Here you go Chapter 8. And please if you have any idea to improve the series or just want to say something, write a review. Constructive criticism is always welcome.
"I'm sorry", Tree Mouse girl said, her face enveloped in the faint glow of the street lights in the mall parking lot. "For what?" "For how I acted back their.", she said ruefully. "It's fine", Mysterion replied attempting to reassure her. "I don't want you to think I'm some kind of fucked up psycho okay. It's just", she paused, "I have a history with these people. I'm not sure if you could tell back there." "I could tell", Mysterion replied deadpan. "And don't worry we all have our demons.", Mysterion said. Oh and also, Kenny thought, psycho chicks are kind of hot.
"Do you have demons?" For a brief moment he considered telling this strange girl he had just met his darkest secret. But he had told his friends, his team, this secret, and they had not believed him. Nobody ever remembered. "Like I said everyone has demons." He left it at that.
"So how are we going to get in their?" Mysterion asked. "Like this" She began to shimmy up one of the lamp posts. Of course. They were arrayed a line right up to the roof of the mall. "Don't try to follow me", Tree Mouse girl yelled down from atop the first lamppost. She was at the top, her legs dangling over the side. "You know I didn't become the most famous superhero in South Park by sitting on my ass", Mysterion riposted. "No, you became famous by being a cheap Batman ripoff and by emanating more angst than Bella Swan on her period.", she snarked back. "Besides I doubt you could do anything like this."
She eased herself onto her feet, her arms stretched out to balance herself on the narrow surface of the streetlight. She looked like a bird. Then she jumped over to the next one. Tree Mouse Girl was like one of those circus acrobats he had seen on TV. Just one post to another. Never stoping. He should have started his own climb. But instead he stood their gaping as she leaped from the last lamppost, onto the roof of the mall above. Mysterion expected her to fire off some sort of taunt. But instead she just disappeared, probably gone inside already, Mysterion thought.
Mysterion looked up at the pole The light shone across his face. It seemed much higher and more intimidating than when Tree Mouse Girl did it. "Well no use standing here", he said to himself, mumbling. Yet he still stood their. "He looked up at it again. I don't want to die again. He thought to himself.
Come on Kenny make like a striper and climb the goddam pole!, he bid himself in thought.. "I don't want to die!", Kenny exclaimed. And that was the end of it.
Several minutes later the door to the mall opened. "Thanks for listening pussy", she yelled across the parking lot at him. Her tone was quite friendly all things considered. "Oh fuck you", he said as he ran though the mall door, a warm smile on his 11 year old face.
—
Tree Mouse girl stayed close to Mysterion as they wandered through the mall, she claimed he would probably know it better than she did. He stopped by the stage where he and his friends had played their big concert that one time. FIngerbang. That was the name of their band, and the name of the only song they ever sang. Kenny had died during the concert and so he had been replaced by Randy. That stupid fuck had somehow managed to convince the band to throw away their chance at fame and fortune. Kenny would have begged them to ride the hype train as far as it took them. But he'd been caused to death by an elevator so he didn't have much say in the decision. He began to hum their song. Finger bang bang bang bang bang.
"What are you doing", Tree Mouse girl asked amused. "Oh just thinking of a song me and my friends made up." "Well what's it called?", she asked. Mysterion was about to tell her but then he remembered the need to keep his secret identity, well secret. "It's called none of your business", he smiled smugly at her. She rolled her eyes.
"How do we find out where the girl's clubhouse is", Mysterion said, shifting the conversation. "It'd have to be somewhere isolated. They probably have to be somewhere secret and isolated, somewhere were some boy just couldn't come stumbling in. Mysterion bowed his head in brooding contemplation, kind of like Batman.
It was super cool. "Hey stop that!", Mouse yelled at him. "Stop what?", Mysterion replied. "Your doing the whole solum brody bowing your head in contemplation thing. That thing hasn't been cool since The Dark Knight." She paused for breath. "Anyway you can stop it now, I think I know where we should go. The basement."
