Not exactly a request, but I felt bad for taking forever, and I wanted to give y'all something to read. I DO plan on writing more requests (and have already started) so feel free to leave a few!
This is a teaser for a story I never got around to writing. It takes place early in the story, but not at the very beginning.
When an all powerful spiritual being called a Talahaki decides the world is impure and plans to destroy it, the kids take it upon themselves to beg it for a second chance. After all, it wouldn't be the first time they talked someone out of blowing up the earth. But first, they'll need to endure a divine judgement that only the pure of heart can pass.
The quartet of boys broke away from their huddle to once again face the intimidating drop before them. Their chances may have been slim, but they knew they had no other options. They needed to get past that intricate golden gateway to the realm of the Talahaki. It was humanities only chance. And with no pathway to guide their feet, they would need these supposed 'gifts' in order to continue forward.
"Alright, we've decided." Stan confidently announced, his bright eyes fixed on their golden goal hovering effortlessly in the distance. "We want to take the test."
As soon as the words left his mouth, a brilliant and blinding flash of light burst from the empty space just above the drop, ringing out with an imposing chord of heavenly bells. As the radiant glow began to dim, the looming shadow of a mysterious being came into focus. When the light had faded, the children could see what it was that had appeared.
It was 20 feet long from its snout to its tail, hovering gracefully on the gentle flaps of its enormous wings. Its dragon like form was divided into two halves. The right side was decorated in a beautiful cloak of downy white feathers that almost seemed to reflect a light blue aura. A single antler, like that of a deer, sprouted from just beside its long, fluffy ear. It's whiskered face was lit by its glittering sapphire eye, lined with delicate lashes that maintained a pristine curl. It's wing looked more or less like a birds, coated in long, rigid flight-feathers that displaced the air with the greatest of ease. It was the embodiment of light; of all that was 'good'.
The left side, however, was the exact opposite. An armored coat of jet black scales protected its form, shining with a dark blood red gleam in the sunlight. Where the right side had gentle paw pads, the left was equipped with sharp black claws atop long, bony fingers. It's horn was jagged, its eye pure crimson, it's wing like a bat's with taut skin pulled over a frame of spindly digits. If the right represented good, the left was a manifestation of evil; of the darkness.
"Greetings, travelers." The creature boomed in two distinct voices that spoke perfectly in sync with one another. Its body barely shifted as it spoke, the kids couldn't be sure if its mouth was even moving. It seemed almost like the twin voices were being broadcast from an energy all around them; something they heard not with their ears, but their minds. The beings only movement came from the subtle, rhythmic flaps of its wings which it used to stay aloft. "I am the Guardian of Balance; the keeper of the light and shadow, and the judge of mortal souls. To pass through these gates and into the inner realms of the Talahaki, one must first be granted a Heavenly form, which I bestow only upon those whose hearts prove worthy. If the Talahaki is your goal, then you must first be judged by me."
The kids exchanged a quick, nervous glance. It was easy to agree to a test when no other party was present. But now that the radiant, beautifully intimidating form of this divine spirit hovered above them, they were starting to have second thoughts. This dragon would comb through each and every intimate detail of their young minds, seeing every failing, every sin, every regret. And what if they should be judged unworthy? Would they simply turn back, or did some hellish form of punishment await them? Still, they really didn't have a choice. The Talahaki would soon reduce their world into a nebula of cosmic dust, with Earth long forgotten. They had to convince the Talahaki to abort its plan before everything they knew was destroyed.
"We're ready to be judged, angel-demon-dragon..?" Stan spoke a tad less confidently this time, pressing his feet close together and clenching his hands in tight knots of anxious anticipation.
The Guardian seemed understanding of the children's nerves and offered a knowing nod. "Which among you have you decided shall be judged first?"
Hesitating only briefly, Kyle shuffled a shy step forward. "M-me, your, uh, holiness." He mumbled, pathetically raising his arm a few meager inches into the air. "I'll go first."
The spirits crimson and sapphire eyes drifted down towards the young jew's apprehensive expression. "Step forward and state your mortal name." It quietly explained.
Before he even considered moving his feet, Kyle quickly turned back around to his three comrades. "Uh, guys? Do you think... Maybe?" He stammered, a pink dusting settling on his cheeks. "Maybe you guys could... go? Like, wait over there..? Until after I get judged, I mean..?"
Stan and Kenny's expressions clearly displayed an understanding to the request, but also a deep sense of disappointment. They were so curious, even excited to see what the spirit had to say. How could they not be? But maybe this was more a private matter that they shouldn't be privy to.
