ALL CHARACTERS AND EVENTS IN THIS FAN FICTION — EVEN THOSE BASED ON FICTIONAL PEOPLE — ARE ENTIRELY MADE-UP. ALL DANTE REFERENCES ARE RESEARCHED… POORLY. THE FOLLOWING STORY CONTAINS LEWD SEXUAL HUMOR AND DUE TO ITS LONG INTROSPECTIVE MONOLOGUES IT SHOULD NOT BE READ BY ANYONE. _|_|_|

– – –

"Then the angel carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness.

There I saw a woman… dressed in purple and scarlet…

She held a golden cup in her hand, filled with abominable things

and the filth of her adulteries.

The name written on her forehead was a mystery:
Babylon the Great

The Mother of Prostitutes

And of the Abominations of the Earth."

Revelation 17:3-5

– – –

Stan

I'm used to following through on League mission work basically by trusting my best judgment. When intuition not only fails but is most likely being tampered with, however, things get tricky. As we had learned on the night the Wolf had shown up with yet another throng of GSM Golems, quick thinking in the moment was a bit more reliable than trying to plan anything out. That was just the problem with Hell: all nightmares, all surprises, no exceptions.

As much as I wanted to try to move the fight we'd found ourselves a part of outside, so as not to utterly devastate the inside of the Hope Depot, I couldn't exactly say that I personally could have been in any better place to take charge against the opposition. I knew that store inside and out.

Of course, that fucking Leopard was doing a damn good job at turning the store inside-out completely, but I was lucky to not be alone in there. After Kenny had left with his sister and Gary (God, we had a lot of explaining ahead of us, for that poor guy), TupperWear and Kite picked up the chain that had gone slack around the Leopard's neck, and I got in two good swings at its skull—probably three times the size of that on a normal leopard—before Endgame rounded out our segment of the team.

The Leopard broke from its bonds upon his arrival and leapt forward. Unflinching, as usual, Endgame hurled Kite's glider over the Leopard and sidestepped before he could be knocked down. Kite called out a rushed, "Thanks!" and darted after the glider, while the Leopard skidded into an aisle of glass windows and doors on display. It knocked down several of them, and, seizing the opportunity, TupperWear hurled his shield in the beast's direction.

The shield cut up into the Leopard's lower jaw, causing it to fall back further into the row of glass doors, thus creating a domino effect. Shattering glass echoed across the store's walls, and just as Endgame was joining up with me and TupperWear and a quick exchange of our acknowledgement of one another's fast thinking, I noticed Kite, glider now secured in place on his back, scaling the side of an aisle display directly parallel to the mess of glass.

"Might want to stand back!" he called down toward us, as soon as he'd made it to the top of the aisle.

Up went the fallen Leopard's head at the sound of the shout, but he'd only just fixed his gleaming eyes at the Human Kite before the latter raised his bandaged arms (getting me to cringe somewhat, in hopes that he wouldn't push himself too far). Glass rose around the beast at Kite's command, cycloned around him once, and then came back down, cutting from all directions into the Leopard's flesh.

It let out an anguished yowl and shot to its feet. Stunned and slightly wounded, it barrelled toward us, acting out its rage at more easily reachable targets.

"Split up, now!" I shouted to the others.

I sprinted around to my left, while Endgame took to the right. TupperWear, however, gathered up the chain again, from the spool which Kite and I had earlier rolled down from a display not far off, and, with a length in each hand, rushed directly underneath the giant cat. Taking the chain with him, he managed to catch a knot of it around one of the Leopard's hind legs, and pulled.

The cat stumbled, and its head, following through TupperWear's motion with heavy whiplash, smacked into the shining tiled floor. I heard something crack, which, from all I could tell, was promising on our part. "Nice one, guys!" I called out to both Kite and TupperWear for their fast and precise actions.

"We've gotta kill this thing, quick, though," TupperWear replied. "Already tore this place up enough as it is."

"Now's the time to hit it," said the Human Kite. "Toolshed, wanna find me an axe or something? Straight shot to the head might do it."

"I like the way you think," I complimented him, mostly via wire, as I scoured the shelves for something that would do the trick.

While it was true that we were at no shortage of weapons to use against this particular opponent, TupperWear was right: we had to finish it off fast. South Park has seen more than enough destruction… or, such has been the experience throughout my lifetime. Then again, if we were indeed the ones attracting the opposition—well, all the more reason, I guess, for us to try to keep destruction during this particular threat to a minimum.

The really shitty thing was the thought that, even if we did manage to stop the Carnival and everyone involved, that still wouldn't be the end. I mean, what if we couldn't get out? It was no coincidence that so many of us had ended up forming the Shadow League. As much as I wanted to have my time off from it, someday, it seemed increasingly likely that more—like Damien, like the Cult of Cthulhu, and so on—would find and challenge us.

But I had more immediate things to think about.

Such as which among a row of axes would best suit my partner's request.

I went with the heaviest one that I could physically handle, and ripped off its blade guard with nothing but my awl as I ran it back over to where Kite was still stationed at the top of an aisle display.

On the ground, TupperWear and Endgame had continued winding the Leopard up in chains. In fact, given what route they'd taken, I was almost surprised that the beast was still on its feet: while TupperWear wound the chains from a selection of three spools around the wounds already inflicted upon the Leopard by the shattered glass, Endgame was soldering the chains to the spot, melting them into the large cat's flesh with a quick laser flash here and there.

The cat let out a nearly human scream as the chains melted against a shard of glass protruding from the side of its ribcage, and I tried not to cringe as I hollered up, "Catch!"

Kite snapped to even closer attention, and though he didn't look at me, I knew he was ready. His focus was on his target spot—the back of the Leopard's skull, inches above an area on the nape of its neck at which TupperWear had crossed the chains into a black and silver X. I hurled the axe skyward at a diagonal at the same time Kite kicked off, glider extended. With no breeze to catch, the glider simply slowed his rate of descent, which was perfect for allowing him to land precisely above the X after catching his requested weapon.

Seconds later, the axe was buried deep into the Leopard's skull. With a loud crack, Kite brought the new blade down upon the great cat, and he leapt from its back as the beast fell to the ground. We remained on our guard for two long minutes until we came to the consensus that the beast was not getting back up.

"Oh, joy," Kite said, glancing around the ruined store. "Cleanup's gonna be a bitch."

"Can't you just, like, clean up with your brain or whatever?" Endgame wondered.

Kite rolled his eyes. "Not how it works, dude. I'm not going to exhaust myself by playing Mary fucking Poppins, all right?"

"But you could. All I'm saying." Endgame shrugged.

"Yeah, Craig," was Kite's flat response, "let me just reduce this quirk that requires all the mental stability in the world to a little bit of cleanup."

"Dude, you could."

"No. And now we're off the subject, and we have a giant fucking carcass to take care of, and an entire Home Depot to re-organize."

"Make the cops do it," Endgame suggested.

"Oh, right," TupperWear cut in, "because Yates has been such a big help." To me and Kite, he added, "Yates went with the Carnival."

"Well, fuck," I answered for both of us.

"No shit. But on the subject, guys," he continued, "if we can get back to this place later, I think that's best. We're in three groups right now, we should team back up. I can head over to back up Marpesia and them if the rest of y—"

Endgame cut him off with an obvious, but muffled, laugh.

"What?" TupperWear wanted to know.

"I'll go check on Marpesia," Endgame mocked him. "Just make up with her already."

Behind his helmet, I could clearly make out Token's expression of instant shock. "That's not what I meant," he tried.

"Bullshit."

"Well—"

"What happened with you guys, anyway?" I wondered.

"We're off the subject again," TupperWear muttered.

"It's cool," said Endgame. "You go win over your lady, we'll go fight off the Devil."

"I hate you."

"Personal matters aside," Kite cut in, giving most of his glare to Endgame, "can we at least come up with a plan? First of all, I agree, we should team back up with the others as soon as we can, but what do we do in here?"

TupperWear cast a look over at the Leopard, and cringed somewhat. "Actually, I am pretty worried about that," he admitted.

"About what?" asked Kite.

"Well, when the Wolf went down, she disappeared."

"Yeah?"

"…So why isn't this thing disappearing?"

He just had to ask.

There were tools of all varieties, from all shelves, strooned along the floor. I backed up until my heel hit a crowbar, which I then squatted to pick up and slide into my belt, just in case. Another step back, and I came upon a sledgehammer. Perfect. And I still had plenty of ammo in the drill guns that Gary had had stocked under the counter. With the sledgehammer in my right hand, I grabbed out one drill gun with my left, and aimed it forward at the Leopard.

"Good call," I noted. "That thing's still alive."

