Ask me how long it took me to remember to start a new document for this chapter. I tell you, it took me a while to remember that I had already completed the previous chapter…Anyway, we're starting off with a different point of view to establish something that's coming up later! Fun!
Also, I just looked at when I last updated this fan fiction and realized that it's been over a year! What the fuck is wrong with me? I don't know why this chapter has been taking so long and I am so sorry!
"So, listen to me…"
Chapter Seven – What happens in Vegas definitely never stays in Vegas
At nearly six feet tall, Reeah was pretty tall for a woman. It didn't help that she liked to wear high heeled boots to make even medium sized people feel inadequate. She had shoulder length, purple hair with a blue streak and dark skin. Her dark eyes seemed fierce, and she looked like someone you wouldn't want to approach, but Reeah was actually a very easy-going gal.
She had a band called "Devil's in the Details," which was an inside joke for her, because she was a devil or demon. None of her band mates knew that; in fact, there was only one or two humans who knew she was a demon. But that was a different story entirely. People thought her "fake" devil horns, tail and wings were all sophisticated technology and really authentic looking, but in fact they were all real.
At the moment, she was practicing with her band the set list that they had planned for their tour. They all took turns being the lead vocalist, each song demanded a different voice, but since Reeah was the leader and had started the band, she usually had more of their songs. She also played the guitar or piano when a song called for it.
As they finished their song, Reeah pulled her guitar from off from where it was dangling from her neck. "Ok, take five, guys," she said to her friends, who immediately sat down from wherever they were standing.
Rolling her eyes at them, she walked over to a nearby table where she had put her phone and saw that someone was trying to call her at the moment. She hurried her steps and managed to answer it before it went to voice mail.
"Hello?" she greeted. There was a pause and she suddenly brightened. "Oh, hey, Kyle!" Immediately her bandmates were crowded excitedly around her. None of them had forgotten about when they had performed at South Park for a school dance and how much fun they had with the chaos of the town. "Of course, I remember, I see you guys on the news all the time," Reeah was saying into the phone. "You are? That's great! That's no problem at all, I still owe ya for the good time you showed us!" She paused for another moment. "Our first stop is near Yellowstone, I can send you the dates. Shall I reserve some seats for you? Awesome! See you then, babe!"
She hung up and turned to her friends with an annoyed look. "Don't you guys have something else to do?" she growled at them.
Her phone started buzzing again as the others dispersed and when she saw the number, she paled. It was the boss. Not her band manager, but THE boss. He never called just for fun. He hated fun. He also barely believed in good news. And he was never happy. NEVER.
She quickly answered it. "Hey, Bang," she greeted nervously, stepping out of the room so her bandmates wouldn't overhear her. "What's up?"
"Quinn Pidd has escaped," snapped a smooth, dark voice.
Reeah let out a slight gasp. "How did that happen?" she wondered. "Wasn't Redwood supposed to be guarding her?"
"He was," said the demon on the other end. "That's the problem. The only one worse at following orders is Finch, and that's only because Redwood actually tries to carry out orders. The problem is he's an idiot!"
"So, what do you want me to do about it?" Reeah asked.
"You're going on tour, aren't you?"
"Yes."
"I need you to keep an eye out for her," Bang told her. "There's a chance that she'll be travelling around, looking for more 'clients.' You know how dangerous cupids are. Find her and bring her back so I can strip her of her magic."
"Yes, sir," Reeah replied. The click on the other end told her that Bang had hung up already. She let out a sigh and turned off her phone. There was going to be trouble if "doctor" Q. Pidd was on the loose. Cupids liked to spread love and general horniness, but Pidd was terrible at her job. She was also crazy.
"All right, you lazy bums," she shouted, walking back into the other room. "Break time's over! We have a show we need to rehearse for!"
Cartman had already gotten sick of his roommate, Butters, so he had quickly made his way over to Stan and Kyle's room and had barged in without knocking. Thankfully, none of them had gotten ready for bed yet, but he did receive some nasty glares from his friends. He ignored them and sat down next to Kyle on his bed.
"So, what are we up to?" he asked, putting his hands behind his head and stretching himself out. Kyle rolled his eyes at him and turned back to his laptop.
"We were discussing what things we wanted to do in Vegas," he stated. "And which places we want to go to during the summer. We were already thinking of going to Yellowstone and Niagara Falls, but we need to think of what else we want to see."
"Oh boy," Cartman replied, yawning. "We go from a city to a boring old park to some falling water. How exciting."