Cartman, meanwhile, responded with a sarcastic cackle. "And miss out on your every dirty secret being exposed? No way!" He smiled a slimy grin. "I wouldn't miss this for the world!"
Stan shot Cartman a glare of disapproval, despite the fact that he was somewhat relieved. After all, Kyle would no doubt want Stan to stay if Cartman wasn't about to budge. Kenny, also pleased to know they were all staying, sighed as he approached his embarrassed friend, placing a familiar hand to his shoulder.
"It's okay, Kyle." He nodded, his voice, like his face, buried within his soft hood. "We're all friends, right? More or less? And we'll always be together. Nothing can change that."
"Yeah, we'll all take the test in front of each other." Stan followed his sentence with an elbow to Cartmans shoulder, reminding him that this meant him too. The stouter boy only rolled his eyes. He was willing to put up with the compromise if it meant sticking around for Kyle's supreme heavenly judgement.
Kyle took one last glance at his friends; Stan and Kenny offering a thumbs up and a smile while Cartman only clasped his hands with excitement. Finally, he turned back towards the drop with a deep sigh. Might as well get this over with.
He carefully stepped a few feet forward, his shoes mere inches away from where the cloud path they stood upon ended in a sheer drop towards the mortal world below. Trying not to look down, he raised his head in a false form of confidence, meeting the glowing eyes of the guardian waiting patiently above him.
"My name is Kyle Broflovski." He stated, stubbornly refusing to allow his voice to waver. "I'm ready for your judgement."
Suddenly, Kyle could feel as an unseen field of divine energy surrounded the young child and, without warning, plucked him off his feet, earning surprised gasps from each of his friends. Kyle barely had time to utter a startled "whoa!" as he was quickly lifted into the empty air, high enough that he was now eye to eye with the Guardian itself. Though he knew better, Kyle couldn't help but take a quick peek below himself, and saw to his horror that he had moved far enough away from the platforms edge that the only thing preventing him from hurdling back into the Earths atmosphere at terminal velocity was this mysterious force that he couldn't even see.
"H-hey! Let go!" Kyle began to panic, realizing quickly that no amount of thrashing was propelling him anywhere. "Put me down, now!"
"There is no need to worry, young mortal." The two faced dragon gently tilted its head. "I will not drop you. But I must see into your heart if you wish for judgement."
Cartman chuckled. "Yeah! We want to hear every juicy detail!" He snickered. "Let the dragon do its job!"
"Shut up, Cartman." Stan hissed. "We all know you don't have a prayer of passing this test."
The large framed boy huffed a quiet growl, his fun having been spoiled (almost). Kenny giggled quietly to himelf at how true Stan's statement had been, and how clearly Cartman had taken offence.
"Before I can begin your test..." The spirit suddenly chimed in. "There is one last thing you must do. In order to see your very soul, you must be here before me as your original; you in your purest form."
Bewildered, Kyle tilted his head. "My purest form..?" He parroted. "How is this not me at my purest?"
"All creatures of the world are first born in their purest form, their own base for a potential heavenly body." The creature explained. "No doubt you have heard such saying as 'your body is a temple'. This is because it is you; pure you.
"Humans in particular have a habit of hiding their purity from the prying eyes of others. For at their purity is a fragile innocence that man tries to conceal in fear of appearing weak to their peers. Thus, humanity disguises its form beneath a shell of layered cloth, suppressing that purity and hiding it from the world around him."
"Wait." Stan blurted suddenly, a thoughtful hand to his chin. "You mean, like, clothes..?"
"Yeah, on Earth, what you call 'purity' is what's considered 'indecent exposure'." Cartman exaggerated his words with pantomimed air quotes.
"If a heavenly body is what you seek..." The guardian continued, raising its head to exude authority. "Then I must revert you back into your purest form, so that I may see into your heart and soul and judge if you are truly worthy."
"Whoa whoa whoa, hold up." Kyle suddenly shouted with a rapid flailing of his arms. "You want me to be naked for this!? You're telling me your all-powerful eyes can't see through some cotton and polyester!? Can't I just, maybe, take off my coat?"
Rather than argue the rules of this sacred ritual with the child, the sizable spirit merely shook its head in short, purposeful sweeps as to indicate its stern refusal to budge on the issue.
Kyle gave in with a defeated sigh, his shoulders falling and a brighter magenta stain taking hold of his face. Behind him, he could hear as Cartman barked out a harsh, grating laugh while Kenny emitted hushed sounds of amusement.