"There's an axe in it's brain," Kite pointed out, through clenched teeth. "Maybe it's just taking a long time to—"

Nope.

A low growl came from the supposedly dead beast, and its front paws moved. Slowly, very slowly, the Leopard picked itself up, and its terrible eyes fixed on all four of us at once.

"Shoot it," TupperWear encouraged me.

"Not gonna waste my ammo on a long-distance shot," I said, "sorry. This'll slow it down, but we need more of a plan…"

And, luckily, one just happened to come our way when I heard my extended wire communication system go live.

"Courtesy call, guys," I heard Mosquito quip into the wire. "What's the deal with the Leopard?"

"Motherfucker won't stay down," Kite grumbled.

"According to Red Serge's tracking, you're still inside," the League co-leader noted. "Look, he and Iron Maiden have control over the Harrison thing for now, but I gotta say, Gary's already helped more than I was even expecting."

"Why, what happened?" I had to know.

"Fill you in later. Long story short—" (when Mosquito spoke the words, Kite groaned and grabbed at the brim of his bomber cap; Kyle's never been too awful fond of that phrase, I'll admit) "me and the girls are splitting up for backup duty. I'm heading your way now."

"Can you make a call, dude?" TupperWear requested. "This thing's indestructible."

Mosquito was silent for a moment, then decided, "So we send it back and regroup."

"Send it back how?" I wondered.

"TupperWear. Endgame. Remember that pit outside? Push it there. Get it outside, and even if we just trap it in that pit, we should be able to get something done."

"On it," said TupperWear. He nodded to the rest of us, and said, "Follow me."

TupperWear led the way out, taking fast strides. Endgame followed at a similar pace, but Kite and I slowed ourselves to encourage the least (additionally) destructive exit for the Leopard to take. I knew that my partner was holding his breath, and I admit that I could feel very little beyond my own nervous and unsynchronized heartbeat and breathing. An opponent that did not die after incurring so many generally fatal injuries? Not at the top of my list of things that made me feel too confident in my own abilities.

Unlike the Old Ones, though, one thing we had going for us was the knowledge that this Leopard, though ancient, was not necessarily Immortal. Then again, if General Disarray—or his soul or whatever—was sticking around after death, these three beasts probably wouldn't completely vanish from existence after we were through with them. They were, however, a challenge that Damien had set up for us; that much was clear. We could bring the beast down… it was just a question of how long it would take.

Kite held his right hand out to the side, empty, in case he needed to make a quick grab for one resource or another to use as a weapon. "I'm going to take one shot once we get to the door," I told him. "When I do, run."

"Just enough to provoke it, right?" he guessed.

"Yeah. If we're driving it down a pit, I want to try to piss it off so it just gets there on its own."

"Fair deal."

We were now backed up close enough to the front door to have activated the automated sliding glass panels. A breeze hit our backs from outside, and I took the shot: one drill bit from the altered weapon in my left hand hit the Leopard directly in its right eye. Kite took right off running, and I did the same. The now enraged Leopard yowled and bolted after us.

The two of us split to either side once we were out the doors, and it was a damn good thing we did, since the moment the Leopard burst through—dragging the chain spools with it and dropping bits of glass as it ran—it bucked back upon incurring another, much stronger shot from across the parking lot. An awful roar sounded from the enormous cat as it tripped to the pavement, and another shot hit it on the snout. The combination of the shots and the fall shattered one of the cat's teeth, and shook another nearly loose.

Bleeding from the mouth, the Leopard shook itself, but was shaking on its feet. The axe was still lodged into the back of its skull. Hopefully that, having hit a nerve, would slow it down enough for the pit to completely do it in.

From across the parking lot, switching out his sniper for both pistols, walked Mosquito, who called out, "I think we've got it now that we're out here, guys! But holy shit, it's not down after all that?"

"Right?" I called back. "So what's the plan?"

The Leopard took a few steps closer to us, and Mosquito's immediate response was to shoot it again, three times in the chest. The beast went down shaking, and lay still. While not yet done in, Mosquito had at least bought a bit of time.

He looked the Leopard over, then surveyed the area, taking stock of where he could position all five of us for the best final strike. He'd always had a keen eye for placing the team exactly where we needed to be in order to finish a job, so I had complete faith in any plan he'd devise for the present situation. "You've got a sledgehammer on you—nice," he noticed. "There's some weak pavement over there," he pointed toward an area near the enormous pit he'd mentioned (and which I was noticing now for the first time… particularly the awful yellow tape job, and the faint smoke that began to rise out of it). "Cut up as much as you can, and Kite, be on standby to use that shit to cover the pit back up once we toss the Leopard down. That's the only weak point in the Circles right now, so we're good once we hole it up, I think.

"Once you've got that going, Toolshed, you're with me and Endgame. Us three are just gonna shoot the living fuck out of this thing. TupperWear, stand by with that shield and shove the Leopard as far to the edge of the pit so we can shoot it down in. Endgame, you melt the pavement together again once Kite's got it covered. We good, guys?"

We each gave our varied 'got it' responses, and I made for the area Mosquito had pointed out. Close to the gaping, smoking pit, there was indeed an already-weakened, cracking patch of pavement. I switched out my drill gun for the crowbar I'd picked up, and tossed it to the Human Kite, who put the tool to use as my backup: the ground was weak enough that I could jab my awl into a crack, shake the pavement loose with a single hit from the sledgehammer, and Kite could loosen up the tarmac further with a quick shove of the crowbar.

While the other three continued to weaken the Leopard, Kite and I had scrounged up enough of the pavement in a couple short, panicked minutes that would allow us to seal the pit back up, going with Mosquito's plan.

"Now, guys, let's get rid of this thing!" the League co-leader shouted out. "Endgame, Toolshed, need your bullets, or whatever you've got! Aim for the neck!"

On Mosquito's signal, I fired at the same time he did, directly into the Leopard's exposed white neck. While his bullets and my drill bits forced the Leopard back, Endgame fired a volley before he prepped himself on standby for a final blast once we had the beast poised over the pit, and the Human Kite held a chunk of the ruined pavement at the ready in midair for an additional strike.

The beast lowered its head to avoid further shots to its neck, but as it did, its hind right leg sank back into the pit. The enormous cat let out a yowl and dug its claws into the tar of the parking lot, cracking the weakened ground further beyond repair.

"TupperWear!" Mosquito called out to the member of our team that was stationed closest to the mouth of the pit. "Drive it down! Endgame, Kite, stand by."

TupperWear was after the Leopard in a flash—he took up his shield, crouched as he ran for the creature's head, then raised up the sharpened metal plate and brought it down on the large cat's snout. Mosquito called out for Kite to make his own move, and immediately Kite hurled the mass of tar he'd collected at the Leopard's right front leg. When the hit caused the beast to let go of its grip, TupperWear brought his shield down again, this time on the cat's left front paw.

The creature let out one more yowl, and let go.

I drew in a breath, ready to let out a sigh of relief for finally ridding ourselves of the creature, but I choked it back: as it fell into the pit, the Leopard opened its jaw and sank its teeth into TupperWear's right leg. Nothing registered after that.

Both fell into the pit.

"FUCK!" came from just about all of us.

"Token!" Endgame and Mosquito both broke persona at once, and rushed to the edge of the pit.

I saw Kite's eyes flare open wide behind his goggles, and he called out to the other two, "Stand back!" He bolted for the edge of the pit, and thrust his right arm out to one side, then let his hand shoot straight up in the air.

"Kyle, what're you doing?!" I shouted.

"Holding my fucking breath," was his response. "This better work."

Up into the air, following his arm's motions, went the fallen yellow police line tape. It snaked high up, about three feet above the tips of Kite's fingers, and then shot down into the pit when Kite thrust his flattened hand downward, pointing his index and middle fingers directly after our fallen teammate.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck!" Clyde repeated. "Dude, can you find him? If you can't read people, how—"

Kite shushed him, and I ran to the others. "I think the best we can do right now is re-load," I said to Clyde, who was barely keeping himself focused in mission mode.

"I made the call…" he whispered.

"Re-load!" I urged him.

"I said 'drive it down…'"

"SHUT UP!" Kite commanded.

The tape caught.

"Toolshed, Mosquito, you guys on either side of the pit, right now," Kite ordered. "Endgame, you and me are gonna just fucking pull!"

He caught onto the tape, and tossed a part of it back toward Endgame. I watched Mosquito reload his .45, then gave him an encouraging nod as he and I took our places as instructed, ready to fire at the Leopard should Kite have fished out more than one target accidentally. Endgame assumed his own position without hesitation, and the two hauled the strong yellow tape back, hand over hand, inch after cautionary inch…

My focus wandered from the seemingly unending chasm to the moving yellow tape, and its string of repeating words:

ABANDON HOPE ALL YE WHO ENTER HERE.

