Chapter 12: Unknown Status
Outside the streets, 3:30 a.m…
"(*Yawn…)"
Jonathan yawned tired and cold while he accompanied the moon in his calmness and quiet. For a person really well known for his inordinate strength he wasn't the type of guy who found his comfortness inside the intense field of action. Just like a real intruder from his own team, he is the most passive and wiser out of the reversals, a guy not really attached to the nonsense violence and instead preferring to seek the path to inner peace.
On his hands resided a great power, a grand force not really compatible with any other one of his foes, a strong force out of this world. A dangerous force living with him. However, contrary to the antics of his Earth counterpart, he was for centuries, fully aware of what he had growing on his hands, a dangerous gift destined for chaos, a power only tampered by the strong minded, a dark curse following him again.
He has a strong force flowing through his veins, and his responsibility is to control it at all cost. He can't let himself be driven by emotions or any sort of menacing temper.
He was partially quiet most of the time. He didn't feel the necessity to speak if there was nothing relevant to talk about, making him from the most part the shy of his group.
His partner however, wasn't much of an alphabet soup.
On a similar note RKenny wasn't as highlighted as a prominent talker, you couldn't even say if he was spelling since he dropped out long ago the necessity of formulating words or even the alphabet. If Jonathan in that way was too firm, RKenny was practically a manikin.
He never spoke a word, nor even had the feel to do so. His already grimm presence told you everything you needed to know him. Only a reduced sector of his social circle were the only ones who understood him, those being people of the caliber of Elik, his former friend and leader of the team, and surprisingly Sebastian too, even if it was for a few words.
To top it he only showed up when Elik demanded his presence, making him even more mysterious than the angel of darkness itself. He never spoke, he never cried, he didn't reveal his face or a smile. He just preferred to be there, unmoving, watching, listening, to witness any important event that could satisfy Elik's wishes.
He just liked to exist, like a shadow without his porter.
The continuous monotony between the predominant silence and the melody of the crickets slowly started to annoy Jonathan, knowing that even with his socks still wet he at least wanted a little distraction that could shake him from his previous bath.
He decided to start a conversation with RKenny, not sure what to tell him but still being curious.
"So… Kenny! Uh… Have you been… uh… working out recently? Heh, You look taller than when you went to Candace's birthday two days ago. Are you holding up well?"
"..."
"Heh, yeah… I thought so. You know? Call me nuts but I have a theory, maybe you're taller thanks to the extra 8 pounds of cookies you ate back there in the house, either way, I'm still amazed. Only you could detain his resistance. I'm sure your shadow realm will bear with his tantrum…"
"..."
"Speaking of witch, how do you do it? You really seem to have a big place down there to make two humans fit in a row."
"..."
"How big is it? Is it really that ultradimensional as Elik says or you just wanna go to bed? Because for me I'm already done with this mission…"
RKenny kept himself quiet as Jonathan predicted, not surprising him in the slightest but still feeling unsatisfied, so he kept going with the talk.
"Uhh… Kenny, you know I'm not making you respond so at least give me a sign you've kept my words. You could use them more often in case you feel bored, if you know what I mean…"
"..."
RKenny persisted with the silence, but he immediately turned his head to him, giving him a cold stare followed by a small reprise before looking back and straight ahead.
Jonathan retained this, it wasn't like he was just gonna receive a hit, he could've defended himself too easily but the strange aura surrounding his partner was the only thing keeping him in alert. It was clear that RKenny was a disaster at bringing conversations to the table, for not to say nulled, so he decided to change the tone of his words.
"Okay, so uhh… you know? I've never seen Elik so invested in something. Sure, the reconnaissance missions are already a pain in the head, but he still managed to study every single centimeter of these lands just to make sure his master plan would go on as planned. Is incredible that somebody who hasn't been really active on this corner of the universe has adapted and learnt easily from this weird society. It's even better at hunting than me. You won't think he's better at hunting than me right?... Friend?"
"..."
"Nah, of course not. I'm still the best pest controller. Still, I will give him the benefit of the doubt, when he and Sebastian told us about the existence of an alternate Thera, with an alternate Reverse Town and with a much faster time plain I thought those two had lost their sanity, with one lost on his thoughts and the other seeking vengeance. But no, they were right, in here the energy flows… really… fluently… Is like having a blanket covering your head. It's tangible, but good. These humans sure have built up to themselves a good defense system here, knowing how powerful and how far they can go if they wanted to push things far. I'm sure they find the comfortness with the crickets sleeping in their cells…"
"..."