"Oh ho ho!" He rubbed his dark gloved hands together in a teasing manner. "Things are starting to get X-Rated!"
Even Stan breathed an airy chuckle at Kyle's expense.
"Save it, Kenny!" Kyle hissed from his hovering position. "You guys aren't making this any easier! You're all gonna have to do it too!"
The guardian figure slowly blinked its heterochromic eyes. "Only man takes something pure and turns it into something to ridicule. Tis the mark of insecurity with one's own self image. But I do not intend to ridicule. Only a pure form can be judged, and only a pure form may be equipped with a heavenly body. So, are you ready to be reverted back to your purest form? Or do you refuse the test?"
Kyle, still catching quiet notes of his friends suppressed giggles, folded his arms across his chest and sighed. "I guess i'm ready." He mumbled, looking away.
In a brief flash of light, Kyle went from fully clothed to completely bare in an instant, his clothes effectively vanishing from existence. Startled by how sudden it had been, the floating child choked out a stunned gasp as he curled in on himself, his hands shooting down to cover where he felt most exposed. He was suddenly aware of the strange warmth the unseen energy holding him was giving off; aware of the frigid breeze at these high altitudes that pricked at his skin until goosebumps had formed; aware of the coarse rustling of his tightly curled hair as it shifted in the wind, free of the confines of his iconic hat.
"Now w-wait!" His words tumbled haphazardly out of his mouth. "Did you really have to take my underwear too!? What kind of divine being are you!?"
"I did nothing but return you to the exact form you were born into." The dragon explained, clearly not grasping any concept of modesty.
Cartmans snickering escalated into a frenzied howl of laughter, absolutely loving the idea of Kyle being left mortified in front of an all powerful being. The others were more surprised than anything, now growing concerned of their own fast approaching turns at being faced with this judgement.
"And now, you shall receive judgement!" The radiating twin voices boomed, suddenly sounding less calm and spiritual and more authoritative and demanding.
The guardians eyes closed slowly and purposefully, then snapped back open with a slight flick of its dragon head. Instead of the crimson and sapphire that was there mere moments ago, both eyes now projected glimmering beams of the purest white light, bathing Kyle in the aura. The very second the light hit his bare skin, Kyle's face, rather than scrunching and squinting in an attempt to protect himself from the blinding beams, instead fell into a vacant stare. His mouth hung agape, his eyes half lidded yet still purely focused on the lights before him, and his whole body began to relax. He appeared hypnotized. In only a matter of seconds, Kyle's eye's, too, transformed into the same glowing white orbs, projecting their light right back at the guardians.
Slowly, almost as if being manipulated by marionette strings, Kyle's eyes rolled to the back of his head. His arms raised and stretched wide like wings, his chest lifted, and his head eased back so his now closed eyes pointed far beyond the heavens. A new light appeared on the center of his flat chest, starting out a dusty blue, then rapidly sparkling and changing and flashing all colors of the rainbow.
The process, the other kids were surprised to find, was not as silent as it first appeared. As the light upon his chest grew brighter and changed in hues, wild wisps of smoke began flying out of him in all directions, each one emitting faint whispers that became clearer as the smoke passed by. They immediately recognized Kyle's own voice in the whispers. Some things they even remembered as things Kyle had said to them on previous occasions. It was as though every important statement that he had ever uttered in his life had been recorded, and now all those tapes were playing back at once.
Some were hard to miss. Things like "Family's not about blood, it's about who you care about" and "I endure what I must for the sake of mankind", as well as things perhaps a tad less poetic, including a rather loud "You Bastards!" and more than a few instances of a threateningly shouted "Cartman!"
As another wisp drifted by the three kids, this one quite clearly shouting "Don't belittle my people, Fatass!", Cartman quickly responded with an angry swipe through the air, attempting to somehow hit the sound.
"Hey! What did he just call me!? What the hell is all this!?" He raged, swatting at every wisp that passed.
"I think they're Kyle's thoughts and memories..." Stan mumbled, studying another smokey swirl as it danced through the air.
"Well I wanted deep dark secrets! Not to hear all the same stupid things he's already said to me!" The larger child pouted, hearing a distant "I beat you, Cartman!" and shouting back an "UP YOURS, KYLE."
Just as the voices seemed to reach deafening volumes, the process ended as quickly as it had begun. The voices fell instantly silent, the misty wisps evaporated into nothing, the glow on Kyle's chest ceased, and he fell from his rigid pose into a new posture of fatigue, breathing as heavy as someone who had just completed a marathon. The spirit, meanwhile, closed their spot-light eyes with an expression resembling a quiet contemplation, as it lowered its head into its chest.
