped slightly and was starting to get cooler and cooler. Less than 5 hours were left and they still had a long way to go.