I kept a firm grip on my drill gun, checked in once with Mosquito, and set my focus on the dark pit yet again. Mere moments later, Kite and Endgame made the final pull, bringing up TupperWear with them. "Oh, holy shit," I heard Endgame say under his breath. I held my position, but took a step back, not wanting to be the next one to go over the edge. Mosquito shifted his own attention to the other three, while the two on the tape checked in with TupperWear.

After he uttered a, "Thanks," he let out an awful, painful moan. Which did not bode well. TupperWear was at the head of our defense, always had been. He didn't mind taking heavy hits; in fact, he'd designed his lightweight armor for easy mobility and high resistance. He was the second most impenetrable of the team after Iron Maiden. Nothing cut through the armor that he had spent around half of his total life thus far perfecting.

Nothing except one enormous incisor from the Leopard's ancient set of sharp teeth. One fang, no doubt dislodged from TupperWear's repeated hits to the Leopard's upper jaw, had come loose from the beast and was now lodged straight through our teammate's right knee. Blood dripped from the root and tip—the former, the Leopard's own dark blood; the latter, Token's.

"Oh… shit…" Kite echoed Endgame's statement.

"TOOLSHED, FIRE!"

I snapped to attention at Mosquito's call. Up from the gaping pit leapt our foe yet again, its mouth dripping with blood, its eyes hungry for God only knows what else. I fired at it without restraint, as did Mosquito, but the Leopard's claws found the pavement. It dug its talons in and made another bite for its previous victim, but Endgame was faster.

He ripped off his dark glasses, and Kite ducked down as the strong laser found its target directly between the Leopard's eyes. The cat hollered and bucked, but bit down again.

With absolutely no time to come up with another plan, TupperWear took the continued situation into his own hands, making a rushed but dire decision:

He ripped the fang out of his own leg, rolled to one side to get up onto his left knee, and was then close enough to the Leopard's face to shove the fang into the beast's left eye. "Want it back?!" he shouted at the beast. "Take it!"

"Token, what the FUCK?!" Craig shouted, re-positioning his glasses.

TupperWear wasn't holding up well, but with one deep, forced breath, he heaved the Leopard's head to the side. Mosquito, Endgame and I each went to the ends of our rounds to shoot the Leopard back down into the pit, and as more smoke rose up from the bowels of the earth beneath us, I did see the body begin to dissipate.

All the same, Kite made good on Mosquito's earlier plan and began stacking the loosened bits of pavement along the mouth of the pit. Though shaking, Endgame followed through as well, soldering the tar into place, until we were left with not a pit but one hell of a hacked up parking lot with displaced gravel, a thoroughly fucked up home improvement store behind us, and one severely injured teammate.

"…Fuck…" Clyde repeated as he took off his mask.

Token sat back and yanked off his helmet. He tossed it aside and bent forward to examine his right leg, which was not bleeding profusely, but which clearly was damaged beyond repair from the Leopard's fang. Gritting his teeth, he attempted to stand, then let out a pained shout and sat back down, complaining, "Nope, not gonna happen."

Holding my breath somewhat, I motioned to Clyde, and the two of us knealt, Clyde much more unsteadily than I managed to. "Can you move?" I asked Token.

He let out an angry sigh. "Everything but my right leg," he said. "Fuck. Fuck, I know better'n that…"

"We—we're gonna help, dude, hold on," I assured him.

"Shoulda waited for surgery," Token went on, practically listing. "I just fucked that up. Bad."

Clyde bit his lip till it bled, then spat, "Shit. I made a bad call, Token, I'm sorry, dude, I—"

"You didn't make a bad call, dude, I did," said Token. "Don't anyone start doing any blaming. I gotta see the damage."

"What can we do?" I asked. "What's the best thing we can do?"

Token bent forward, and clipped off his armor from the elbows down. With his freed hands, he held his head for a moment, and took a few deep breaths. "Someone get the van, someone else help me get the armor off that leg. Actually, all this. I can't restrict any bloodflow."

"How are you so calm?!" Craig wondered. "Your fucking leg is halfway—"

"If I panic, I'll fuck it up more," Token snapped. I wondered, for a second, if he'd seen worse in his medical training. I doubted it. "Someone just go get the van."

"I'll do it," Kyle offered, and he was running toward the vehicle a second later. I watched after him for a brief moment, since I knew I'd seen him wince. He wasn't cringing just from Token's awful situation, either, I could tell. The burns on his arms were really getting to him, and affecting how well and how long he could hold up on the field. If he wasn't careful, he'd really exhaust himself… not to mention that the burns might never fully heal, if he didn't get the rest he really needed.

Craig yanked off his boots, turned his face away from us as he removed the sunglasses and blinked a few times to transition his sight back to normal, then ditched his vest and weapons on the swift walk back over to where Clyde and I sat with Token. The three of us then helped him over to the nearest towering lamp post in the parking lot, and propped him up so that his back was up against the concrete base.

Token's armor was pretty easy to dislodge; each joint connected with plates that Craig and I started to unhook as fast as we could while still keeping our friend's health and safety in mind. Eventually, we'd worked off all the top armor, and then that around his left leg. Kyle was back with the van as we finished with the armor, and brought out the locking chest that we could use to stash the dark blue plates. Token let out a harsh yelp the likes of which I never wanted to hear from a teammate, and Clyde dove into the back of the van for a first aid kit.

There's always that normal cry that someone emits when hurt—the ow of a burned finger, or the shocked near-scream of an awful hit or fall—and then there's a sort of vocal tremor that comes out when one experiences a break. Or worse.

Craig hadn't even managed to pull off Token's armored shin guard yet, and from the look on his face, he didn't want to. The armor on his right leg was the last we needed to remove. Under his armor, Token was wearing a padded black vest for additional protection from bullets and the like, as well as a sleeveless dark blue shirt, and shorts of a similar hue. His legs were also well-protected, given that he wore padding on his left knee and shin, but the fang had dealt much more damage than he'd been prepared for.

Clyde returned with the first aid kit, and set it down on Token's left for him to search through. "Hey, one more thing," Token requested as he rummaged through the kit for a wad of gauze and a bottle of antiseptic. "Someone call—"

The words were cut short when Craig un-clipped Token's shin guard. He sucked in the rest of his breath and cringed. "Stop," he commanded when he found his voice again.

Craig sat back, and Token shoved the wad of gauze forward. I was closest to grab it, so I did, after taking off my dirtied gloves, and held it at the ready. Kyle, who had done away with most of his Human Kite gear for the time being, shook beside me, and I felt him dig the fingers of his left hand into my back. I checked on him briefly, only to find that he'd gone very, very pale. He was still holding up quite well, though, considering just how much must have been going through his head, both from the current problem and recollections from four years prior. I set my free hand reassuringly over his, and kept breathing.

Token finished taking off his own armor, moving very slowly. He paused only to grab out a pair of latex gloves from the first aid kit, and finished the job once he had the gloves on. "Shit," he breathed out harshly as he peeled off the armor. A piece of it had cut into his knee. "Shit, shit… it's gotta—oh… fuck…"

With a last wince, Token removed the armor. "Stan, give me that," he asked, his voice tight. I held the gauze out, and Token wrapped it quickly around his bleeding knee.

I heard Kyle gulp back what had to have been rising bile, and I understood why. I saw the bone, too.

"Someone call my parents," Token requested.

"Dude, what—" Craig started.

"Just someone call my parents. Look," Token said, still keeping himself together with alarming poise, "at least my parents know what I do with the League. Dad'll know what to do. I'm gonna, um… look, someone call, and just tell them to get here. Might need an ambulance, too."

Craig rose that time to heed the request, and made the call from the back of the van, where he took the time, as well, to change back into his street clothes. When he'd finished the call, he announced that he'd be going off-duty to answer any questions from officials who might end up coming around. As for me, Kyle and Clyde, it was understood that we'd stay on duty and conduct the rest of our evening as representatives of the Shadow League.

I assured Token, once we loaded his armor back into the van, that we'd get the gear back to the base, and fill the others in on what had happened. While we waited for his parents to arrive, the five of us banded together to come up with a false story that we'd tell everyone but the Blacks, and the rest of the League. Well, that four of us could come up with, at least—Clyde was remaining fairly quiet, and mostly just nodded.

It took less than five minutes for Token's parents to show, and by the time the car rolled up, we were in agreement that a mountain lion attack was a believable enough story, since there was no way to call it a traffic accident or anything, given the other bite marks his leg had incurred. Plus, we wouldn't have to stretch the truth that much.