They found their way to an elevator. Kenny was tempted to press all the buttons and go on a joy ride, but he restrained himself. Time was of the essence. He pressed the B button, and felt a slight touch of weightlessness as the elevator began to go down.
Their was a silence between them. She was obviously trying to think of something she wanted to say. "Just spit it out.", he said gruffly. "You have no idea who I am do you?", she asked him, her tone indicated that he should have figured it out by now. He tried to think. "You haven't felt any connection between us?", she asked him. "Yes I did. But I just thought. Well I just thought…", he blushed. Before he could finish his sentence the door opened elevator door opened. And waiting for him and this girl he had known were three new foes.
On the left their stood Jasmine. Her face heart shaped face was uncovered. She wore a green cocktail dress with a belt in the middle. On her side, she carried a nightstick. That was presumably her weapon.
In the middle was the Queen Bee herself Olivia. Like Jasmine her face was uncovered too. I guess secret identities are going out of style, Mysterion thought to himself. She had a flashy golden outfit that matched her golden hair and her gold colored crown. Both her hands held a floodlight. That was her weapon.
And on the right their was Britney. She just wore her normal designer clothes. Mysterious had no idea what her powers or weapons were supposed to be.
"You have got to be fucking kidding me! You guys said girl superheroes were lame. You said they were for ugly desperate girls looking to fuck nerds.", Tammy exclaimed. "Superheroes are cool now. My new boyfriend told me so", said Olivia Plus did you see Chris Evans, total hottie", Jasmine swooned.
"Did your boyfriend also tell you that going full Regina George on your fellow girls was also cool?", Tree Mouse girl spat at Olivia. "You know as a matter of fact he did. She gave an evil little smile.
Suddenly Mysterion was blinded by a bright light. He felt the press of hands on his chest and then he fell over. The blinding light was gone. On top of him was Britney. It would have been hot. Except she was clawing his face with he violent intensity of a cat hopped up on crack. Oh fuck this shit he thought, and punched her in the face. She flew off him. Mysterion got to his feet. "You never thought anyone would fight back?", he asked her, amused. "I never thought you would hit a girl!", she shot back at him. "Fuck chivalry I'm a superhero not a knight", he replied. They stood poised for battle. He could see her legs shaking, hear her heavy breathing. She had no stomach for a fight. She stared him down for a few more seconds, and then she bolted. "Coward" he spat at Britney.
The battle had moved further down the hall. Tree Mouse Girl was fighting Olivia and Jasmine. She was trying to block Jasmine's police baton, and doing a good job at it, by the looks of things, but unfortunately that left her open to attack by Olivia. Luckily for her Olivia had no weapon but her floodlight, so all Olivia could do was slap Tammy across the face repeatedly.
Mysterion raced towards the fight. Fire in his eyes. Jasmine was finally able to land a blow on Tree Mouse Girl. Mysterion's friend instinctively clutched her stomach and keeled over. He burned with rage Olivia kept attacking the injured Tree Mouse Girl, while Jasmine turned to confront Mysterion.
"Hey your kind of cute", she said as she swung her club at him. Mysterion dogged. "Thanks", Mysterion replied sarcastically. She swung at him again. Mysterion grabbed the batton. They grappled over it. Mysterion was gaining the upper hand. She spat in his face. Mysterion recoiled back in astonishment, his face covered in wet spittle,his hands no longer griping the nightstick. She rose her arms up and prepared to deliver the coup de gras, but Mysterion was to fast for her. He dodged the blow and delivered a righteous punch to her jaw. Mysterious felt the crunch of his as his fist hit her jaw. Teeth and blood flew out of her mouth. She was on the ground sobbing. Mysterion felt a pang of guilt and shame in his gut, in spite of himself. He had only been defending his friend true, but still, seeing a pretty girl on the ground sobbing like that, it just made Kenny feel like shit. She looked at him. Her glance was full of fear and loathing. I"m a monster, a freak, Mysterion thought to himself. She ran away. I was just defending my friend I ,was just defending my friend, he tried to remind himself. But it didn't make those feelings go away.
