This chapter will be on the shorter side. Enjoy.


Chapter Twenty-One - Far from Grace.

Having (almost) my entire class with me on some activity, boys and girls, is typically an oddity, really. Usually, most of us are doing separate things. Whenever one of the genders get together, it's due to some sort of big drama happening at school, such as the Eavesdropper shenanigans. And when both genders get together at school, it's usually boys versus girls in some sort of contest between the genders, such as when there was the debacle on whether or not it was ethical for girls to queef in public. But this scenario is entirely different as now it's our entire class pitted against one common enemy.

We found ourselves at the town square of another abandoned village that lied in the middle of an icy gorge, with spiked icicles jutting out of the sheer cliff walls. It was 11:48 PM, yet the horizon still glowed spectacularly due to the combination of both the full moon and the aura, giving off a vibrant beautiful dark teal reflection off the spiked icicles. As for the village itself, it was about as deteriorated as the last village where the giant castle we were previously in was. Up the path north however was where the gorge ended, diverging out a mouth over a hill.

"Hey, check it out, the ice spikes really make this landscape beautiful," Jessie exclaimed. "It's got that really aggressive feel to it."

"It's that glowing thing in the sky," Kal replied. "I'm sure we learned about it in class, but I forgot what it is called."

"That is an aurora borealis," Bebe educated. "It's one of the northern lights. You know - us being close to the North Pole and all, since we just were in Santa's castle."

"You'd think that since we just went there, we'd find Santa, or Jesus, or the Underpants Gnomes, not a bunch of pissed off retards who act like little brats," Kent spat.

"I bet if anything Santa and Jesus are making rounds of doing more coke again," Clyde chuckled.

"That would explain their uselessness." Craig held his right hand up high into the air, then stuck out his middle finger, flipping the bird towards the night sky, as if insulting God above.

Millie folded her arms as she stared at Craig. "You always gotta flip everything off, don't you?"

Most of the children were conversing casually among themselves. Even the seven who were originally with me were chatting to the other kids that joined us now. And honestly it was really nice seeing this. Despite the situation we currently found ourselves in, we acted as if nothing could possibly get us down, and it demonstrated that the children were certainly high in spirits for now.

Bebe backed off and gazed over past me. I followed her stare, which fell upon a certain Jewish boy sitting alone on a stone bench - why wouldn't it? Without any hesitation, Bebe made her way towards Kyle, then sat down on the bench next to Kyle by his left side. "You don't mind me sitting with you, do you?" She held out her right hand in anticipation that Kyle would hold onto it.

Kyle slowly but surely turned his head to Bebe. Soon after came a subtle smile plastered on his face. "No. Of course not." Kyle gently placed his left palm upon Bebe's right palm, and gently grasped it afterwards.

Bebe glanced up at the sky. "You know, it is a pretty beautiful night. The aurora in the sky...makes the icy landscape here glow all pretty, especially within this gorge of spiked icicles."

"It really is," Kyle replied. "I can't believe the two of us somehow managed to make it all the way out here."

"It is all of us...all took a whole team effort...speaking of which..." Bebe let go of Kyle's hand then let her eyes wander over to Chris, who was casually conversing with Tyler, Kathy, Ellen, and Wendy only a few feet away from the couple. "What you said to Chris earlier when we were in that stupid castle - it was really kind of you."

"I just thought what I was gonna say was helpful." Kyle shrugged both of his shoulders. "Though I will admit: I have never really felt how he has before. I always trusted most of my friends to have my back. Except Cartman, for obvious reasons of course - but he's the exception, not the rule. What you said to Kathy though...I never knew all that about you, honestly."

"I mean, there's really no reason for me to brag about any of that stuff." Bebe scratched her right cheek. "Never saw any real opportunity to, you know, all my girl friends ever talk about is fashion and boys or whatever. Though we all have more in common with each other than I'd like to admit."

"There is one other thing I would want to admit..." Kyle chuckled lightly before continuing. "If we somehow all make it out of this mess alive and in one piece, I wouldn't mind...well...you know..." He exhaled harshly. "...hanging out with you more."

Bebe gasped lightly before smiling. "You really mean that?"

Kyle nodded. "Sure, you were my first kiss, technically speaking, but...I've never had a real relationship or anything before."

"Wait, really?" Bebe shook her head furiously. "No way. What about that Rebecca Cotswolds girl? Weren't you two a thing back last year?" It was like that, but things unfortunately did not work out well at all. The results were less than ideal, really.

"It's her stupid dad's fault. If he wasn't so overprotective of her...are all dads overprotective of their daughters or something?"

