Chapter 7: Unmasking the Coon
It had been a while since I had patrolled the streets and the Dark Avenger. So far, nothing tragic had happened on the streets of South Park so that eased my guilt. My calendar read that it was early November. The prom was coming up in a few weeks and so far nobody had asked me. There had been a few failed attempts for sure but no boy had the guts to ask me properly and I refused all feeble efforts. I wasn't being mean though, I was waiting for the right person to ask. My dress lay carefully over my desk's seat. Its crystal coloured silk shone in the dim light begging to be worn. It was light in my hands and delicate. The thin silver straps that matched the glittering embellishes hung flimsily. It took me ages to pick out this one, it was perfect. Elusive silver shoes with dainty heels were hidden behind its length which dropped all the way down to the floor.
I forced myself to ignore the dress and its wonders and instead move over to my wardrobe which held something very different. I got suited up in my Dark Avengers outfit and pulled the hood tight around my mouth. The grass below my window was soft to land on, not that my fall was hard anyway. I had glided down gracefully on a wind that I made appear. I was so thankful to be blessed with being able to wield all the elements of the earth. Kenny's house was back up as were a lot of other people's places. Nobody had stayed with us since June, a month after the sleepover. The house was much quieter and in a way, lonelier. Everywhere in the small mountain town of South Park it was quiet and dark. Everywhere except the one place I found trouble.
"Butters! Get over here and help damit!" That voice pulled me up short. I quickly slammed into the wall and peered over the side to see the Coon at his lair. Kenny had been searching for it for ages but had never expected it to be here. What a genius place to have it, the giant storage sheds.
"Uh, I am. Can we please be quick or my parents might ground me if they knew I was out at night," Butters said nervously. What was he doing here? How could sweet little Butters be helping the Coon? It would explain why he was so tense around the Dark Avenger all the time.
"Quiet Butters. I'm working." The Coon's voice was filled with its usual annoying, whiny tone. A fireball formed slowly in my hand as I prepared to launch it. It flew directly for the Coon but only managed to singe a few hairs. Dam, my aim was off.
"Stupid motherfuckers!" the Coon muttered. "Butters, see who that is trying to interfere with my plans!"
"Y-Yes sir!" Butters crept around slowly to see me. I narrowed my eyes. He drifted further from the wall, afraid of what he might see. We made eye contact and immediately pressed a finger to where my mouth would be if it wasn't hidden by the hood. Butters eyes widened. I shaped another fireball threating him and Butters nearly gave me away. He stopped himself just in time and shouted back to the Coon, "there's nobody here. It must have just been a rouge ball or something."
"Do you take me for an idiot, Butters?" the Coon retorted.
"Of course not, Coon."
"Well alright then. And for future reference, it's THE Coon. Not simply 'Coon'."
I couldn't believe I had managed to actually get away with that. The Coon was so stupid! Above me rainclouds were forming and so was a smile on my face. My hands moved in a motion so that the clouds all grouped together in a cluster over the Coon's head; a few hundred meters above him though. The rain started to fall heavily and absolutely drenched the Coon leaving him extremely unhappy about his current state. A click of my fingers and the rain froze, belting the Coon with shards of ice. He hadn't done anything particularly wrong yet but he would. I don't hate many people and those that I do are bad people. I cannot hate somebody with good in them. The only person that I hate more than the Coon is Cartman. The Coon started jumping around in pain trying to get inside but I froze all the locks and handles.
I started snickering at his pathetic self. The Coon's eyes blazed over in my direction. My laughing had given me away. "Very funny joke, Dark Avenger," the Coon sneered.
"It's my pleasure, Coon."
"Don't call me COON! It's THE Coon. Honestly, it's not that hard!" Obviously he didn't get that I was walling him Coon on purpose.
"Whatever, eternal virgin."
The Coon growled and lunged for me. I wasn't expecting it and so the impact hit me squarely in the chest. "Son of a bitch!" I growled sending the earth shaking below us. It opened up and attempted to engulf him but his fatness had saved him. I couldn't open up the crack large enough for his ass. "Looks like being obese got you somewhere," I sniggered.