—
With Jewl defeated Tree Mouse Girl had easily been able to subdue Olivia. But before she could capture her, Olivia shone her spotlight in Tree Mouse Girl's face, blinding her and allowing Olivia to escape. "Try and catch me!",she yelled, and for some reason flashed a video cassette. Tree Mouse girl ran after her, rage burning in her eyes. "I'll take her alone you find the TP bandit's file!", she shouted back at Mysterion as she took off.
—
After wandering around the basement for some time he found a room a sign above it that helpfully read GURLZ. Not exactly subtle were they, Mysterion thought. He wondered why the girls would go to so much trouble as to hid their clubhouse in the basement of a mall, but then just put a sign up. "PMS", he sighed. "It fucks you up." His alter ego Princess Kenny had learned this to her great sorrow. He turned the knob and the door opened with a rickety creek.
The club house was empty. Two rows of pink desks led up to a giant pink thorne with a seashell in the back. That must have been for Olivia. Their were two smaller thrones on it's side. They really took the whole queen bee thing seriously, Mysterion thought to himself. The door to the right of the throne room had a sign over it that said Gossip Archives. Kenny shudder to think what the girls in his grade might have on him. And what was it with girls anyway. Meetings committees hearings and rules. When the boys wanted to make someone's life hell, they didn't have form a committee, they just fucking did it.
The room was an endless labyrinth of cardboard boxes and pink folders. If Mysterion had had to search the whole thing he would have been stuck their for weeks. Luckily the police folder was right in front of him. Almost like someone had wanted him to find it. No, he chided himself. It was a coincidence. What was this some terribly written fanfic by some aspiring writer trying to solve a plot issue by using a tired cliche, this it was most certainly not, thought Mysterion.
The file contained no discernible patterns. Just a list of address that had been hit. Their were photos of the aftermaths. So gruesome. It would take them weeks to clean them up. And of course their was the photo of what had happened to his beloved Nascar. Just looking at it brought tears to Kenny's eyes. "You will all be avenged", Mysteiron swore.
Interviews with witnesses. Most of the accounts were unreliable, somebody thought he saw a shadow in the dark. And the ones that were contradicted themselves. The Bandit was always a kid, probably around Kenny's age. But his height, what he was wearing, and if he was alone varied from story to story. Mysterion could check out these leads later.
He was about to turn towards the door when out of the corner of his eye he saw, exposed on a shelf right next to the door, a file labeled, "McCormick Family. "So they do have shit on me", Mysterion said aloud. He could stay a bit longer.
The file turned out to be divided into three subsections. First their was Kenny's. They didn't have much on the poor kid. Just some instances of depravity, some jokes about how poor he was, what drugs he had used, and how he was a "total perv."
Mysterion sighed sadly when he looked at Kevan's file. His brother drank to much, had few friends, was a petty criminal, and never spoke to anyone. "Tell me something I don't know.", Mysterion said bitterly. The only thing of interest was a photo of him on his first day of preschool. He was in the middle of the class, wearing shitty goodwill cloths, but he was smiling and waving to the camera. He looked so happy. "What happened to you?", Mysterion spoke aloud. Of course he cold never ask Kevan that question. At best he'd just grunt and say something about needing a drink. At worse he'd call Kenny a fagot and tell him to fuck off and stop asking pretentious questions.
The bit on Karen was small. Just a single print out of an iMessage conversation between Olivia and her brother Josh. Kenny's blood boiled as he read it. Josh, the little shit, and some of his friends had decided to pick on his little sister for being a "trailer trash slut."
If they hadn't been buying his sister that would have made Kenny laugh. He had tried to take Karen along to meet his friends once. She had barely been able to look them in the eyes. The thought of her even talking to boys, let alone…doing things with them was as far out their as Earth being a reality TV show, or every planet in the Galaxy having only one form of life on it.
She had tried to fight back. Bless his brave little sister she had tried. But when you were a small girl trying to defend yourself against a pack of young boys, you stood little chance of success. And in the end she was vanquished. Rage burned inside Kenny as the child gleefully recounted how he and his friends had forces Karen to the ground, hit her, and thrown dirt on her. He could imagine his poor sister crying. The thought made his insides boil like a cauldron of rage. But thankfully those stupid little fucks had been stopped, he said, when Josh Mayor had intervened and told them to leave. Mysterion closed the file.