The four of us who were able to stand, at that point, did so, and a second later, Token's mother shot out of the car's passenger side door, her long, teased greying hair trailing behind her like a cloud of dust. "Token!" she cried, falling on her knees in front of him. "Token, honey, what happened? Are you all right?"

"I'll live, Mom, it's okay," he managed in response, looking slightly guilty. "Nothing a bone saw and some alloy can't fix…"

"Alloy?! Token!" She threw her arms around her son's neck, and added, softly, as she cradled his head in one neatly-polished hand, "Thank God you weren't killed, baby, oh, thank God…"

Thank God, all right. And maybe, this time, we really, really should.

Token's father exited the car at that point, and while Craig caught the two up and Kyle once again donned his gear, I pulled Clyde aside and said, "Dude, he's gonna be fine. Why're you taking this personally?"

Clyde was holding onto his already blood-stained Mosquito mask, and his face was so pale I thought he might choke.

"I just keep fucking up," said Clyde, glaring at his mask. "I'm supposed to be Mysterion's right hand in this fucking League, but I keep making bad call after bad call. I didn't see them take Red. We could've taken the Leopard down some other way, without Token using physical force. Who am I gonna fuck over next?"

"You really need to not think like that," I said. "You are a leader, Clyde, don't worry about it. Accidents happen. Put your mask on, dude, we're on duty."

"Like that's going to make a difference, Stan," Clyde snapped. "Dude, Kenny filled me in on that shit you guys talked about with Wilcox, all right? We're the bad guys. Don't you get it? You, me, Kyle, Kenny, Cartman, Craig, fucking all of us, dude! We bring this shit here. These things catch our scent or whatever and come here looking for it. And the people who aren't… l-like us, or whatever the fuck we are?" He thrust an index finger in Token's direction. "They—get—FUCKED. So, yeah, Stan. Yeah. I'm going to take this personally. I already almost lost Bebe once. I've lost—I've fucking lost people, Stan, and I don't want it to keep happening. I'm supposed to be a leader, here, so call me greedy for wanting this to stop, but what if it fucking doesn't? I'm not a leader. I'm just some guy with a fucked family history, and so are you, and so's everyone else like us, and now so's Bebe, and so's Red, and so's Token. And it's not—going—to—stop! FUCK."

I knew I couldn't calm him down easily, so I resorted to the first thing I could think of, and grabbed Clyde by the front of his shirt, spun him around, and slammed him into the side of the van. At least that was better than slapping him across the face, which was desperate attempt at getting him to chill out plan B. "Clyde," I said firmly. "You are not a fuck-up. And we are not the bad guys. We're not," I insisted when he opened his mouth to retaliate. "There's evil, Clyde, and there's unfortunate. What we've got in our history is unfortunate. So you know what you do? You do what Kyle, Craig and Kenny do, man. You turn it around. I've gotta keep thinking that, too. I have nightmares. You don't think I'm afraid some shit'll happen because of that? I'm terrified. But I'm in this League because I believe we have the resources to end whatever misfortunes there are, and make things better. We're up against Hell, for fuck's sake. You didn't make a bad call. We just had a bad opponent. And here's the thing: Token's gonna live. Red isn't dead, either. We can still save our friends and ourselves if we just focus." I shoved him back against the van again to let that sink in, and added, smacking him upside the back of his head, "Keep your head in the game."

Clyde leaned back against the van and glowered at me, but I saw my stern words start to sink in. I walked around to see what Token's situation was going to become, but noticed out of the corner of my eye that Clyde was slowly fixing his mask back into place.

After allowing myself a moment to check over the newly-sealed patch where the pit was most likely still churning miles beneath us, I gave an apologetic yet official hello to Token's father, then, along with him and Craig, helped Token into the back seat of the Blacks' car, where his mother quickly joined him. She was fretting but remaining stoic. That entire family had so much poise—Token himself remained calmer than I'd have imagined for someone in his position… granted, his work as a pre-med student was probably a big factor for keeping him focused.

His father was the one who really took the situation under control. (Which only served as a reminder to me just how much we had to thank that man for: using his property for our League base, the top-notch equipment we were given access to, the well-kept secrecy…) He placed no blame on anyone, asked no questions beyond what Craig had already filled him in on; his first comment to the re-gathered group of us was, "I can't thank you enough for everything you do, but you listen to me: play it safe. I understand that you boys are up against a lot, and that there's more riding on your shoulders than I can even think of, but don't push yourselves too far."

"Sorry for what happened tonight." Mosquito's guilt was an unmistakable driving force in his tone. "This could have been avoided."

"But it wasn't," Mr. Black pointed out, not unkindly. "Look, we all learned in this town, a long time ago, that we can't immediately turn to hindsight when things like this happen. My son is a smart young man, and I trust that if he got injured, it was for a damn good reason."

"He's one hell of a fighter, too, sir," I added. Mr. Black thanked me with an honest smile. "Let us know how he's doing once someone sees him. Are you going to Hell's Pass, or…?"

Ugh, what a time for me to remember just what a terribly-named hospital that was for Token to have to put up with right now.

"Not for long, that's for damn sure." Token's father shook his head. "We may need to fly out to Denver. I'm not sure; we'll see. Now, if it's not too much to ask, could we have one of you come along with us? I think we might need you," Mr. Black said, still maintaining a sense of stoicism in the midst of the crisis.

When we were growing up, Craig, Clyde and Token had always seemed to be pretty close as friends, in the way that me, Kyle, Kenny and even Cartman had been and still were. Based on that, offered, "You go, dude," and nodded at Craig, who paused before firmly nodding back. What I saw in his face, though, was some awful mix of terror and woeful understanding.

So as not to part on sudden terms, I set a hand on Craig's arm. "Hey," I said in an undertone. I tugged him aside, and knew we were both shaking. I still felt that, after all these years, I didn't know Craig all too well, so I had no idea if he'd want to even talk about anything at the moment or what, but I pressed on, in the interest of getting Token to a surgeon, and fast. "Dude," I said, "you seriously saved all of us tonight. If we didn't have you on the team, that pit'd still be open, and then who knows what? Thanks for everything, man, I mean it." Craig nodded modestly. "I'd get it if you wanna be the one staying here, too," I said, realizing I'd jumped on the assumption that he'd be the one to leave. "What's your call?"

Craig shook his head. "You stay," he agreed. "We already said I'd go, and I want to. I'll try to get back here as soon as I can, though, and I'll keep you guys posted and stuff. Go back after that Lion, finish this shit up, and sabotage that fucking Carnival before any more of those nightmare holes can open up, or whatever."

Hardly in control of the way I spoke, the next thing I uttered was, "Good luck."

"Yeah, same," said Craig. The two of us returned to the others, and while the mountain of tasks we still had piled before us rushed through my mind, the same words were uttered out of each of us simultaneously:

"See you soon."

And after that, I barely had time to blink before the mission spun full-tilt; barely had a second to pause before it became poignantly clear that Tenorman and Damien's Carnival had already begun.

– – –

Butters

As Disarray and the enormous, ancient Lion tore through the forest, the beast leaving singed footprints as it went, I came to an instant realization:

There were three of us. Just three. All forms of backup had troubles of their own to see to. Three of us, against, well, God only knew how many. All I knew, going into it, was that we were in pursuit of Disarray. And, therefore, a bit more truth to the whole terrible situation.

Three of us, many very similar concerns. Same concerns, differing priorities. But no matter who or what we'd find at the end of Disarray's current trail that he and that Lion were leading us down, I had a feeling that it would all boil down, in the end, to another grouping of three. Tenorman, Damien, Disarray. And the primary question: who was the real 'ringleader' behind their whole operation?

They did have something very much in common: each, historically and from what we could currently gather, had their own very distinct set of goals and tactics. Right now, they had banded together using the same vehicle for attack. Sooner or later, though, I figured, that would have to change. Sooner or later, those three very different yet similarly self-serving men would pose not one but three very distinct threats against us, our town, and, well, every bit of reality. Because each one had the means to crumble it.

Mysterion, naturally, took the lead in our chase. He nimbly navigated us through the thicket the Lion had lumbered off through. It was no surprise that we were heading toward the mountains, but I had to start questioning how well we might be handling our (rather obvious) choice of going after our enemies.

We were going farther from town. No one, to my knowledge, had alerted Agent Murphy of Yates' apparent betrayal to his own prided force. Maybe Murphy already knew. Three League members were currently putting their all into seeing the Harrisons safely home, but I was still worried, as I had to imagine Kenny was, as well: there was a lesson in what had happened to Red. She had been taken suddenly and silently; no words, no warning, nothing left in her wake. Meaning that whatever breach there was between our Circle of reality and, well, 'theirs' could be opened up and traversed at will by those who knew how to access it.