"It all depends, really. Though you know, every father was an idiot teenage boy at one point, and...well, we've probably already seen firsthand how that is like." If the behavior of the sixth graders are any indication, Bebe's probably not very far off in her theory and implications.

"I just want us all to become better than our parents." Kyle folded his hands in his lap. "They say having kids give us a chance to become better ourselves. I hope that when our time comes to have children, that we don't make the same mistakes that our parents did towards us. Because we all know that after they had us, they definitely didn't improve. Now that I think about it...they got worse. Much worse." This is true; within the span of one year from when we started third grade, it felt as if their IQ was multiplied by negative one.

"It will be many years from now," Bebe replied. "We won't stay like this forever. Definitely not before adulthood. Maybe things will get better. What we do here today could, well...change everything." Bebe then let out a low groan. "Well, assuming we make it out of here alive." Bebe smiled as she grabbed both of Kyle's hands with both of her own. I could see both of them blush. Bebe cleared her throat. "Ahem. Um...do you ever feel bad for Cartman?"

Kyle frowned ever so slightly, me being certain that the person in question brought him discomfort. "I...want to try. But then I remember all the shit he's done. For example, giving me HIV, or trying to convince the entire town I was in love with him...it's too much to think about."

"If it were to come down to it, do you think, w-we'd..." Bebe closed her mouth and gulped. "...y-you know...be able to...well, kill him?"

It was at that moment that Wendy, Tyler, Chris, Ellen, and Kathy lowered their voices as they turned their attention towards the former couple. Upon Bebe's mentioning of killing, we all knew at that moment that the subject matter was going to turn heads. Kyle, of course, noticed this, but still looked Bebe in the eye. "I...it's not something I actively think about." He looked down at his hands, which were still holding Bebe's.

"You have to admit, it's been on everyone's minds at one point...especially the boys'." Bebe then let go of Kyle's hands as she looked over at me, then Tyler, then Chris. "Do you all boys not think about getting rid of Cartman? Haven't you said he's the reason the girls at our school despise the boys."

Tyler rolled his eyes. "We still enabled his bullshit."

"But it's not like we wanted him to go off on literal killing sprees and such," Chris pointed out.

I folded my arms to my chest. "We didn't exactly stop him either." Normally when Cartman gets an idea planted in his head, I try my best to steer clear of it. Kyle does try to stop Cartman, but he also joins in as well periodically. Butters is the most likely to get duped, which is surprising in this situation given that Cartman ignored Butters for the most part, treating him exactly like how he treated the rest of our class - probably because the Kids Next Door was more valuable to him as his slaves.

"I...hate him more than anyone," Wendy seethed. "I normally consider myself very forgiving, but he is one person I want to pay."

"Consider that he has gotten one of our own peers falsely murdered not even an hour ago," Kathy added.

"But will that make us better people?" Ellen asked.

Kyle looked up at me. "What do you think, Stan?"

I rubbed my chin for a moment. It was a nice philosophical debate. However, there are more pressing matters at the moment, such as getting everybody in the right state of mind. "We'll never know right now, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there. But first, I think it's more imperative that we get everybody ready, and I mean everybody. Understand?" The other seven kids nodded. So therefore, I walked into the middle of everybody and clapped my hands loudly. "ALRIGHT EVERYBODY, GATHER AROUND!"

Fortunately, everyone did as told without argument, and therefore they gathered in a large crowd around me, giving me a radius of 5 years of space. There were a few murmurs among the crowd, but for the most part, everyone is quiet enough that I could speak clearly and everyone could listen well. "So there's thirty-eight of us here, minus Ray and Cartman. Which means it's going to be thirty-eight versus one, since Ray is our damsel in distress right now."

"We should be able to take him on easy then!" Clyde announced.

But I shook my head. "I'm not so sure Clyde. Consider that he's been in possession of the Stick of Truth for some time now, so who knows how powerful he is at the moment."

"So what's the plan then?" Tina asked.

Before I could answer however, Kevin piped up from within the crowd to my left. "We should charge our shields and use photon torpedos to vaporize the Klingons!"

All of us immediately turned towards Kevin, glaring angrily at him. "Kevin, god dammit. Every fucking time, Kevin. God fucking dammit, seriously." I don't hate Kevin, and I'm certain none of us do, but Kevin does get quite annoying with his nerdy behavior at times. He can overdo it quite often.

Seeing our reactions, he immediately frowned. "I'm sorry."

