Chapter 1: Saria

BRIIING!

The short and ever annoying warning bell went off in the hallway with its loud trilling echo, signaling that the students in the hallway that they only had a scant five minutes to get into their classrooms or else they would be counted as late. Kenny groaned as he was fighting with his locker combination today, his mind was tired and a little bit far off after what had happened the previous night. He raised a fist and punched the door, yep, today was already turning to shit, especially since he was going to be late for class.

"Bad mood Kenny?" came a familiar voice to the blonde and he looked over to see Kyle Broflovski, one of his good friends since preschool. His hair was just as red as it had been, but the curls that had formed had started to smooth as he got older (that or he just woke up early to smooth them out), puberty had blessed him as well, there was barely a spot of acne on him. Granted, his form was lanky, but to some of the girls he had become rather attractive; good personality with a high intelligence to boot. It made Kenny wonder that if high school girl cliques made lists, would Kyle be up further? Or would there be controversy that knocked the poor kid down to the bottom. Then again, it had been a long time since those things have happened.

"Just had a hard time getting out of bed this morning." Kenny shrugged as he tried to dial in his combination to the padlock. "This damn thing is stuck though." He muttered as he yanked on the little device, but the lock had given no give. Kyle seemed to chuckle softly and moved over and gently pushed Kenny aside.

"Here, let me get it and you can explain, but you may want to keep it short. Our homeroom teacher won't be pleased if we're late." He replied as he started to click through the numbers, rotating the dial left for a full turn.

"I guess the short version is that I just stayed up late last night. You know, just the usual. To be honest the rest of the night has been a blur, don't recall when I fell asleep. I just woke up to mom banging on the door and telling me to get my ass out of bed." Kenny spoke in a half truth. He had indeed stayed up late, but that vivid pain in his back had told him otherwise. He could remember that white light that had seen from his dead soul, the feeling of plummeting, only to wake up in bed perfectly fine. God, how long had it been since he had told Kyle and their merry band of super heroes that he couldn't die? Too long.

It was too long since the incident with Cthulhu.

To this day, not one person could remember Kenny dying (multiple times), not even if they witnessed a gruesome scene.

"Seriously?" Kyle questioned as he finished clicking the padlock to the right and then with a small pull the lock came free and he unhooked it. "You sure you weren't out getting yourself stoned? Here, you just didn't give it the full turn to reset." he held out the lock and handed it to Kenny, who in turn took it and placed it around his belt loop for the moment then pulled his door open.

"I would remember if I had gotten stoned off my ass Kyle. Besides, I don't have the money to afford drugs right now."

"Hmph, true." Kyle snorted as he held his books under his arm, waiting for Kenny to grab his things, but looked up when down the hallway came the voice of another one of their little friends; Butters.

"Fellas! Hey, fellas! I have some new-!"

WHAM!

Kenny had accidentally opened his locker door a bit too quickly and caused the poor blonde's head to slam right into the metal with a loud echoing noise. McCormick blinked as he looked over and he swore under his breath. "Holy shit dude! I'm so sorry! You okay?"

Leopold "Butters" Stotch, he hadn't changed much since fourth grade. He was still pretty much a wuss, but still his overly friendly self. However, it had only been last year since he had basically come out of the closet. He got all hell ripped on by Eric Cartman, but that wasn't unusual, in the end Butters had been extremely brave to conquer his fear and come out. That had been very commendable and earned respect from most of his peers. With a small whine Butters reached up to rub at his forehead that had a red imprint on it from where he had hit into the locker. "I'm okay, thanks. B-But that's not why I came here!"

"Well then, what is it?" Kyle questioned as Kenny worked to gather his books quickly and stuffed his bag inside and slammed his locker door. Their time was running short.

"I…I heard that there's a new kid in school! And it's a girl!" Butters spoke sounding rather excited, but all Kenny could think about was that if it was a girl, she'd probably be one of those Barbie wannabes like most of the girls had slowly escalated into becoming with a snotty attitude to match.

"Seriously?" Kyle questioned.

"Yeah! Heard from Clyde that she looks pretty cute, he saw her at the main office, but…but uh he didn't quite get a good look."

"That's really cool and stuff Butters, but we need to head to-." Kyle got interrupted and all three of them looked up.

BRIIIIIIIING!

"Ah shit!" they spoke in unison and had to quickly race off to get to their homeroom class for the morning. Off had gone the late bell.