"Stop that!" Stan growled at him. "Nothing's going to be fun if you keep describing national landmarks like that!" Cartman shrugged nonchalantly before turning to Kyle.
"So, can I just sleep in here tonight?" he asked him. "I already can't stand Butters, I don't want to share a room with him." Kyle narrowed his eyes at him.
"No," he replied simply.
"Why not?" Cartman whined.
"Because we already have to share a bed in the RV, and I'm sure as hell not going to share one with you while we're here," the red-head growled. "And you technically already share a room with him in the RV anyway."
Cartman frowned at him, pulling out a pouty lower lip, but Kyle was already turning back to his computer and ignoring him. They were all silent for a moment as Wendy happily nuzzled Stan, who was glancing at his phone.
"You know which places would be fun?" Wendy asked after a while. "I've always wanted to go to Disney World. And New York City. They have some great places to see in New York." Kyle flinched and looked over at her.
"I don't know, Wendy," he muttered. "New York City is a little too close to New Jersey for my tastes. I might go…Jersey." He shuddered slightly at the memory of that one episode that focused on how obnoxious that show Jersey Shore was. He still remembered his mom confessing that she was from New Jersey.
"Aw, come on!" Wendy whined. "Jersey isn't that close to New York!"
"Isn't it, like, right across the river?" Stan asked, looking up from his phone. Wendy simply shushed him by placing a finger on his lips.
"Anyway, I'm sure it won't be that bad," Wendy continued. "It's not like we're going to actually be going into Jersey or anything." Kyle gave her a skeptical look, but didn't say anything more as the door opened and Kenny entered, also without knocking.
"Hey guys," he greeted, jumping onto the bed next to Stan. "What you all up to?"
"Doesn't anybody knock anymore?" Stan growled under his breath.
"We're trying to decide where we're going to be going," Cartman explained to Kenny. "Kyle wants to wimp out of going to New York City because he's afraid of Jersey."
"Didn't we have an entire episode about that?" Kenny wondered as Kyle glared over at the larger boy. "It focused on Kyle and everything."
"I remember Cartman tried to lock me in a freezer or something," Kyle muttered angrily under his breath. Cartman gave him a sheepish grin.
"I apologized, though," he said.
Before Kyle could point out to him that he most definitely did not apologize, the door burst open and Butters, Craig and Tweek made their way into the room. Stan glared up at them as they simply spread out into the room like it was no big deal.
"Seriously guys?" he growled at them.
"We got lonely," Butters replied.
"Ok, we're not going to get anything done if we stay up all night," Wendy pointed out. "And we're going to end up staying up all night unless everyone goes back to their own rooms."
"Seriously guys," Cartman agreed. "Get out of here."
"That includes you, fat ass," Stan pointed out. Cartman gave him a pouty face, but climbed off the bed and followed everyone else out of the room. Even though everyone tried to get to bed as early as possible, nobody got any sleep that night, knowing what lay ahead of them the next day.
The next day, the moment they stepped out of the hotel, the group was accosted by at least thirty different Elvis impersonators. Gerald was in a bit of a foul mood because Randy had won three hundred dollars the night before, while he didn't even get to try because a certain someone still refused to give him back his wallet.
"Sorry Gerald," Randy said, not looking all that sorry. "I would have considered lending you some money, but your son texted me, telling me not to."
Gerald grumbled angrily under his breath while casting a glare at Kyle, who just gave him an innocent look and a shrug.
"So, where are we going first, dad?" Stan asked as Butters tried to get pictures of every single Elvis impersonator they passed.
"Well, they have a bunch of shows in Vegas," Randy explained, looking at a brochure. "We can also find the Coca-Cola and M&M stores. There's some aquariums and an indoor amusement park and a huge observation wheel."
"I heard that the Venetian hotel has a place that looks like Venice and allows you to take gondola rides just like in Italy," Wendy added, sighing dreamily. "It sounds so romantic."
"I totally think we should go on that then," Stan said, knowing exactly where she was going with her reasoning.
They decided to go to the M&M store first. It was like every child's dream, filled to the brim with sugar and chocolate and rainbows. Randy made an obligatory gay pride parade joke before they all started wandering the store. One of the features of the store was grabbing a bag and going to different tubes to fill it with as many candies as you can before a parent sees you and passes out with how expensive it is.
Tweek immediately bolted towards the multicolored mugs while the rest of the group went to the candy tubes. Craig only filled his bag with blue M&M's while Stan stood next to him and called him boring. Kenny walked up to Kyle with a pitifully small bag that wasn't even half-filled, until Kyle offered to pay for him, then he came back with the biggest bag that was packed so full he could barely close it and immediately making Kyle regret his offer.