"Heh… comfortness. That has to be their Trojan horse. Speaking of horses, this is actually the first time I met with another one sharing my last name, I'm kinda surprised they still use it. Well, I mean, he's not really that different from my look but, well… you know, he must really have a complicated life out here. I have never seen someone with that tamper flueing his veins. I'll have to make some changes around here if I want to regain some decency here, it's vital for the Cartmans' legacy. What about you, friend? How was your counterpart?"
"..."
"Out of words huh?"
"..."
"Great..."
Knowing that this conversation wasn't going anywhere, he puts his hands inside his pockets and sighs with unison before quickening the march again. Even with the cold water dried out of his clothes, he still had that heavy weight carrying on his head, making him feel more tired after being defeated by his own counterpart and being thrown into a lake.
But well, he couldn't do anything else apart from. Everything was part of Kyle's master plan.
"(*Sigh), C'mon now, let's just find Elik. I really wanna get a new pair of socks…"
While Jonathan was making some footsteps he didn't notice the apparent distance that was drawn between him and RKenny, being almost 5 meters away from his own position. While his partner was whining with his own monologue RKenny noticed something, a signal coming from far away, stopping his walk abruptly to witness it. Jonathan, confused, approached his former friend, ready to talk to him again, even if he wasn't finding a response.
"Ehm Kenny? Is everything right in place?"
He didn't respond to him, he didn't need to, he just reached his arm and pointed out to the trees, showing him the little rail of pink fog emanating from the forest. If that fog was erupting strongly, that could only mean one thing.
"Oh… dear…" Jonathan said finally, exiting from his trance while yawning out of pure tiredness.
"Things have really gotten out of hand, don't they?"
Returning back with Kyle…
What would you do if a trail of smoke incited you to seek down the depths of a forgotten forest?
That was the dilemma that Kyle and his friends were facing when they came across the pink trail of magic purpurin that spread over the neighborhood street. Whatever it symbolized, whether it be weirdness, anger or an oversight, it could only mean two things: A new opportunity or a really bad delusion. Either way, it still persisted, and Kyle didn't know what to really do.
"Is this what I think it is?" Stan asked Butters.
"Indeed…" Butters responded to him.
The trail of pink fog, this time more weak than before, followed the thin road from the street where the house of Wendy was stationed, heading straight up to the forest of the east. Maybe that witch was indicating something, or maybe she just forgot to turn off her magic, but that new trail was perfect to know where those reversals were heading next, and establish a new route where Wendy could now be.
"Why are they carrying her back to the forest?" Kyle asked, confused.
"I don't know Kyle but, now that I think of it, doesn't that direction lead to that small rock bridge we have around here? Maybe they also feel confused or they just want to quit social media…" Butters said.
"Butters, no one goes to a bridge at night just to delete some dumb accounts…"
"You don't do it Kyle? Everybody does it! I deleted my WoW account last year on the Fremont Bridge…"
Kyle remained silent for some seconds.
"You deleted it… On a bridge…"
"Yeah! You see, Cartman was really pissed off that I had his same avatar class so after searching through a lot of classes I instantly picked out a kitty one since I l-..."
"Alright Butters, ok. I don't really wanna know about it…" Kyle told him.
Stan, while ignoring them, inspected the fog, noticing how it was slowly vanishing through his eyes. If they continued with their bailing about dwarfs and kitties there will be no trail to be followed and consequently they could lose Wendy for good.
If they wanted to find her now, they needed to move fast. Really, really fast.
"Butters, you said that in this direction we end up on that small rock bridge from the east, right?" Stan asked Butters
"Um… Yeah…" Butters told him.
"Well then, c'mon…" Stan said as he started to move again
"What?" Kyle said, confusingly
"Let's keep up…"
Stan had already retook the march once more until his best friend stood in his way, not letting him go further until they thought of a new plan.
"Dude!" He exclaimed
"Kyle…"
"What are you doing?" Kyle asked him
"I'm going after those creeps. If they have ended up kidnapping Wendy, only God knows what more aces they have up their sleeve…"
"Yeah Stan! I know alright, I get it!... But…"
"But what? Do you have a better idea?"
Kyle didn't respond to him, he was too conflicted to even know what to do, which only made Stan more tired of Kyle's assumptions, letting himself sigh in annoyance.
"(*Sigh), Kyle, I'm starting to get pretty tired about this, your evil you just kidnapped Wendy while we were as still as wax statues, they broke into her bedroom while we were bailing on the phone and now we've more than a clear proof of what these lunatics can actually do. What else do you need to see just to get convinced that this is actually a BIG f*cking problem?"