~o~o~

It had been lucky that Kenny and Butters had Kyle with them. The red head had been able to come up with a viable excuse to their teacher that Kenny's locker had been jammed and they worked together to get it open. Luckily, the teacher's believed Kyle; he who had a 4.0 grade average seemed to always be trusted. She had simply shooed them off to their seats.

Kenny sighed as he slumped in his seat, closing his eyes. What was the point of homeroom? It was just another excuse to extend their day. To his ears, he just heard the faint drawl of morning announcements. As she finished speaking she paused when one of the secretaries from the office came over and spoke softly to their teacher, who nodded.

"Yes of course! You can bring her in." she spoke with a smile then she looked to everyone else as the secretary turned and walked out into the hallway. "Everyone…" she paused a bit when the noise level had gone up increasingly since her announcements had ended. Inhaling a breath and looked at her students, watching as a paper ball had flown through the air and collided with the back of Kyle's head. "Alright! That's enough!" she snapped out loud and silence started to follow with a faint snicker once in a while from Eric Cartman, who was sitting back in his seat, grinning wolfishly as Kyle turned and glared at him. "Today, we have someone new joining our homeroom. I would like you all to welcome her respectfully." Her glass covered eyes shot a look to Cartman who acted all innocent now, but she knew what he was like deep down. It was a damn shock kid wasn't suspended yet.

Then on the other side of the room, the door clicked open and almost all the guys turned heads. If anyone could hit a sexy bass tune, now would have been a good time.

The girl that had come in was tall, slender, wearing a simple pair of black jeans with a crimson red tee emblazoned with a lowercase "E" in black that Kenny recognized from before as an Evanescence logo. As she turned she faced the seated students, her long, layered blonde hair fell in front of her face on her left side just slightly, black mascara bringing out the most startling pair of green eyes that anyone had seen. Odd…Kenny felt like he recognized that color before.

"Alright everyone, this is your chance to get to know one another." She reached over and placed her hand on the teen's shoulders lightly. "Would you like to introduce yourself? No need to be shy."

"Yes, ma'am." The girl nodded her head and then offered a small smile to the others and brought a hand up in a slight wave. "My name is Saria Johnson. I just moved here from Nevada." She spoke with a kind, calm tone, she looked at everyone who was kind of staring at her and gave a small shuffle of her feet. "Er…anyone have a question or two for me?"

"Yeah where does she buy her clothes?" Red snickered softly to Bebe and Annie who started to laugh quietly. Kenny gave a small roll of his eyes, really, what was with chicks and their automatic judgment on other females based on clothes again?

"Oh I got one!" Clyde rose his hand and Saria looked at him, offering him the floor for his question. "Can I get your digits? Because you're super-hot."

Saria looked at him for a long moment, green eyes looking at him, searchingly then she smiled, but it was more like a smirk. "I think you'd better get to know me first before you even think about playing phone tag of a booty call with me." She gave a shrug as some of the boys laughed quietly. The teacher cleared her throat then looked at Saria.

"Well then Miss Johnson, why don't you take the empty desk by…" she looked around for a moment, "Craig over there." She pointed to Craig Tucker, who was lounging lazily in his desk, foot propped up to the edge, but on hearing his name he raised his middle finger in a big screw you to the teacher. "Mr. Tucker! Do that again and I'm going to send you back to the counselor again!" she snapped just as the teen quietly walked to her seat, leaning on it. Kenny's eyes seemed to follow her though.

Why did she seem…so familiar to him?

~o~o~

Homeroom had ended without a hitch, though it was very noisy. Boys were clamoring to talk to the new girl, but she didn't seem that interested. The girls on the other hand were glaring daggers at all the attention.

First period had gone by quickly as well, all Kenny did was absently doodle in the margins of his notebook while his teacher yammered on about Biology and plants. It sounded like a duck quacking at him half the time though. Gym class was right before lunch period for him, so as he walked into the locker room to change out to clothes he wasn't going to get dirty with sweat, he found Stan Marsh, one of his best friends just changing out for the period.

"Hey Stan." He greeted as he went to his smaller locker and opened it, stripping off his orange jacket and started to wiggle from the brown tee underneath.

"Oh, hey Ken. Just get back from Bio?" Stan questioned curiously as he pulled out a white tee from his locker and pulled it on. Stan was a star athlete since middle school, mostly football and his body was the perfect definition of that. His muscles were toned properly in all the right places from weight lifting to running to keep in shape for his spot on the team. It was a nice contrast to the raven head's fair colored skin.