Kyle got Ike a candy dispenser that already had candy in it while Stan and Cartman also got bags of candy. Butters and Wendy both tried out some sort of device that was stated to read a visitor's mood and recommend colors based on that.
They then moved on to the Coca Cola store, where they could taste different colas from around the world. Cartman started complaining about how they would all taste the same until they actually started trying them and that effectively shut him up.
"Dude, how did they make a cola that's spicy?" Cartman wondered, fanning at his mouth. "Isn't that against the Geneva Convention or something?"
"My mouth feels like it's on fire," Butters whined.
"Meh," was all Craig had to say as he gulped down another sample of the spicy cola.
They headed for the aquarium next, where they saw all sorts of exotic fish and sea creatures. Butters managed to get so many pictures there, including pictures of a scuba diving worker casually getting eaten by a shark. Stan freaked right the fuck out when the dolphins swam up to the side of the glass and seemed to be greeting him.
There was a long, glass underwater tube that almost looked like a penis that allowed them to seemingly stroll around the bottom of the ocean. Butters managed to snap a picture of a turtle that was fast asleep on top of the tube. One of the dolphins was totally a show off by swimming upside-down in front of them.
Wendy was especially excited for the manta ray tank that allowed visitors to pet manta rays. It took a lot of convincing a paranoid Tweek that the rays weren't going to kill him like they did Steve Erwin. A worker calmly explained the rays in the pool had their stingers removed before the twitchy blonde would consent to touching one.
"This is the weirdest yet softest thing I have ever touched," Wendy commented as three or four rays clamored to be pet by her.
"Who would have thought that these little guys would make some of the hardest levels in Mario Galaxy?" Kenny wondered.
"We don't talk about those levels, Ken," Stan growled.
"They're all staring at me," Tweek fretted as about ten manta rays swam up to him. Later, Tweek swore that one of them did the "I've got my eye on you" gesture, but everyone was certain that he was just being paranoid.
The gift shop at the end was an average water themed gift shop. Stan got Wendy one of those pearl necklaces where you crack open an oyster to get the pearl. Cartman immediately rushed over and bought himself a plush frog that he named "Clyde Jr." Kyle picked out a shirt for himself and a stuffed turtle plush for Ike.
Randy was looking over the several different shirts, wondering if he should maybe buy something for Sharon and Shelly when Stan came up behind him.
"Hey dad, I think I need help," Stan said, sounding strangely muffled.
"Why?" Randy wondered, turning around. "What's the proble-OH MY GOD! STAN! Control yourself!" His son was covered from head to toe in whale and dolphin paraphernalia and only his eyes could be seen. He was holding giant, stuffed whales of all kinds, had several shirts draped over his arms, hoodies and hats sitting on his head.
"Ok, you can only buy one of those things, son," Randy said sternly.
"I can't," Stan replied, nearly collapsing from the weight of the stuff he was holding.
Randy eventually talked Stan down to purchasing one item (a tee shirt with a whale on it) and the group headed out to look for a place for lunch.
They had lunch in one of those ridiculous restaurants that one could only find in Las Vegas, where all the food was mostly gross, but you paid a lot of money for it anyway. It had an over the top space theme, where the waiters all dressed as astronauts and space aliens and the tables looked to be carved out of moon rock. A lot of the food was dry-frozen because that's just what they do in space, shut up, and they were surrounded by thousands of stars.
"So, what do we want to do after this?" Gerald asked, trying not to glare at Kyle, who was using his credit card to pay for lunch.
"We should find the Venice recreated gondola rides," Wendy said excitedly. "I want to do those soon." She turned to Stan with a look in her eyes. "You do too, don't you?"
"Absolutely," Stan said, looking up from staring at his new shirt. "What were we talking about?" Wendy gave him another look.
"Romance," she stated simply.
"Romance?" Stan wondered.
"Romance."
"Romance."
I'm going to end this chapter here because I feel so bad for leaving you guys hanging for so long. Also, I've picked a few main scenes I wanted to have happen during Las Vegas, hinting at stuff, but that ain't gonna happen until the next chapter because this one is kind of rambling already.
I'm not good at "they went there and did this" sorts of chapters, which is partly why this chapter took so long. I've also been going through A LOT of shit lately. Hopefully the next chapter will be better and out sooner. Again, I'm so sorry for leaving you all in the dark for so long!