"Stan! Listen! I get it! I get it, ok? I'm not the only one around here that would definitely want to take a bow and go after those freaks as I speak but dude… let's not jump to hasty conclusions, we need to be more smart. C'mon! What if this is another trick? You've already seen what that forest witch can do with her magic and what happened last time we followed that stupid smoke. Maybe she wants us to follow her again so they can ambush us directly…" Kyle tried to explain to him, but Stan's feelings interfered.
"Hasty conclusions? Kyle! Wake up! These shadow people or reversals or whatever they wanna be are no business at all! Just take a look at her bedroom dude! Take a look at it! If they are capable of THAT, then God only knows what they will do to her next!"
"Yes dude, and that's why we need a plan! We can just go around and throw ourselves at the tiger hoping not to get bitten! We need to think this better, we need to understand our options!…" Kyle tried to explain to him again, but Stan persisted.
"Grr… think better or be better? Because with all the excuses that you're spouting at me I have a strange feeling that you just don't want to get involved in any of this…" Stan spouted at him, causing Kyle to be incensed with him.
"Um… fellas? We should try to call her parents, I mean, I don't wanna break the mood around here but I don't believe that they have not just heard her son's bedroom explod-..." Butters tried in vain to change the topic in order to seek help, however, the two super best friends were still bitter with one another.
"What the hell? It's not a matter of excuses Stan! It's a matter of having a prediction before falling in more dumb traps! I'm sorry you can't see that when you act like a kamikaze…"
"Oh! Do you really think that the stupid trip to the forest was a dumb play of chess? If we want to find her quickly we'll need to follow up their traces now before we get drowned into more stupid wonders!" Stan told him, pretty annoyed by his attitude.
"Fellas-..." Butters tried again to cut the discussion between the two boys.
"Dude! Focus! We are not sure if it's safe! I'm not the only one around here who doesn't want to have his head explode like Wendy's whole bedroom!"
"We aren't sure unless we find out!" Exclaimed Stan
"We won't because we won't follow them!" Kyle responded to him.
"Maybe you don't wanna follow them because you're actually scared!"
"And maybe you just wanna persecute them and explode like a f*cking D-...!"
"FELLAS! Cut it out!"
Butters shouted angrily after their bitty argument started to get more erratic. He wasn't sure to stop them since he didn't really want his insults to attract more of those so-called shadow people as he was scared to even face them in plain sight, but he was more worried that the discussion between his long-time fellas would attract more unfortunate encounters, so he had to stay ahead and break their stupid discussion.
"Jeez Stan! Kyle! Stop it already! Our classmate Wendy has been kidnapped and the first thing you guys do is to start stupid dumb fights! How the heck we're gonna think better if those shadow monsters are already a thousand meters away from us! Ugh! Stop acting like children and let's get into business NOW!"
There was a brief silence after Butters' burnt out, with Kyle impressed by Butters' words while Stan was looking somewhere else. Then, with tears forming on his weak eyes, Butters crouched to the ground with his hands covering his face crying with so much desperation as he feared being vulnerable around those circumstances.
"(*Sniff), I just… (*Sniff), I just wanted to have a good time with you fellas! (*Sniff), For once in my whole life I just wanted to spend a good time with all of you! I didn't want to get chased in a forest or be locked up in a bathroom! (*Sniff)... (*Sniff)... W-... Why? Why does everytime that I try to be around people something chaotically ruins it! (*Sniff)... My parents are really going to believe that I'm a lost cause making friends and they're gonna ground me for that and even for wandering outside! Especially in the middle of the night… (*Sniff)..."
Butters said between sobs, letting everything be out of him as he cursed the misfortunes of his life that prevented him from having a nice time with his friends and colleagues from school, especially for the reversals that appeared and ruined their slumber party, not for nothing he was also sad because it was the first time in three weeks that the 4 boys actually invited him into one of their hangouts.
Kyle looked at him feeling guilty as he never wanted him to get involved into any of this shadow troubles while Stan just looked down, trying to ignore the things that he said, but in reality feeling really ashamed as well because everything that Butters said was completely true and they should have went straight to her search instead of pulling each other's ears like stupid dogs.
Kyle approached him and tapped his back.
"Butters…" Kyle told him, trying to gain his attention.
Butters quietly raised his head to see him, with tears still covering his face.
"I'm sorry… I didn't mean for any of this to happen…" He apologized to him.
"We will find a way to fix this…"
"(*Sniff), I hope…" Butters told him.
Stan, not being able to tell him a few words, took some steps to where Wendy's mobile phone landed, taking her now broken phone while examining it with sadness, looking at the glitched screen where his last call was still hanging up in the menu, a call directed to her, a clear warning for the inevitable.