"Yep, but I really could care less about the subject, all it's really about is plants and animals and other bullshit like that. Not that it's going to really matter in the real world." Came the blonde's reply as he looked over at Stan for a moment then looked around for a moment. "So where's the fat ass?"

"Probably trying to work out a new excuse on how to not be able to play today." Stan shrugged as he folded up his school clothes and started to put on his gym shoes. "Same as he always is."

"Heh, right." Kenny chuckled under his breath as he pulled on a light orange tee for the class with brown colored shorts.

"Hey, Ken, gotta ask; what's your opinion on the new girl?"

"Huh? How the fuck should I know? I didn't even talk to her." Kenny paused as he looked over at Stan. "Why do you ask exactly?"

"Just curious." Stan gave a noncommittal shrug.

"Oh, for a second there I thought Wendy had something to do with it."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Come off it dude, you know that Wendy can be a possessive bitch when it comes to you and competition." Kenny told him as he pulled on a pair of ratty, off white sneakers that had been worn, there was a small hole in one of the sides. "The way they were glaring it's like she's going to steal all the boys in this school."

"Oh yeah, I saw that. Ugh…now that you mention it, I'm probably going to be facing all kinds of hell from Wendy in study hall…" he groaned and rest his forehead on the door of his locker. It was hard to deny that Kenny was right about his on again off again girlfriend Wendy Testeburger. "Anyway…come on, let's get out of here so we can get ready for the warm-ups." He spoke jerking his thumb over his shoulder. All the blonde could do was nod in agreement and walk out with Stan.

The game of the day was kickball. Mats were set up after the class stretched and had to jog around the gym for at least five minutes. A Kenny observed the others while they took a moment to catch their breath, get a cold drink of water from the fountain, he noticed that Eric had begrudgingly joined; his excuse with the coach didn't go over well, and Saria was nearby as well stretching her body out just a little bit more to loosen up the tension.

"Alright everyone." The coach spoke, voice carrying in the acoustics of the room. Then again he was loud on a regular basis (he did coach the football team and track). "Today we are going to be pickin' teams in a different manner. There's going to be two team captains and they're gonna pick who's going to be on their team. Old school rules. You know the ways of the game as well; first team up kicks while the other team tries to keep them from scoring. Catches from the serving team when the ball is kicked into the air are an automatic out for the kicker. Homeruns are made only if you are able to score into the hoop on the other side of the room. Three outs on your team and you switch sides. Is that understood?"

"Yes, sir!" the class chimed and the coach gave a faint snort and nodded.

"Alright." His eyes scanned the group for a moment before he spoke again, "Marsh, you're on team one and McCormick your team two. Everyone else, line up." Sure what he had spoken had been out of pure favoritism. Sometimes though it was really just to check on some of his players' teamwork, but no one could really give one shit or another, they all knew what it was about.

Stan had given a faint grimace but he lightly pat Kenny on the shoulder, it's not like he even wanted to be the captain. As the other kids lined up, Kenny crossed his arms a little bit as his icy blue eyes scanned them with an eye. To beat Stan's team they had to have a good combination. Soon came the call for Stan to pick the first lineup.

He had chosen Wendy first, obviously.

Kenny took Bebe (hey friendly rivalry couldn't kill a guy)

Second pick came and Stan took Clyde and in turn Kenny took Craig for his team (though Craig looked like he couldn't give a shit). Soon the lining numbers began to thin out and there were only two left; Cartman and Saria. Kenny tapped his finger as he looked at the two for a long moment, Stan was equally silent, both damn well hated Cartman and either way one would be stuck with him and the other would be stuck with the newbie. Stan turned to Kenny and grinned slightly. "Dude, rock, paper, scissors for the last pick. Whoever wins pick first." He offered.

"You're on." Came Kenny's reply as he turned to Stan, resting a fist in his open palm.

"Alright."

One..

Two…

Three…

Shoot!

Kenny grinned and Stan groaned faintly when he felt Kenny's hand cover his in a paper cover's rock way. "I'll take the new girl then." He smirked, motioning Saria over to join their ranks. In all honesty, Kenny's team could have not been more relieved.

"That's kewl, whatever Kenny. Thought we were friends but screw you!" Cartman flipped Kenny off as he moved over to the last in line on Stan's team.