Just protection wasn't enough. I had a feeling that once someone in the opposition wanted to suck somebody out of reality and into the Between, they just… could. Yes, we had to stop them, of course we had to stop them, but until we could infiltrate their home base and fight them without any of this running around, we and everyone around us were at the mercy of their whims.

So it really was a matter of just getting there… I just hated to think that us chasing the Lion might herald some kind of split in the team. The League was strongest when everyone was together. I hated all of this splitting up.

It wasn't the right way for us to continue on.

It was just plain chaotic.

We had very few options at present, though, so we continued on, keeping up with Disarray and his Hellborne beast toward the mountains, toward the mines, toward the Carnival.

We did not speak as we traveled. Everything we needed to do was understood. Toolshed's group could handle and take down the Leopard. Our job was the Lion… and then, we'd be in. We'd find Damien, find Red, find a way to stop Tenorman from building a bridge between our world and the Dreamlands. Nightmares are terrible enough without being forced to live them. If we did not put an end to the Carnival, South Park itself would be an open portal straight to Hell. So our mission was clear: do whatever it took to push the enemy back.

Whatever it took.

We followed the Lion's smoldering prints to a small clearing halfway up a slope that would lead further into the mountains. I caught a quick glimpse of the area: underbrush, large trees with coarse trunks… and then even the moon was gone.

It was pitch dark in the clearing. The trees, full of summer leaves, blocked what stars had been showing in the cloudy night sky, and I could hear nothing that could suggest the Lion's lingering presence. Not a breath, not a growl, not a single malicious purr. Nothing.

Deep, deep, pitch, end-of-the-shadow black.

I reached out to my left, and clenched my hand when my fingers found Mysterion's shoulder. "Harmony?" he asked, hushed in tone.

"Yeah."

"Coon still here?"

"Um…"

I reached out to my right, and blindly felt at the air. Nothing but air.

Just as my lips began moving to form the question, "Where are you?" a light shone sternly into my face. I yelped and stumbled back, letting go of my confirmed teammate. Disarray's distorted face appeared before me, and as a cry of alarm burned in my throat, he slapped a hand over my mouth and coaxed, "Shhhh."

"Where's the Lion?" I managed to ask into his hand.

"Waiting." Disarray grinned, and I noticed, for the first time, the harsh flashlight he held up into my eyes.

He was then shoved off of me, thanks to a swift kick to the gut, delivered by a very unimpressed Mysterion. "Quit playing games!" the League leader demanded. "I'm sick of it. What's this one about, and where's the Coon?"

"Guys," the voice of the very one in question answered, "I'm right over here, chill."

And maybe we would have. Maybe we could have been satisfied with only that, if at that very moment Disarray had not turned around and thrown his flashlight at the Coon's head, which sent him tripping backwards into a thick underbrush of leaves. The leaves then gave and sank into the ground, taking our companion down with them. Both of us still standing called out after him, and rushed a few steps in that direction, but a light then spilled over the entire clearing, from a source I had not noticed upon our arrival. As the clearing came into view around us, Mysterion and I caught each other and doubled back—we had found ourselves poised on the edge of an enormous, crude but round pit… yet another sinkhole through the Circles like the one in the Home Depot parking lot.

"Fuck," Mysterion muttered, then, down into the pit, he called out, "Coon! You down there?"

A faint moan echoed back up. "Yeah," came the answer. "My fuckin' back hurts, though."

"Can you see?" I wondered.

Cautiously, I peered over the edge of the pit.

"'Course I can—oh… shit…"

While he was answering me, all three of us—the two of us looking down and the one stuck in the pit itself—noticed the same thing. Well, we knew now where the Lion had gone off to.

Several feet down, close enough for us to have a clear view of the nightmare but far deep enough for the walls not to be scaled, the Lion stood up over the Coon, who had nothing but his own weapons and the fallen flashlight to defend himself. There was nothing else in the pit. Not even a long branch that could help him out some. Nothing.

"Been such a long time since the days of Christians versus Lions," Disarray laughed, seemingly from all around us. "Damien keeps on talking about wanting to revive that kind of thing, but I never really got an idea of what those days were like. Figured I'd find out how I liked it through trial and error."

I glanced around for him, then finally spotted him on the other side of the pit, now about half a football field away from me and Mysterion. Disarray stood, now, just outside the place giving off the full light: a fair-sized shack, made of decrepit soft wood, the only building in the surrounding area. A spotlight had been set up on its roof, which could not have been taller than eight feet, allowing the shabby place to be something of a lighthouse… an unreachable gleam at the top of the pit.

"You're sick," I growled over at Disarray. "You're sick, you are sick! Let him up!"

"And miss all the fun?" my ex-partner gloated. "That's one of the best parts about being dead, my friend. Getting to decide how I might like to see other people die."

"You're not just leaving him down there?" Mysterion hollered over.

"Oh, of course I am."

"Guys!" the Coon called up. "You wanna shoot at this fucking thing, or something?"

Panic pulsed through me. Every nerve, every neuron, everything was just one static state of pure, wired panic.

I had to do something…

We were stuck, but we had to move…

The lion growled.

"Motherfucker," the Coon complained. "Aye! Mysterion! Harmony! Little help?"

"We're working on it," Mysterion managed, glaring across the pit at our opponent.

"Oh, and where would we be without an audience for such a time-honored display?" Disarray continued. "Let's see, we've got me, you, and… oh! I know."

He disappeared through the door of the shack behind him, and a moment later, he walked back out with a woman clad in a tight purple dress; the ensemble was completed by a red sash of a belt, and high red heels. Her head was down, and her brown hair fell loose over her features, but I could make out a pristine white gag tied around her mouth. And the second before Disarray forced her head up, I recognized exactly who she was. I'd just never seen her with her hair down before.

Liane Cartman.

Her eyes, once I could see them, were wide open and sleepless, and as soon as she saw me and Mysterion, she let out a cry into her gag. She was calling out a plea.

"South Park's very own Whore of Babylon! Welcome to the show!" Disarray introduced, keeping a firm grip on her. Liane shouted out something else that I could not make out. "Isn't purple a great color for her? Color of royalty, y'know."

"Let her go," Mysterion warned.

"Not so fast," Disarray grinned. "Got some interesting stuff to share with you first. See, here's something really interesting I learned about this lady. Not only is she responsible for churnin' out the heir to the Prince of Darkness and the fat little terror I've got down in the pit, but… oh, and here's where my job just gets so much more fun… she… you wanna tell them, or can I?"

Liane screamed into her gag.

"All right, I'll tell them, then," said Disarray.

Liane screamed again.

"Stop!" I shouted.

"Did you know," Disarray continued, as if nothing else was happening, "that this woman was in Jack Tenorman's will? And she never claimed what he left her. Damn shame, Whore of Babylon… damn, damn shame. 'Course, I'd be out of a job now if you had. Isn't life just fun like that?"

"The fuck is going on up there?!" the Coon shouted up.

The next scream out of Liane's gagged mouth, I could make out perfectly:

"ERIC!"

She shook herself away from General Disarray's grip and made a run for the edge of the pit, but her captor caught up with her and grabbed her back. A glimmer of an idea lit his distorted face after a second, however, and he then gripped her by the hair, and leaned her, onto her toes, over the mouth of the pit.

"You get a prize if you win, Coon!" Disarray shouted down. "You beat the Lion, I'll let Mommy go."

"…Mom…?"

Eric's voice was caught and weakened. And echoed by a subdued roar from the Lion.

It was looking like there was not a single possible way this situation could end well. Not at all.

What the hell could we do? I glanced frantically around the clearing, wondering if perhaps I'd find something of use in that shed, or if there were some way that I could go down into the pit. But that was just insane—willingly go down against a Lion that could burn the very ground as it walked? …Right, and save a friend in the meantime.

The Coon was in the pit, and though Mysterion and I were currently on solid ground, all three of us were trapped. Only three of us—everyone else presently occupied. No one close enough to call…

"Mom!"

Eric sounded a little stronger the second time he called out. Disarray had indeed provoked him, but Eric's brain is one that needs a delicate balance; I know, my brain's kind of the same way. He was either going to go apeshit furious and wear himself out in a matter of minutes, or shut down completely.

It was no stretch to guess that he'd lean toward the furious.

Mysterion described that particular mode of the Coon's as going feral. It was kind of true. I glanced over the side of the pit, feeling my lungs clench and choke me with worry, and saw the Coon instantly go not for his gun, but for an up close and personal swipe at the Lion's lower jaw.