Why hadn't Karen told him about this? It didn't matter. He'd have to find Josh and thank him. Josh Mayor was a quiet studious kid, Mysterion didn't think he had it in him to be a hero. But then Kenny was hardly hero material ether. Mysterion would also have to keep a close eye on Karen for a while. If someone told bullies to fuck off, often they just tormented the victim when their protector wasn't around, often with increased ferocity. After a while they'd just get bored and move onto some other sap. That's what had happened to Pip. Kenny found himself missing that dumb French fucker.
Mysterion had seen all he needed to see and again turned to leave. A box hit him on the head. "Ow fuck",he exclaimed, vocalizing his pain as he rubbed the top of his head.
Kenny looked up. It must have fallen from the shelf above him. He bent over to pick it up and take a closer look at the offending box. Upon closer examination it seemed not to be a box at all, but a case. He had seen cases like this at that ancient blockbuster Stan's dad bought, "Fucking Randy", Kenny cursed aloud for no particular reason. Unlike most kids Kenny knew what a Video Cassette was, his parents were to poor to afford any other type of video player for the TV, not that you needed one these days.
The cover was made out of paper, someone must have gone through the trouble to wrap the thing. Kenny turned it over. There were words on the back,stylized, written in black marker.
For your enjoyment Lazerus.
Who the fuck was Lazerus?, And why did he have such a gay name, Kenny thought. Mysterious thought of another gay name. Dovahkiin, Doughebag's real name. That got him to thinking about Butters. God those two were so fucking gay. They were worse than Stan and Kyle. Lazerus yes, he had heard that name before.
It was something in a video game. A game Butters played, he now remembered that much as well. No not Dragon Age ,this one had blue boobs not elf boobs, was it Mass Effect? Yes that was where he heard it. Kenny had heard from his Crazy Uncle Jeff, who had heard it from a Fox News, that Mass Effect was some kind of porno game.
So when Butters had gotten the complete trilogy for his Birthday, Kenny had insisted on coming over to his house to play with him. Of course their was no multiplayer for the Campaign so he had been relegated to just watching Butters play. Their were some tits, but it was no porn simulator, and that had made Kenny very disappointed, especially when Butters spent all his time talking to his gay ass crew. If Kenny remembered correctly Lazerus had been in the second game,near the beginning. That was literally all Kenny remembered about the dude.
After that Kenny had just turned out the plot and had Butters stand around looking at Miranda's ass whenever possible. Finally Butters had told him that Mass Effect was a "single player story centric RPG" and if he didn't want to enjoy the story he should just leave. Kenny had left, disappointed that their was no porn and astonished that Fox News had been dishonest.
Kenny finally exited the room. He found himself looking down at the floor. Only now did he notice that their was a red arrow pointed towards the room on the left side of the throne. "Best check it out", thought Mysterion. Maybe he'd find something else on ether the council or the bandit. The room was empty except for a single TV, enthroned on a cart, and on the shelf beneath that, was a VCR. Mysterion immediately grew suspicious. The convenient location of the bandit's file, the file on his family, the VCR, the arrow on the floor. All these things were clearly leading him on a path. And he doubted the destination was anywhere he'd want to go. And clearly whomever this individual was at least suspected that Mysteiron's true identity was the very un mild mannered Kenny McCormick. Mysterion wanted to turn back but he couldn't. Some part of him couldn't resist the challenge, and looked forward to confronting the darkness that lay at the other side of that trail.
He inserted the cassette tape into the VCR. Maybe this guy wants to be caught,a voice inside Kenny's head suggested. He had heard of criminals who treated their work as some sort of craft and wanted to be discovered so their deeds could be "recognized." He remembered the vague pang of jealousy he felt as they had led Kyle away. He hadn't had to go to spend a cold night in jail for Vigilanteism true, but he remembered the look everyone had given Kyle when he had unmasked himself. The admiration, the hero worship, the dam recognition. A small part of him craved that for himself. "Then how are you different from those sick twisted punks?", the voice inside his head inquired. "I'm a good guy", he reassured himself. But the words were hollow.