While Kyle continued to catch his breath, he missed seeing as all of the dragons colors and intricate details suddenly vanished, leaving a solid gray, vaguely dragon shaped mass in its place. From its left end, the black scales and details of the dark side of the spirit began to cover the base form once more, making its way to the right. At the same instant, the white feathers and intricacies of the light side began re-covering the gray from the right side to its left, moving much faster.
Light and dark collided somewhere near the dragons left shoulder, leaving approximately 80 percent of its body in the light form and 20 in that of the dark form. A bright white line appeared along the seam where they met, and remained there even after the spirit returned to its natural state of half and half split down the center.
Finally, Kyle fully awoke from his strange trance. He lifted his heavy head to look back at the guardian, whose eyes had returned to their normal colors and whom seemed to have barely moved at all through the entire process.
"So..." He panted between deep breaths. "How did... How did I do..? Did I pass?"
The spirit didn't answer immediately. It lifted its muzzle towards the sky, taking in all of what it had just learned and trying to put it into words a child would understand. While Kyle waited anxiously for the divine beings opinion, Stan stepped forward to offer at least some sort of insight.
"Kyle!" He called out, pointing to the creatures shoulder. "You see that line? Everything to the right of it was light! I think that means you did really good!"
Intrigued, Kyle studied the new glowing seam that decorated the dragons dark half. "Is that true..?" He mumbled, partially to himself. "Is that good?"
"It means that your heart ultimately favors the light, yes." It began. "You are a kind and caring individual who only wants what is best for the masses. You strive to protect those you care about, and you yearn to pass down whatever knowledge you have to offer. You have a naturally trusting nature, and you often see the good in your fellow man. But this has also lead to your being tricked and taken advantage of.
"And yet, with all that light, you still maintain a section of shadow. Though you try to be well meaning, your short temper leaves you quick to anger, which can easily spiral into rage under certain circumstances. You are prone to holding grudges that cannot easily be lifted, and thoughts of violence are a constant within your mind. Passion is important in life, but only when channeled in constructive manners.
"Still, you are young. And a young mind is a flexible mind. You still have so much growing to do, and so many new thoughts and feelings to experience. If you do not learn to release your tension; your grudges, your hatred, your anger; then the darkness can easily over take you. But control that anger, and you will see how your light burns brighter. That is my judgement of you."
Kyle gaped wide eyed for a moment or two, trying to take in all of what he had just been told. It sounded like he did okay? Even though he obviously had things he needed to work on. But did that mean he qualified?
"So..." His hands wrung together nervously. "Does that mean I get a heavenly body?"
The spirit offered a gentle nod, and Kyle could feel his face break into a wide smile of excitement.
"You will be given a heavenly form that is unique to you. Its strength will be reflected by that of your hearts strength, and so will be very powerful indeed. With it, you will have no troubles making your way to the Talahaki. And so, I grant you this body. Use it well"
Kyle had almost completely forgotten about his nudity until suddenly it was gone, a new set of clothes and heavy armor appearing on his figure. Protective, metal plating of silver and gold covered his shoulders, chest, feet, and back. A collar of engraved gold and inset jewels lined his neck, and heavy bracers surrounded his wrists. The clothes, it seemed, were heavily based on his normal outfit, even coming with his trademarked green hat. Except this hat had wings where ear flaps should go, and a huge Star of David marked its front, seeming to exude power.
Just as Kyle began excitedly examining his new accessories, the mysterious force that held him aloft began to gently ease him back down onto the clouds with his friends. Once his shimmering boots were firmly planted, he whirled around to the others with an ecstatic expression, stretching his arms and standing tall to show off every detail of his new form.
The others immediately flocked to him, a chorus of amazed and impressed declarations flowing out of them at a steady pace. They studied every piece, their faces aglow with pure excitement, now more ready then ever to receive their own heavenly bodies. Kyle found himself unable to stop smiling as he heard their little observations about each piece of the outfit, and felt the gentle prods and tugs of their hands grabbing at particularly interesting parts.
"Woah! Kyle, you've got wings!" Stan's voice suddenly announced from behind his newly divine friend.
"I do!?" He exclaimed, straining to turn his gaze around and glance at his back to check.
thank you so much for reading another chapter! As of right now, I don't plan on continuing this story or actually writing it out in full. If enough people like it, though, I would be willing to!
As always please please take the time to let me know what you thought! And feel free to leave me a request!
And if ya wanna chat, you can find me on tumblr under the name frillythingy or CoffeeFueledAuthor.