"Shut up you cow!" The Coon slapped me hard against the face and managed to get in a solid punch before I returned to my senses. I leapt up and plated my foot in his face before ripping his hair downwards to send him tumbling forward. Mid-roll, I kicked him sending him the other way. He could never dream of beating me yet he still fought on. His hands were outstretched with claws extended as he jumped for my face. I didn't manage to dodge him completely and my hood ripped off. I scrambled to get it back on my head but the Coon had ripped out the elastic that kept it tight.
"Ready to be saved yet?" a voice behind me called.
"Sure thing. Where's the rescue team?" I teased. Kenny smiled and leapt over me. The Coon spit out blood and spun around. Kenny soon had him pinned to the ground. It was all over for the Coon. Or so we thought.
"Butters! Now!" the Coon croaked and Butters hastily whipped out a gun.
"I'm sorry," he whispered, his face streaming with tears as he fired. I braced myself for impact but it never came. Once again, Kenny had thrown himself in front of me to save me. The bullet had hit him in the side of his abdomen. It wouldn't kill him but he pleased for death. It was easier than to try to recover from this wound to the kidneys. I snatched the gun from Butters who was weeping over what he had done and pressed it to Kenny's head. He nodded and I felt the vibrations from the gun go through my body. Blood spurted from Kenny's head and I kissed his forehead. I would see him at school tomorrow and nobody but me would remember. I felt a sharp, intense pain against my cheek. I put my fingers to my face and felt blood trickling form a thin wound. The Coon was beside me and held a knife in his hands in which my blood was upon. I saw that the name 'Baku' was carved into the side of it. This was the knife Kenny was looking for! Playtime was over; it was time to get serious.
I sent flames shooting out of my hands which formed a ring of fire around the Coon. My eyes darkened as I pulled my hood over my head to conceal most of my face. I walked through the flames unharmed (fire I conjured could not affect me). "Give me that knife," I said, my voice grinding.
"Piss off you bitch!" The Coon tried to sound fierce but ended up looking stupid and weak. I delivered a punch which knocked him out. I shook my hand which hurt a little before prying the knife from his sleeping hands. The flames disappeared and Butters looked terrified.
"Chose your side Butters. Make your choice the right one." With that, I left and returned for home. I wouldn't tell Kenny I had the knife yet. I wanted him to be with me as long as he could. It was selfish I know but I couldn't have him leave me yet. I turned to leave but I thought of something else I had been meaning to do. I walked over to the Coon wondering who he was. He was still knocked out on the ground. I reached over and slowly began to peel off his mask. I gasped. There before me lay they person I hated the most in the world. Cartman. I gave him a hard kick in the ribs. I always knew he was evil. I spat on him in disgust before I finally left. I would tell Kenny who the Coon was tomorrow, when I would find him alive again.
The prom was tomorrow night and I still had no date. It was infuriating that the right person wouldn't ask me out. My arm was propped up on the table and held up my heavy head. I let out a long sigh.
"I'm sorry. Am I boring you Miss Macadie?" Mrs Garrison called out from the white board.
"No sir," I say in a bored voice.
"I thought teaching in high school would make things better but kids just stay the same no matter how old they are," Mrs Garrison muttered returning to the equations on the board.
"How could it change when we are this scarred by her? Seeing her go from female to male back to female. She can't expect us to ever be normal kids again," Craig mumbled. Clyde snickered at his comment. Cartman walked in late to class.
"Sorry I am late ma'am. My great aunt died," he lied.
"Well that's the third aunt this week. How tragic," Mrs Garrison rolled her eyes. "Just sit down, Eric." I shot Cartman a death look that could have killed. He pulled the finger at me. I knew his dirty secret. Too bad he didn't know mine.
When we were released form lunch I stopped at my lockers to drop off all of my books. "Hey Cassie! I think I know where the Baku is! You have to come with me tonight to find it," Kenny excited yells were muffled by his hood. I didn't have the heart to tell him I had it. I knew he would get mad at me if he knew I had it.
"I can't tonight. I have… um… family coming over," I stuttered.
"You said you'd help me." Kenny's eyes widened in a sympathetic way.
"Stop with the puppy eyes. I can't." I covered my own eyes to keep the cuteness away.