As the other children turned back to me, I continued. "As I was saying, we'll need to assess our strengths one at a time, only then we can figure out our plan. So there's thirty-eight of us, right?" Making sure I faced north where the path ahead lied, I pointed at the space in front of me. "This is what will happen: I need all melee DPS right in front of me in the middle." I then pointed a little bit towards the right. "Ranged DPS will go here." I then pointed off to the left. "And healers will be over to the left side."

The other children began to move towards their respective positions. Butters then asked. "What about tanks? Don't we have any tanks?"

"Unfortunately, I think we're all specialized and built for player-versus-player combat, which means no tanks," I replied. "But of course, we can't treat Cartman as a typical raid boss who can be taunted either, so it's not like a tank would matter anyhow. Does that answer your question?" Butters nodded in response.

The end result was that we had eight healers, fourteen ranged attackers, and sixteen melee attackers. We'd have an even balance of ranged and melee attackers, but Cartman is an asshole traitor, and Ray is his damsel in distress. The healer group consisted of two priests (Lola and Token), two druids (Annie and Bradley), two shamans (Emily and Tweek), and two paladins (Butters and Nichole). The ranged group consisted of two mages (only Kathy and Sally, since Cartman and Ray are excluded), four warlocks (Irving, Jessie, Kevin, and Wendy), all of which who have felhunters, two priests (Heidi and Lance), two druids (Bebe and Preston), two hunters (Ellen with her wolf, and Kenny with his giant rat), and two shamans (Francis and Kal). The melee group consisted of four rogues (Chris, Craig, Esther, and Red), two druids (Karen and Kent), two shamans (Kyle and Melissa), four warriors (Andrew, Hannah, Millie, and myself), two Death Knights (Clyde and Tina), both with ghouls by their sides, and two paladins (Kelly and Tyler). This was as balanced of a lineup as we could possibly get.

"We don't need a tank, we have PvP skills," I reminded. "We're all either Gladiator or Rank 1 players, so we can do this! That said, we'll probably have to dodge stuff, so melee group is going to be at the front line! Attack from behind whenever possible, but prioritize survival first in case Cartman sets areas on fire or whatever! Ranged group will stand clumped up behind, but be prepared to split and separate if needed. Healers scatter yourselves and move when necessary."

"So you're hoping it's just a standard raid fight, is that it?" Hannah asked.

"Well considering it's thirty-eight of us, and one of him with the Stick of Truth, it's my best guess," I shrugged.

"We can definitely kick his ass then!" Francis shouted.

"It won't be that easy," I replied. "We'll need leads of each respective group. So who wants to lead the healers?"

Butters was literally pushed from the crowd of healers into the forefront. "What the- oh hamburgers, I'm lead?"

"Butters!" I yelled. "You're leading?"

"I-I-I-I'm not sure!" Butters chittered nervously. "They put me here!"

"Because you're the best healer here!" Nichole replied.

I knew he was nervous about approaching the lead role, and honestly, it was a bit cruel for the others to push Butters into the forefront when it's quite obvious he doesn't want to lead. Unfortunately, someone has to do the dirty work. "It won't be difficult. You can do this, Butters."

Butters nodded slowly in reluctance. "Alright." Phew, at least that's one issue down.

I looked towards the right now at the ranged group. "Alright, who's going to lead the ranged?"

Wendy did not even hesitate to raise her hand first. "I will!" Well, at least that is easy. Wendy went up to the front.

"And now for the melee..." I looked towards the middle group.

"One-two-three, not it!" Clyde immediately shouted.

"Not it!" everyone else except Kyle repeated.

Kyle looked around at the others in the melee group before glaring down upon all of them. "You're all stupid, lazy assholes." Kyle then pointed at Clyde. "Especially you Clyde, fuck you Clyde." He shook his head furiously before arriving in front of it all. "They won't listen to my speeches, but they'll have me lead this."

"Hey, don't worry," I smiled. "If yesterday were any indication, the way you and Bebe lead us in Middle Park would mean that you'd do an awesome job." Kyle smiled back.

I do mean everything seriously. Wendy clearly loves to be in the spotlight, so getting her to lead the ranged group was no problem at all. Kyle I'm sure is tired and not having anyone's shit right now, but I'm certain that once Kyle gets his head in the game he'll pull through like always. Butters is my biggest worry as he tends to emotionally wilt often, and the way the other healers threw Butters under the bus was quite mean-spirited, and I'm uncertain the healers are taking things seriously. That said, given that we're all quite skilled, Butters will be supported quite well.

"It won't be easy, but we can do this, I believe in you all!" As the words left my mouth, everyone cheered. "Alright, you all have five minutes to get ready."