The beast towered over our teammate, but the Coon's talons sunk in, slicing the jaw at a diagonal. The Lion, unamused, bent its head and snapped its jaws. The Coon ducked, grabbed the Lion's mane, and scrambled to the top of its head. He clenched his fists together, and, just after Liane let out another worried scream, the Coon brought his hands down at the top of the Lion's skull.

When the Lion tilted its head back to roar, the Coon grabbed hold, then jumped forward to scratch the large cat's eyes. This, however, was where he lost his balance, and while he got in a few more good scratches on his way down, he slid to the ground, somehow managing to stay on his feet.

"This is enthralling," Disarray commented flatly, "but there's got to be a way to make this more interesting. Oh!" He snapped his fingers, briefly letting go of Liane as he did. She cried out, but he caught her while she still dangled over the pit. "I know."

"You little asshole!" the Coon shouted up. "You guys, shut that fucker up or come help me! God! Fuck!"

He was right—we had to go after Disarray. I started to dart for the other side of the pit, but that terrible young man simply grabbed Mrs. Cartman around her neck, and held her directly over the gaping hole. I yelped, and doubled back.

"What do we do?" I asked Mysterion frantically.

"Not looking pretty, is it?" he grunted, as he took a look around the clearing. "Put her down, Disarray!" he shouted over at our opponent. Slowly, taunting us all the while, Disarray set Liane back onto her feet.

Her ankles shook, to the point that I thought her rocking would snap the stilettos she'd been most likely forced to wear. Her presence here did beg the obvious questions: when had they taken her? And, of course, the loaded, why?

For Tenorman to use as leverage? For Damien? Or as a means of getting at the Coon? There was always the option that all of those possibilities were correct.

That was just the problem, wasn't it? There was so much, too much, that Damien and his group of followers could use against us. Break one of us, and they could potentially break us all.

"What do you want?" Mysterion continued. "Don't you like to bargain? Isn't that where all you Carny assholes get off? What're you looking for now?"

Our opponent let out a barking laugh. Below us, the Coon was swearing up a tornado at the Lion, and I heard him begin to fire the hell out of his .45.

"Damien Thorn has every birth right to lead this building of a brand new Hell," Disarray announced. "Scott Tenorman provides the services, the labor, and he got one lucky wish in return. They do love bargaining in Hell, I'll give you that.

"But what I like is straight up payment. I'm a patron of Damien's arts, you see. Hell gets stronger with every soul I can tempt over the river. Doesn't matter if you wanna join the cause or not. A soul is Immortal, Mysterion. Gets stronger the closer you get to the flames." Oh, he seemed so pleased with himself. I felt my right hand move to my gun. I knew he'd dodge if I tried to shoot him; I knew my bullets wouldn't be able to do a thing to him, anyway. But, God, I wanted to sink one in him no matter what the outcome.

"What do you want?!" Mysterion demanded again. "Where do you fit into any of this?"

Liane struggled against her captor, whose response was merely, "I just love watching things burn."

Disarray saw my hand lighting on my gun, and acted out by grabbing one of his own out of his boot. He shot it up at the roof of the shack, and hit the back of the spotlight. The lamp weakened, and crashed into the roof, which itself immediately caught fire. I saw Liane's eyes flash open wide, and she called out her son's name again, along with a string of other words of warning that I simply could not make out.

"LET MY MOM GO, ASSHOLE!" the Coon shouted up at Disarray, who gave no response.

Mysterion and I shared a quick and panicked look as the rest of the shack began to burn. The fire was very contained—the summer underbrush would not catch too drastically, and the shack was sure to burn like a bonfire… it would remain its own source of light for minutes more, and then we'd all be plunged into darkness again.

The flames flickered red, white, yellow and orange behind Disarray, casting menacing silhouettes all around us. The fire singed the air, and I felt my lungs fill with smoke. I checked on Mysterion again, knowing that he was prone to weave in and out between our Circle of reality, and the state of mind that forced one to wander the Dreamlands. He seemed to be fully aware… but at a loss.

Our nearest opponent was the Lion in the pit, but if we both went after it, we'd be stuck, and Disarray would get away. But he was so far from us, any move we made to reach him would be easily countered.

The Coon was sure to lose stamina fast, too, especially now with the added heat from the rising fire. I glanced down over the edge.

The Lion circled our teammate slowly, its eyes glinting along with the flames. Shadows danced freely on the floor of the sinkhole, and several times the Coon tripped, from not being able to discern where there might be a dip in the ground, and where he was just treading on a trick of the light. But he persevered.

He scratched the Lion five more times across its snout, but I could see fatigue setting in. He stepped back, gasping for breath. Hang in there… I willed him. A thought hit me, then. We couldn't go down, but we could still help.

I pulled the pistol from my utility belt. "Catch!" I hollered down. When I knew I'd caught his attention, I hurled the .45 down.

He flinched before he could catch it, and, as I should have figured, it fired when it hit a rock that jostled the trigger. I yelped, afraid the bullet would find the wrong target, but it sailed toward the Lion's gut, and cut through fur and flesh. The Lion merely grumbled at the disturbance, and as the Coon fumbled to pick the weapon up, he shouted up at me, "Watch where you fuckin' throw a gun, asshole!"

"Sorry," I called back down. "But you've got it now, use it!"

I'm sure I saw him mutter, "Don't have to tell me that," but I ignored it, looking instead across the pit to see if any of the turned situation had fazed Disarray even slightly. He showed no indication of any emotion whatsoever. Win or lose, I was sure he hardly cared about the outcome, because no matter what happened, he'd have some way to get one up on us again.

Gunshots fired until the pistol ran out of ammunition.

I took another look down into the pit, heart racing, just as the Lion shook off the most recent hit he'd taken, and raised up a massive paw. The Coon muttered something else and ran out of the way as the paw came down. And again. And again. The Coon swept out with his taloned armor and got in a cut, but his stamina was failing something awful.

The Lion's next swipe hit home. The Coon got battered off to the side of the pit, where he collided with the dirt wall. Stunned, he got back on his feet. "That the best you got?" he panted back at the Lion.

The beast retaliated with a territorial roar, and another massive swipe, which threw my teammate into the farther, crude dirt wall. I heard an uncharacteristic yelp bolt out of him before he slumped to the ground, completely unconscious.

"Shit," Mysterion bit out beside me.

"Eric!" I called down.

The Lion was standing over him.

Across from me, his poor mother, with whom he had not exchanged a single proper word for days upon days, emitted a long, painful scream into the pure white towel that was gagging her. I'd always thought she was a decent-looking lady, put-together if not downright pretty, but her features contorted as agony set in, after she had been forced to watch that scene unfold several feet below her. Mascara ran down her face as she let herself cry—she seemed too terrified to close her eyes; her dilated pupils stared hauntedly down into the pit as she screamed out demands into her gag, which was now rapidly staining black from her makeup.

The Lion was standing directly over her only legitimate son.

"Wake up!" I shouted down.

No response. The Lion let out what sounded like a very decisive, finalizing roar.

At that very second, I felt my mind snap. Now, not snap to any degree of insanity, not snap to some old repressed memory or anything like that, just snap into survival mode, more than anything. We were a team, he was my friend, the world was in danger, and I was—

I was really good at setting traps.

Once upon a time, it had come with the title. Chaos. I could manipulate, strategize, warp a situation around, turn any location into a perfect obstacle or cage. Traps, traps… I had nothing that could stop the Lion. Nothing but myself, really, and I didn't have much…

With hardly any time to think up a real plan, I felt around my utility belt. Rope. That was one thing I did have. I had rope. I had enough of it to get myself down into the pit, anyway. And—yes, yes, I still had extending nets. Those little mesh lifesavers, yes, good, good this was shaping up to a situation I could take advantage of…

But I'd thrown away my gun. I could get down there to help, but what then?

No time. I hurled down one of my nets, aiming for the Lion's neck. It extended and caught just in time to aggravate the enormous beast, and for that I was grateful. Working fast, I un-wound my rope and held an end of it out to Mysterion. "Take this," I commanded him.

"What?" He'd shirked back at the sight of it.

"Take it!" I insisted. "Tie it off! I'm going down."

"Are you serious?!"

"Dead serious. Take the rope."

Mysterion's eyes narrowed, and he glared into me. Judging my every breath for the time being. I understood his hesitance. Mysterion had welcomed me into the group under my recently-adopted alter ego. Altered ego, more like. Marjorine had always been something of a savior to my own life; I'd taken the steps to truly make her a hero.

But from the moment we'd stepped into that clearing, I'd begun feeling that this was a situation I needed to take care of in a different way. Mysterion knew that. I'm not a very hard book to read.

"You're Harmony," he stressed. As if issuing a warning.

