As Bebe let him go, frowning, Stan pulled a big reel of paper from his backpack. "OK, can I go over the plan now?"
"No, wait a second!" Kyle insisted. Looking behind him, he gestured for someone to come forward.
"What are you doing?" Stan asked confusedly.
Turning back to face him, Kyle explained, "Well, I figured we could use some backup."
"Backup?" Stan frowned, raising one eyebrow.
"Too late to say no now, man," Kyle replied insistently. "C'mon guys, get up here!" Three figures climbed up to the clubhouse. The first to struggle up was Cartman, inexplicably wearing both a parka and a bandit mask with a ninja sword strapped to his back. "MMM MMM-MMM!" he mumbled.
"The muscle? Sure, just keep telling yourself that, fatass," Kyle snickered. Cartman mumbled some more expletives as he moved over next to Bebe.
Following behind him was Tweek, wearing a stupid suit and carrying an encyclopedia. "I-I'm the brains, that's what Kyle said I could do, so I figured I'd get a big book and a suit, 'cause smart people read a lot of books, and I kinda like suits," he waffled in a way that made it clear to Stan that he was pretty much Butters. And a pain in the ass.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Just get over there," Kyle responded, pointing over to where the others were sitting.
Last to enter the clubhouse was Dougie- or at least, what Dougie would look like at their age- who flipped Kyle the double bird as he came to sit down, before slowly starting a cycle of doing it to everyone there one at a time.
Stan came up to stand in front of them, unfolded his reel of paper and stuck up the first sheet. Clearing his throat, he started, "OK. Has anyone here noticed weird things going on?"
Everyone shrugged and looked at him unconvinced. "Like the way everyone's personalities have shifted? Like how everyone's jobs are different? Like how the President is fucking terrifying?" he exclaimed, pointing to the photo of President Blair (that still felt so wrong to say) he'd ripped out of the paper.
"Dude, the President is always fucking terrifying," Kyle replied indifferently.
Stan paused. "That's not the point. The point is, something is wrong, and I'm the only one who knows it!"
"OK, fine. If you're so sure, prove you're not crazy!" Bebe insisted. That gave Stan the perfect idea what he could do to show the situation for what it was.
Slowly he asked, "Um, Bebe... can you come up here?" She did, and as soon as she came up he kissed her insistently for a few seconds before pulling away.
Kyle facepalmed. "I fucking KNEW it! Look, Stan, good for you having a fucking girlfriend, but some of us don't give a crap about-"
"That's not the point," Stan replied firmly. Turning back to Bebe, he elaborated, "You know me. If I was normal, I wouldn't be able to do that. I'd puke up on the floor, because I always do that when I'm around someone I have a crush on."
Putting the pieces together, Bebe looked crushed. "I'm sorry," he added forlornly. Turning back angrily to Kyle, he frowned, "NOW do you believe me, God damn it?"
Speechless, Kyle nodded. Feeling rather sorry for Bebe but unsure if he could do anything helpful, Stan gave her a little platonic hug before she sat back down. "So, back to the point: we need to find someone who might know what the hell is happening before something bad happens."
Tweek put his hand up and seemed to jiggle about in a way more akin to who Stan knew him as normally than who he was in this reality. "Tweek?"
"Uh, well, I have an idea," he bumbled. "We could go up the hill, you know, the one south of town, and find the weird guy who lives there- you know, the big scientist guy who they say is weird?"
Stan was impressed that he'd come up with something pretty clever for once. "Good thinking, man! What we've gotta do is find the guy up the hill and get some answers!"
There was one wrench in this plan. Stan assumed that who Tweek was talking about was Mephesto, who would've been very useful for the situation they were in. Unfortunately, this universe was not exactly going to leave the most useful aspect of the plan intact.
Who they were going to was to prove very unusual, and unhelpfully familiar.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Sorry for taking so long with this chapter, I've been on holiday without Internet for the last week or so.