As the other children split off, I reconvened with the seven who originally accompanied me. "I'm really proud of you all. Without you seven, I don't think we would have ever figured out what Cartman was up to."

"Let's do a group hug to celebrate...but starting with the one most introverted and reluctant to hug others." Wendy took no time focusing her gaze upon Chris. "Sorry, but we're doing this to tease and embarrass you." Well, I'll give credit to Wendy for complete honesty.

Chris backed away slowly, hands out in a halt as he shook them furiously. "W-w-what?! I didn't sign up for this!"

Wendy, Bebe, and Ellen wasted no time leaping upon Chris in a group hug. Kathy, however, was not pleased as she folded her arms towards her chest scowling deeply. "Uh...seriously?"

"I think Kathy seems a bit jealous right now," Tyler teased.

"You can say that again, Tyler," Kyle grinned.

Kathy rolled her eyes. "You're all jerks. Each and every one of you."

Needless to say, Tyler, Kyle, and I laughed at Kathy due to her frustration of watching Wendy, Bebe, Ellen, and Chris hug (though Chris doing so against his own will). "I must admit, I am a bit jealous." I put my hands on my hips. "How do you feel Chris?"

Chris gritted his teeth. "Stan, I will fucking destroy you. This is not as enjoyable as it looks."

"Hey, play nice," Ellen smiled.

"Yeah, be a good sport." Bebe ruffled Chris's head, as his hair was blocked by his own hat.

Kenny then came up to us. "I think we're all ready, Stan." He pointed at the rest of the children, who already were armed with their weapons. They all stared at us, waiting for us.

I nodded at Kenny before looking back at the other seven. "Well, you heard him. Let's get going."

In no time at all, Wendy, Bebe, and Ellen split off from Chris. Chris rubbed his left shoulder as he frowned furiously. Kyle patted Chris on his back with his left hand. "You are so lucky."

"I hate you all," Chris muttered. "That is all."

All of the children gathered around me within the next minute. They all stared at me as if expecting me to give a speech. "Well guys, this is it! This is our final stand! What happens here will echo though...a few weeks I guess?! I don't know, but irregardless of the outcome, Eric Cartman will know that we fought with honor, that we fought for the freedom and safety of our peers back in South Park! We will bring justice upon him! We will bring judgment upon him! Now who's with me?!" Predictably, everyone else cheered. "Let's do this!"

I took the lead, followed closely by Wendy, Kyle, Butters, and everyone else. As we made our way to the mouth of the end of the gorge over the hill, I could feel a soft hand hold my right hand. Looking over to my right, I saw Wendy. "This is it, Stan. Whatever happens now."

"What matters is that we gave it our all, Wendy," I said. "Besides, if there's any time I need you by my side, it's now more than ever."

Wendy smiled brightly at me. "I wouldn't have it any other way." I could help but smile back.

Hand-in-hand, Wendy and I took the lead. And the best part is that we were now backed by everybody. I never once thought that we would make a stand together as one (thirty-eight in this case, but it's as close as we could get). But now, we were all about to make history together, and no matter what happens, no matter if we win or lose, I can certainly now say that we all put forth more effort into fixing problems than anyone else back at home - because that's life: always striving to be better.

Nevertheless, now is the hour of Cartman's reckoning.


Before I wrap things up here, I do want to comment a bit about my previous fics and future plans.

The first Stick of Truth fic was where I made my self-insert OC, who then branched away a bit, but overall, I didn't like the result, and I felt as if the story and characters bent to suit him. Of course, in the end, I'd have to be proud a bit of it or else I wouldn't have made this sequel fic. Though Cole did serve as a basis for my protagonist of SPANG. Speaking of which...

I was particularly inspired by the Peanuts Movie, and how Charlie Brown was a representation of the Schulz's insecurities (at least that's how I saw it). Now obviously, SPANG was much more grimdark than Peanuts ever was, given that it takes place in the South Park universe. So yes, it primarily served as a story form of my experiences and my friends' experiences of bullying at school, which was why the tone was so dark.

This fic was originally going to be just a light-hearted nod to Octopath Traveler, though it did end up taking a turn into the effects of bullying, and to be honest, I do like this result more as I get to use Cartman to drive the plot in a rather logical manner. Despite having less of certain stuff, I honestly think this fic eventually turned darker than SPANG as I saw the direct results of someone who became so fucked up. And yes, I really did make a spreadsheet of every kid's class (and specialization in certain cases).

I guess bullying is a common theme for me in the end. Regardless, let me know your thoughts.