"Alright, since you two are sorted out, the scoreboard will be as follows. Blue is team Marsh and team McCormick is red." He gestured to the little scoreboard resting on the table nearby. "Team Marsh kicks first!" he tossed the red rubber ball to Kenny who took it while Stan's team took their place at the starting, white tape X for home.

"I'll serve first." Kenny nodded voluntarily and the others nodded in return, spreading out. Craig took position at first base, Bebe outfield, Saria went to third defense, Tweek (though muttering something about too much pressure) had went over to the second outfield, and the second base was being defended by Kevin. Kenny moved to the middle and held the ball in his hand and smirked a bit, Stan rest his hands on his knees ready for what was coming.

The moment the rubber sphere went rolling and got kicked clean from the ground by Stan, Bebe missed by a few inches and the first base was occupied. When Wendy came up next she was able to occupy the first base while Stan kept guard on second, prepared to take a dart off to third. Clyde's shot had been overdone however, and landed in Tweek's shaking grasp, marking their first out.

The kick Token had made though nearly sent Kenny's team scrambling. Stan had taken their moment of opportunity to make a run for the first base, locking team Marsh for their first score. Wendy had waited for Stan for a moment and had went off for third. Kenny though took notice and called over for Kevin to launch the ball to Saria. When he did the new girl reached out and grabbed it before turning to face Wendy. The dark haired girl nearly skittered to a stop and made to take a quick turn back to her previous position, but it had been too late; Saria had given the ball a two handed thrust forward and there was a rather pleasing smack when the ball hit Wendy on the back. Token had thought it good to stick where he was for the moment and Bebe went over, picking up the ball and tossed it to Kenny while her best friend took the walk to the back of her team's line.

The gloves were off, the game had truly begun.

~o~o~

As the end of the period drew nearer and nearer, the scores continued to pile up on either end. Stan's team had managed one homerun while two bases were loaded. Kenny's retaliated and got the last out before anyone could touch first again. Kenny's team in the meanwhile had gotten in some good scores. They were only leading by one and Stan's team had all three bases loaded and only one more out could secure their victory. Kenny stood behind Saria as she was having a stare down with Cartman, but then she moved her arm back and sent the ball rolling cleanly.

Eric though pulled his foot back, and it was either by a sudden burst of strength he kicked it and hard, sending it sailing into the air. Saria watched as it sailed overhead, and smack against the wall, rebounding from it.

"Kenny, move to your left and keep your arms out." She told him and Kenny blinked at her for a moment as the ball started to ascend from the air, he took the advice, shifting slightly to his left and he opened his arms. There was a light smack of flesh to rubber and Kenny curled his arms up quickly, in his hands he had the winning ball. Bebe cheered with delight and it even brought a grin to McCormick's face, it was rare, but they had won against Stan's team.

It felt good to win for once in a while.

Stan and his group dispersed to their separate locker rooms to wash off and get changed out from their sweat soaked clothes. Saria rubbed the back of her neck and she waved. "Good game guys." She spoke shortly as she went for the girl's locker room to wash up. Kenny turned and opened his mouth, but she had already gone.

'She is so weird…' he thought as he walked over to put the ball back where it belonged.

~o~o~

Lunch was almost a relief. Stan and Kenny had worked up appetites like something fierce. With a tired sigh he sat at the one of the tables with Kyle, Stan, and Cartman. Kyle hadn't been with them in gym, his was scheduled for a different time frame.

"Hey Kyle, how was your AP class?" Stan asked curiously as he took a bite from the day's lunch; hamburger.

"It was the same as usual, don't see why you're so interested. AP history is like a normal history class, just twice the homework." Kyle shrugged then looked at the other three. "Gym was good?"

"Yeah, Kenny's team beat us in kickball today." Stan shrugged like it was no big deal, but Eric only snorted.

"Hmph, if it wasn't for the new blonde bimbo we may have one, she bitched to Kenny where my super killer kick was going."

"Not like there was a rule against working together as a team fat ass." Stan retorted.

"Ah, screw you Stan! You were trying to show off to your bitch anyways!"

"Don't call my girlfriend a bitch you fucking fat ass!"

Kenny and Kyle inhaled a deep breath and sighed going to their own lunches. This was a typical norm. Kenny reached over and pushed a straw through the box of chocolate milk he got and sipped quietly, looking over to the lunch line silently. He saw the new girl again, back to the others as she was looking through a selection of desserts from the ale carte section. Was she even able to afford it? He shrugged a little bit then turned away to resume the time with his friends.