The tape began to play. It was security footage , he could tell by the black and white color of the footage and the grimy quality of the video. The date on the bottom, that seemed familiar. The screen showed a parking lot. Two figures appeared, walking hand in hand. As they got closer,Kenny could see one of them wore a certain orange parka. The other was a girl had long streaked brown hair with blond highlights. He would recognize her face anywhere, it was his ex girlfriend Tammy Warner.
He now knew what this was a video of. After his friends had ended Disney's control over the Jonas bothers, and by extension Kenny and Tammy, they had been so happy. That dam ring had nearly turned them into lifeless Grey's Anatomy watching zombies. Tammy had decided they should go to TGI Fridays. Where she had blown a guy. Everyone had thought she was a slut for that. Well she was but Kenny didn't care. She was his beautiful fun feisty girlfriend. And if she was more likely to fuck him than why complain about it?
He had known what she wanted. And he knew he wanted the same thing. "I can't watch this.", Mysterion said, as Tammy led him behind some bushes where she had thought nobody could see them.
He wanted to look away. But a voice inside his head told him that what he found would be important in the hunt to come. Kenny giggled a bit. "To cum". Mysterion cringed a little as he watched and remembered. That experience he had always dreamed about had been an awkward nightmare. The fact that he had died from syphilis didn't help things ether. Kyle was right. He and Tammy had been way to young for that, better to just jerk off.
He expected the whole thing to be over with as he saw the kid in the parka make the worlds weirdest O face. But the camera kept rolling. It recorded him as he grabbed his throat. The color of his face changed to a darker hue, Kenny remembered feeling green. He keeled over. And died. Tammy by his side crying.
Mysterion hurriedly pressed the eject button. This changed everything. All his life he had tried to prove that he died and came back to life. A spark of elation flew through him. He would no longer be alone. He grabbed the tape and raced out of the club house. He entered the elevator, pressed the button and it began to climb to the ground floor. He was jumping for joy inside that metal box. All those years of struggling alone. All those years of silent pain. Those were about to come to an end.
The elevator doors opened and Kenny raced for the mall door. He didn't think about Karen, or Tammy, or even the TP bandit. All he thought of was the ordeal that was about to end.
Outside the mall the air was cold as death. The night was still. Mysterion saw a shadow lounging on the wall of the mall, a bit to his right. "Hello Kenny", it called out in sinister greeting. He sounded a lot like Butters. Only cold, contemptful, and sinister. Not the fake kind like that stupid voice Professor Chaos had, but the honest to god real thing that grew icicles on your spine. But as he got closer Mysterion could see that this was indeed Professor Chaos. He kept coming closer. Mysterion stood to face him. Not making any movement. He was frozen with fear. A terror that struck to the core of his very being. Dammit Kenny was a depraved little coward, but Mysterion was supposed to be better than this. "The darkness sends it's regards", Butters, the boy who had once called Kenny, "the only one around here with any integrity said, as he plunged a dagger into Kenny's throat.
He grabbed at it. The pain. Oh the pain. Poor scared little Kenny fell to the ground. His vision faded. "Oh fuck", he tried to say, but only blood gargled out. The world swirled around him. The doors to the mall swung open. "Kenny!", Tree Mouse girl cried out. She put her hand on his throat. "Oh Ken I'm so sorry for getting you messed up in this", she said as her tears fell onto his face. He remembered who she was. "Tammy", he gargled. He wanted to say so much more. But the blackness took him yet again.
Okay so a lot happened in this Chapter I just need to clear a few things up.
First yeah I know Syphilis doesn't work like I portrayed it, but this is South Park, the show that turned Canada into a Mystical Kindom inhabited by people with Football shaped heads who fart all the time. Let's not let facts get in the way of a good story.
And secondly this chapter had a lot of Mass Effect references so I'd like to clear that up. When the game came out Fox News said it was a sex simulator. Needless to say this was not true.