"Tomorrow night then?" I removed my hands and saw that Kenny was being serious.
"No way. Tomorrow's prom." I shoved my book's into my locker and slammed it shut.
"You're going? But you don't have a date?" Kenny protested. We started walking towards the cafeteria.
"So? I'm waiting for the right guy to ask me." I blushed furiously and turned my head away to hide it.
"Whatever, Cassie. I'm not going to prom though so I'm going to hunt that knife. You can join me or go with your dream man." Kenny seemed pretty pissed about it. Guilt sunk into me as I thought of the knife that was under my bed at home.
I sighed. "Where do you think it is?" We sat down at the table with everyone else. They were so absorbed in their own conversations thought they ignored us completely.
"The Coon has it. I'm sure of it."
"The Coon? Are you guys talking about the famous and smart most evil super villain of all time?" Cartman piped up.
"More like the stupidest. I heard the Dark Avenger now knows who he really is!" Wendy joined us at our table.
"Yeah! And apparently he's in our class!" Red dragged another table to join ours. There group had merged in with ours. Suddenly our conversation was the most interesting one.
"Who is he?" Bebe asked aloud.
"Well there's only one fat ass in our class," I sneer.
"Yeah, Cassie's right. It's Token!" Cartman announces.
"Hey! I'm not fat!" Token complained.
"Uh huh. You've gained like 40 pounds since summer!" Cartman retorted.
"Only 20 pounds. I still weigh less than you, butter rolls!" Token growled.
"It doesn't really m-matter. The Dark A-Avenger knows who they are and t-they're dead m-meat," Jimmy stuttered.
"Timmy!" Timmy shouted.
"Yes! The Dark Avenger does g-go to this s-school too!" Jimmy agreed with Timmy.
"Does she?" I played along.
"Apparently so," Nichole nodded.
"There's no clue of who she is though. We've only seen bits of her face because she always hides it. Even in hospital it was hidden. Heck, we didn't even know she was a girl until lately," Butters said. "She kind of scares me to be honest."
"Why? She seems nice." I munch on some of the food on my plate.
"She's so dark and mysterious. She's also intimidating with all her special powers. She beats people up too!" Butters looked worried.
"Only the bad guys," Craig said. Butters looked down at his food and started playing with it but not eating.
"I think she's great!" Stan had cleared his plate and re-joined us at the extended table.
"That's only because you think she's hot," Kyle pointed out.
"So?" Stan grinned. I shot a satisfied look at Kenny who rolled his eyes.
"I think she's an amazing role model for females to look up too," Wendy stated. Everybody except me groaned.
"What?" I asked.
"In 4th grade she had this thing about role models. Then all the girls started dressing like skanks and idolising Paris Hilton and we had to suffer Wendy pointing out how wrong all of us were for following her example," Bebe explained.
"Wow. Lots of stuff seemed to have happened here. Back in California at my old school nothing happened," I said.
"It's not that great having everything exciting all the time," Cartman said.
"We've had heaps of people killed my senior citizens," Bebe said.
"And we had those Satan worshipping critters that wanted to take over imagination land," Stan added.
"We had the Jefferson's who were really Michael Jackson and his son," Kyle shivered. "I swear Mr Jefferson was a pedo."
"Wall-mart nearly took us all over," Kenny said.
"Britney Spears blew her head off and we had to help her," Stan said.
"Then there was the economic crisis," Red said.
"Butters became a pimp," Token contributed.
"The Scientologists converted me but not before the Mormons did," Stan said.
"That's funny guys," I laughed.
"No really. It actually h-happened. And t-that's not even half of it," Jimmy said, convinced.
"That was only 4th grade," Butters said.
"You're kidding. How is that even possible? What the fuck is wrong with this town?" My eyes must have been the size of saucepans. Kyle shrugs.
"You get used to it," Kenny mumbles.
I went home thinking about the absurdness of the town. I had an idea to reveal the Coon to the town in front of everybody. That would stop him. The only thing is I wanted to do it in a way so that it could surprise even these wackos. The best way would be to do it tomorrow night at the prom. But how could I lure Cartman into the prom as the Coon?