Down the way at the table that seated Bebe, Wendy, Red, and Annie, they were having a discussion about the latest movie and the hot actor that went with it. Bebe though had been the one to bring it up though. "Hey girls, that new girl is pretty awesome, don't you think?" she asked. "I mean, she did basically help us win the game in gym today."

"Really? She must be a sporty type." Red replied as she took a bite from the salad she had on the side.

"She still dresses weird." Annie shrugged a little bit. "Sounds cool though."

"Oh please." Wendy spoke hotly as she rather menacingly stabbed a tomato in her own salad. "Did you even see how much the boys were drooling over her in homeroom today? I swear they have no respect and I doubt she does either."

"Wendy…" Bebe started.

"I mean she's got no respect for other girls either, the way she threw the ball at me."

"It was just a game though…"

"So what?! Don't you think that's only going to give her more credit with the boys of this school? I'm willing to bet she's going to start whoring herself out and hang off every boy for a week until she's bored of-."

There was a slam as a ruby ring clad finger of a hand slammed onto the table and Saria was looking down at Wendy, a smile on her face, but her voice had nothing more than the venom of a cobra. "Honestly, you should stop talking about others behind their back while you're ahead. You have an issue with me, say it to my face. If not, well…take your damn bitch trash, pack it, and shut the fuck up." She spoke in short terms but she turned, carrying herself and her lunch to an empty table.

"Whore!" Wendy shouted after her, but Saria had given no response to that. The new girl simply sat down, and started to eat looking through her phone idly for some peace and quiet.

~o~o~

Final period, English couldn't have come soon enough. Kenny stretched himself forward on his desk and gave a yawn. The day had felt so slow and boring, but now he was tired body exhausted. Kyle came in and took a seat beside him, Stan was in the desk behind him talking softly to Wendy, and Cartman was in the desk behind him to his left. Saria looked around a little bit as she walked in, holding a piece of paper in her hand, her schedule. Kenny looked up then he saw her move over and stop at the empty desk to his immediate right.

"Excuse me," she spoke softly to Kenny then gestured to the desk, "is anyone sitting here?"

"No, not really, free country. So help yourself." He shrugged then he glanced back, he felt a bit of a heated glare not to him, but from Wendy to Saria. He shook his head and just rest his head down as Saria took a seat beside him. He on the other hand just rest his head in his arms in hoping to doze off for a little while.

He had only been out for five minutes when Kyle elbowed him and Kenny looked up rubbing his eye slightly as he looked at his friend. The red head gestured with his head, the teacher had just come in. Kenny only sighed and flipped open his notebook and tapped the eraser of his pencil against the paper.

The teacher had gone up and had taken a roll-call before nodding to Saria and adding her name to his list, he'd get a fresh one another time. Then he turned and started to write on the board what they were going over for the day. At least with English Kenny was able to concentrate a little bit more, he only took a few notes but he did hear the constant sound of pencils scratching across paper as some took more fervent notes than he. However, as he heard the teacher lecture, Kenny's head dipped slightly as he rest it in the palm of his hand and he began to nod off again.

He overall felt nothing but exhaustion.

BRIIIIIIIING!

Kenny shot up suddenly at the loud noise of the final bell going off and looked around confused as students started packing up for the day and filtering out. "Ugh…what happened…" he murmured.

"You fell asleep dude." Kyle put in as he looked at Kenny. "You really should get some better sleep tonight." He pat the blonde's back gently. "Want to come over and hang out for a while? Maybe it can get your mind off of whatever it is your mind is on today."

"Sure, I wouldn't mind that actually." Kenny replied as he closed his notebook and gathered up his things.

"What about you Stan?"

"Sorry, I have football practice tonight. If coach lets us off early I may be able to swing by." Stan replied as he waved and started out of the classroom.

"No problem." Kyle called off then looked over at Cartman. "You wanna come too Cartman?"

"Really? That's fucking funny, Jew inviting an outsider to their home."

"Dude! I invite you over all the time. Half the time you say no!" Kyle argued and glowered a little bit.

"Psh, whatever. I'll come over." Eric waved a dismissive hand as he got up and headed out.

"Er…guess I'll meet you outside." Kyle told Kenny who nodded in return and they took their leave for the day.

It was good to be free from school's chains for even a few hours.