He had every right to threaten me, if that was his aim. Every right.

Yes. Yes, I was Harmony. Agent Harmony, who had joined the Shadow League to provide a helping hand, to serve as a medical aide, to do everything I could to right much of the damage I once had caused.

If Disarray still existed, however, there was a lot of cleanup I still had to do.

The universe is divided into Circles, and the Divine Rule of Three. That night, right then and there, I felt as though I'd been neglecting my own third part. Harmony wasn't the solution to Chaos. Harmony was just the other side of the mirror. The other side of the coin.

"Take the rope, Mysterion," I asked sternly. "The Coon's going to die if one of us doesn't go down there. I can't just stand here and watch Disarray get away with this. We need to move. Otherwise—"

Mysterion nodded. With some lingering resistance, he took hold of the rope. When he had both hands full, tossing the rest of the rope down into the Lion's pit, I grabbed two of my teammate's Roman candles. He snapped at me, but I simply shoved them into my own belt, and began sashaying down the dirt walls, and closer to the bottom of the pit.

The Lion, caught in the net, was throwing a tantrum. I knew it had been risky—it lashed around the pit, and twice stepped much too close to the Coon. I jumped down when I had reached a depth that I could manage, and instantly grabbed the first rock I could find and hurled it at the Lion's hind leg. The beast roared and whirled around to take a bite at me. I ducked under its chin, swift on the putrid wind that was its huff of breath, and ran toward my fallen friend, ready to shake him back to consciousness.

I yanked at his shoulders and rolled him onto his back, so that he'd have plenty of air to breathe, then, all my judgment failing me for a solution, kicked him in the gut in hopes that that would unstop his wind pipe and get him up and moving.

"No outside help in a battle like this!" Disarray taunted down at me.

I lifted my gaze just in time to see Mysterion, who must have tied off the rope, advancing on our foe with shuriken between his knuckles. He took a swipe at Disarray's face just as I heard the Lion roar, and felt its breath reek down from directly behind me. The Coon coughed. Relieved, but in a hurry, I grabbed him by the front of his emblematic shirt, and hauled him off to the side, picking up most of his dead weight as he got settled back on his feet, breathing and coughing sporadically.

Sparks were going off inside me as I turned to face the Lion once again. For a brief second or two, I stalled. I knew what I was feeling. I knew the dangers and the thrills of having a static tempest stirring inside me.

Rage, you see, has a special place in the human psyche. For many years, I had suppressed it. I've had an ongoing battle with the way I personally deal with my own rage, and how it, in turn, decides to attack me.

This time, it was different. This time, I had control.

Sometimes, the only way to prevent destruction is to destroy in other ways. To sacrifice. And, in so doing:

Rebuild.

"Don't you know that control demands disorder? You can rebuild." Those were the words I had heard, days before, during the GSM's radio broadcasts. Rebuild—not my Tower, but the sum of my consciousness. Not the terror left in my past follies' wake, but the person I had been who could be so strong-willed, so decisive, so ready with a cunning idea. Rebuild. They had meant it to be a warning.

That's what their Red Radio project was, I realized. Clues and warnings, glimpses of the Hell that waited behind the Carnival gates, beyond the challenges presented by the Wolf, the Leopard and the Lion.

Joke was on them, though. I'd already been through Hell.

And I was proud of the person I'd become after getting out of it.

If I didn't want anyone else to burn in their own pits of despair, then I had to make the call. I had to make the sacrifice. But before anything else, I had to kill that damn Lion.

I had no lighter, and the flames above me were too far out of reach to utilize. I needed firepower or my plan would never work. Fortunately, every bit of earth that the Lion's paws touched became burning residue, some of it even smelling of sulfur. It must have walked through Hell and through the iron mines so many times that the beast itself was covered in the dust of the Golem material.

Bad, bad call, Disarray. Don't make something from Hell so flammable.

And you thought you'd outsmarted me once, General Disarray. You thought I'd always be so weak as to blindly stumble toward such a frivolous goal as the End of all things. You even found a loophole through death itself, just to get back to me.

You were wrong.

I balanced out.

"Hey!" I shouted to the Lion. "I'm right here! Come get me! Think I'm afraid of you? Try me!"

The outraged creature ripped through more tangles of its net, and took a strong swipe at me. Once again, I heard Liane let out a scream from above. This time, however, it was not muffled. Mysterion had gotten to her. Good.

Yet it was Mysterion's voice that shouted down what I knew to be one hell of a moment's truth:

"CHAOS!"

He'd called out to warn me. And to acknowledge me.

At least I'd made peace with Fate. I'd figured out that much.

I dodged the Lion's strike, and its paw hit the dirt wall of the pit behind me. As the Coon was slowly regaining his focus, I grabbed his wrist and struck his talons against the burnt rock. Sparks flew—from the wall of the pit without, from the caverns of my mind within.

This was invigoration. This was what happened when the Circles collided.

I am the Between.

I'm Harmony. I'm Chaos. I'm not Immortal; I'm a representative of the human race, which has called both of these things into question, as long as we've been in existence. If Harmony is the question, Chaos is the answer—and vice versa, and so on, forever. I'm neither, and I'm both. I have to be. Someone has to be. Or else there's no order anywhere.

So I don't care. I can't care, anymore.

I can't kill Chaos. I never did.

I held the Roman Candles' wicks to the wall, and they instantly caught fire. Quickly, I dropped the recovering Coon, and rushed at the Lion. Above me, I could hear Disarray laughing, thinking he'd won.

Remembering my duties as Agent Harmony, as a League medic, I felt myself grin as I shoved the Roman Candles down the Lion's throat. The beast coughed and choked and sputtered, and it was all I could do to grab its top lip, pull it down, and then hold the damn beast's mouth shut.

"Gotta take your medicine," I scolded Hell's embodiment of Pride. "Swallow, baby, swallow."

The enormous Lion struggled against me, to the point that I feared I would not be able to hold on much longer on my own.

"FUCK!" I heard Mysterion shout from overhead.

A second later, he was down in the pit with us, as the flames began to die up above. "That little piece of SHIT," Mysterion snarled, clearly acknowledging Disarray in his fury. He said nothing directly to me, but ran up to the Lion and helped me keep its mouth closed. A few seconds later, the Coon was on his feet, but he didn't make his way to us before the Lion swallowed.

Mysterion and I backed off and took cover as best we could when the explosion happened. Curiosity gripped me enough to make me turn just in time to watch the effect of my invented attack. It had hit precisely the way I'd been hoping.

The Lion let out a roar of discomfort, and when it did, the explosives rattled about in its throat, bursting sparks of light up out of the beast's mouth. Disturbed and close to dying, the Lion lashed out, pawing at the ground over and over, thus creating more and more sparks, which licked up out of the earth and caught the pads of its feet. Sparks flew from the Lion's mouth as the blaze of the shed began to die down up above us, and one last roar heralded the beast's end.

The fireworks had gone off inside the Lion as the ground sparked all around it; I tucked my head away yet again when I heard something begin to rupture. Bones snapped, and heat from behind me told me that the Lion's mane had caught fire—then the rest of its thinning fur. Peering around yet again, I watched the entire large body go up in flames just as easily as the shed.

Beneath me, the ground felt hot and smelled of sulfur. But in seconds, the Lion was gone.

Unfortunately, so, soon, was Disarray.

All of the flames had gone out, and the three of us were left in the pit with only the flashlight that Disarray had knocked the Coon down with. Its pale light illuminated the few rocks and packed dirt that served as our surroundings, and the sound of a sputtering old street car at the top of the pit suggested that Disarray was being carted away elsewhere.

Before he made his leave, however, he called down, "Well, well. Breaking rules, are we? No wrong way to make it to Hell, boys!"

Liane let out yet another scream.

That got the Coon stirring full force again, and he jabbed his talons into the side of the pit. "You fucking asshole, let her go!" he shouted up. "Mom!"

"Eric," Liane cried out, indeed without her gag, "Eric, honey, please, don't follow them! Don't follow them! They want to—"

She was then muffled, and Disarray shouted out, "Must run! But you've got your Carnival tickets now! It's gonna be fun for the whole damn family!"

"MOTHERFUCKER!"

The Coon passed hand over hand as if climbing a ladder, sinking his talons into the wall. But the pit proved too steep. He'd only climbed a few feet before he lost his momentum and fell. I rushed to my feet, but as soon as I'd caught him, he whirled around and punched me.

Hard.

The action opened up a small scratch on my face, at the corner of the eye I'd already had mended once thanks to one of Kenny's shuriken when we were kids.

"DID I ASK YOU TO HELP ME?!" the Coon screamed at me.

"Actually, yeah, you did!" I shouted back, not moving. "What was that for?"

"I don't need you fighting my battles for me. Quit it!"

"I—you were gonna get ripped apart, what else was I supposed to do?!"

"I don't—who even are you?"

…Valid question.

"Yeah," Mysterion echoed, now on his feet again as well. "Care to elaborate?"

He walked up to us, scooping up the flashlight as he did. He shone the light toward the top of the pit, and said into the wire, "Red Serge, can you get a GPS marker on our location?"

"What's going on?" Red Serge asked in rapid response.

"We're kinda fucked."

"Well, okay, then. Mosquito, Marpesia and Angel were good for reassignments anyway. Mosquito's with Toolshed and them, and lucky for you guys, the girls are already on their way."

"Pretty good timing for an Angel," Mysterion sighed. He glared at us, shining the flashlight between me and the Coon. "I don't know how many fucking times I've had to remind you two to play nice," he growled. "And—Butters… Harmo… you," he continued, looking rather unimpressed, "care to elaborate? That was some Chaos shit you just…"

I nodded. "I won't fight you on that," I said.

"Meaning what?" he demanded.

Taking in a deep breath, I gathered all of my thoughts. I'd need some time to really be at peace with the decision, but fighting back Hell was something that required a little bit of Chaos. And it wasn't about all or nothing—I could be both, I had to be both… I just had to accept that the side of me that had been Chaos was still there. I'd become stronger, though. Chaos was not going to be vulnerable and full of delusion this time.

"Chaos is just a part of who I am."

"I mean, are you with us?" Mysterion demanded.

"Of course I am," I assured him. "I just… kinda think Harmony's gonna take a rest. Thanks for letting me be a part of the League, Mysterion. I hope I can still be a part of it, or with you guys in some way, but I can't stay on the defensive side of this much longer. I've really gotta fight back."

Mysterion looked tense, but he did not argue with me. He shifted his masked glance to the Coon, who himself was giving me scrutiny. But he seemed too much in shock, still, over the plight of his mother, to be anything but angry.

The next several minutes passed in a blur of Eric cursing nearly everything in existence. Primarily me.

"Fuck you!" he shouted toward the end of his tirade, all but attacking me again. "He told me to beat that thing, I asked you to help me, maybe, sure, whatever, but I's supposed to beat that fucking thing! I didn't, and now God fucking knows what Tenorman's gonna do. To my mom."

"You've been avoiding even talking to her," I pointed out, dressing the cut at the corner of my eye with gauze from my arsenal.

"Shut the fuck up! I was going to!"

"Guys?"

The Guardian Angel's voice sailed through the darkness just as the flashlight flickered out. Mysterion was the one to answer her, and the only one of the three of us to say a word before Angel and Marpesia threw down the rope I had earlier used, and helped us all out. It was Mysterion who told the girls what had happened with Disarray and the Lion; questions were asked of all of us, but the Coon refused to speak, and I began to fear anything that I might say, or how I might sound.

Marpesia did catch onto the fact that I was struggling somewhat, and, as the two, armed with lights of their own, led us back down the slope to re-join with the others, she asked, "What happened back there? To you?"

"What, my eye?" I wondered. My voice came out at its usual tone, not the higher alto I affected for Marjorine and Harmony. It had been, I realized, since I'd made the decision to go into the pit.

"No." Lowering her tone to a whisper, she clarified, "Butters, what's going on?"

All I said in response was, "Chaos."

And all she returned with was, "I see."

She patted my back three times. We did not get a chance to speak privately again until much, much later.

– – –

When we made it back to the parking lot where the evening had started, we were just in time to see a car driving away, and three of our teammates gathered at the site of the pit the Lion had first emerged from. The pit had now been sealed up, and, I noticed, TupperWear and Endgame were missing from the group. Not to mention that Stan, Kyle and Clyde hardly seemed to be mission-ready. Kyle was standing at the driver's side door of Token's van, trying to encourage the other two to move.

Marpesia's pace quickened, and she broke into a full run after letting out a shout. "What?" I wondered, keeping up with her for a moment.

"That was Token's dad's car!" she let out in a rush.

Rather than run toward the others, she began running after the car. Stan rushed forward to grab her back, and that was the very second that Wendy broke from keeping herself focused as Marpesia and let out an awful, worried scream. "What happened?!" she cried out.

"Wendy—Wendy, hold on," Stan tried, tightening his grip on her.

"Let me go! Where's Token?!"

Beside me, I knew I saw Eric tense up. He did like her. I knew it. He just never showed anything for anyone. Not to mention that he was feeling pretty darn empty at that point, considering that the only woman in his life (at the time being) had just been hauled off to Hell on Earth without the two having been able to exchange a word.

"We're gonna fill everyone in," said Stan. "Just—Wendy, stop trying to run."

"I'm not!"

"Your feet're moving, girl, slow down."

Wendy caught herself, and went almost completely limp against Stan. Kyle left the van to help get Wendy on her own two feet, and as soon as she had support on both sides, she removed her helmet, but did not stop staring after the car.

"What happened?" Mysterion posed to the entire group. "You get the Leopard?"

"Yeah, but it didn't go quietly," Stan answered. "How about you guys and the Lion?"

"Roughly the same," Mysterion admitted. "Let's get off the street, guys, we've got a fucking load to discuss. Where's—?"

"Token's out," said Clyde, stepping forward. He was holding up his cell phone as best he could with both hands, each of them shaking.

"Out? What d'you mean, out?"

"Craig's gonna be texting us, he went with Token to get hospital word, and—"

"Hospital?" I sputtered.

"Oh, my God," Angel breathed. "Guys, what happened?"

"No easy way to talk about it," Clyde told us, "so, uh…"

"The Leopard almost dragged Token down through the pit with him," Stan explained. He and Kyle had to work harder to keep Wendy standing after that came out. "It bit through Token's leg, and, uh… what's the word from Craig, dude?"

"Token's not a surgeon, but he's interned and sent enough people to see 'em to know, I guess," said Clyde. "I feel fucking sick. He's probably got nerve damage, broken knee, broken leg. He's out."

"Oh, God…" Wendy gasped. "Oh, God…"

Mysterion shook his head. "Come on," he urged. "Guys, we need to move. That sucks. That fucking sucks that he's out. Is Craig down, too?"

"No," Clyde confirmed. "Just went for kinda moral support with Token's parents."

"Broken leg?" Mysterion repeated.

"Yeah, and it really wasn't pretty," said Kyle. "Guys, I vote that we move this outta here. And where's Gary? What's going on with him?"

"We spoke," Angel confirmed, "and we'll talk further, I'm sure."

Mysterion stared back at the mountains, then took stock of each of us, and held his head. "One thing's for sure, at least," he announced: "the Carnival's definitely in business. We're at more than a few losses, but we need a plan of attack."

The agreement was unanimous. We managed a quick sweep back through the Home Depot to check for and collect any belongings left behind, and Angel had Red Serge dispatch Murphy and a small squad to section off the parking lot and get in contact with the employees that were not taken away to the Carnival that evening. Iron Maiden was set to return to the base with Gary, and a call was made out to Henrietta and Wilcox as well.

We had to press on, despite how unraveled everything seemed. Just as one of us clawed our way out of a seemingly endless pit of distress, another opened. Burning, and threatening everything that kept our morale together.

That was the night before the final break, the final breach. The night before we lost another member of the team.

The night that I welcomed Chaos back into my life, this time because I knew that doing so could very well save everyone.

– – –

– – –

Authors' Notes:

South Park is -c- Matt Stone and Trey Parker!

Oh gosh this one was fun. ^^ Another crazy month, schedule-wise, but we hope you're enjoying the story! I'm going to try to get at least two chapters up in December. :3 Especially since, after next time's chapter, we'll be going thick into Carnival stuff, and a few extra new surprises… I'm also excited to write out more about Liane… and Gary... and Chaos (welcome back, Chaos, I know we, the writers, have missed you…)… and what exactly will happen to Token... D:

Oh, and a quick note on Clyde: I've gotten a couple questions about it, and I vaguely alluded to it in this chapter, but I am going to be changing just one thing in Cthulhu Fhtagn, and that's what happens to Clyde's mom. Obviously she's dead in the show now, and as morbid as it is, I feel like that tragedy actually lends a lot to Clyde's character to stick with that part of the South Park canon. I'll be soon going back to Cthulhu Fhtagn to switch the victim to his father or sister instead. This has been a Clyde PSA. I enjoy Clyde. Poor guy.

Thank you so, so much for reading! We'll be going on a bit of a break to get through some holiday craziness and finish a couple of other projects before chapter 15, but we'll see you very soon!

~Jizena, and Rosie Denn

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