Wendy, despite not believing him at first, never dared to hang up on him and remained in contact until her unfortunate kidnap. He knew it couldn't remain like this, he was sure it couldn't. He told her that they were coming to rescue her and that will be his reason to go against those monsters, even if that meant to follow the trail of pink smoke again.
"You're right… Yes, you're absolutely right Butters… We're just losing time with more dumb arguments than usual. Wendy is in danger and we should immediately go and rescue her from those monsters, so that's it, no more talks. Let's get straight to the point…"
Stan said, now more decided as ever to follow that pink trail of smoke even if it meant to deal with her counterpart's magic abilities once more. However, he still had to stop when Kyle grabbed him by the arm, warning him to plan this better.
"Dude! Please, I don't want to stop you from doing this, but I also don't wanna see you disappear too. You need to understand that we're facing powers we don't comprehend yet. Please, I'm telling you this because I care for you four, and Wendy of course. Let's try to seek help or plan this much better…"
Stan, although he was visibly tired of Kyle's attempts to not make him go further, understood the good intentions of his super best friend to risk anyone else in danger nor even getting slip apart again, knowing the big problems that would led to especially not knowing the status of them, especially for Kenny and Cartman as they never responded them back in the forest.
But despite this, he also started to get nervous unknowing the status of his girlfriend Wendy. For what he could recall about those beings, those so-called reversals, they weren't no business to be joking around. They weren't like the Underpants gnomes who enjoyed disrupting inside houses in order to steal underpants or the Crab people who were always seeking world domination and impersonation of humans although they were easy to handle with some good use of fireworks to display. Heck, this wasn't even the last time he encountered copycats of themselves, the evil boys from that parallel dimension and that ugly clone of his created by Doctor Mephesto were memories that Stan retained well so he could make himself remember all the phenomena that this town was capable of generate every week.
However, this sudden hit of destiny was different for him. These people got everything planned from the very beginning, they tracked them down when they didn't notice them, they diverted popular attention just to avoid help calls, they even got rid of anyone who stood in their way and now they have the nerve to use innocent people in order to make their sick plays.
Yes, it was like what his counterpart told him before:
"I'm telling you that I'm you, and I know EVERYTHING about you…"
He knew they were doing this to lure him, to lure them. To meet their copycats now with more concern, and he couldn't risk bringing any more innocent people in these situations as Liane, Eric, Kenny and now Wendy were facing because of them, because of him, so while taking a deep breath, Stan opened up to Kyle about this situation.
"(*Sigh), Kyle, listen… I understand you, ok? I don't want to disappear as well, and I surely don't want to put any of you at risk because of my own actions. Believe me, I have already faced a death stare for one night and I don't wish any of it even for my worst enemy… but…"
Stan told him as he turned a little just to not face Kyle. He didn't want to let him see his eyes becoming glassy out of fear.
"I can't let them get away with this…" Stan told him as he faced him again, now with little tears forming on his retinas.
"When I was trapped in that basement… alone with that monster… and astonished at what I found inside that deep hole… It was the first time in a long time that I was genuinely afraid. So afraid that I couldn't move, so stunned that it actually affected me. The things that copycat told me were… genuinely… horrifying, to say the least… "
Stan, as he explained to him, remembered his counterpart's face. The grim face he made to him while he recounted his past events and the nervous laugh he made every time he took the bait against him. It was like rewatching past events but with someone covering the screen. It was unnerving, especially when he was subjected to the weak growls of Cartman's mother from deep down the hole as he couldn't do anything to help her too. He didn't want the same thing to happen with Wendy too. If they did something horrible to her, he would not forgive himself for it.
Kyle listened to him as he kept noticing his worried face, wondering what Stan's counterpart told him while he was trapped with him inside the basement.
"Stan…" Kyle tried to call him out, but Stan didn't finish yet.
"...I don't want Wendy to pass through the same thing as me, so this is it. I'm going after them, Kyle. I'm gonna follow this pink magic trail if it leads me to her. I don't care if it's another cheap trick, these guys are already one step ahead of us and with each stop we make the more harm they will do, so… (*Sigh), Unless you guys have a better idea, stay here or call for better help, but I'm not gonna risk any more innocent lives because of our stuff. I've wasted enough time making that stupid call, I'm not going to waste any more time letting her go through this too…"
Kyle remained silent as he stood there listening to Stan. For one part, he was about to stop his footsteps before he could wander more afar, as he was unsure about the unknown dangers that hid behind that trail of pure magic or if Stan was too stupid to even comprehend the dangerousness of the situation, but for the second part, he stopped dead in his tracks.
He has known Stan since they were little and he could tell when he was being sarcastic, serious or even sad, but what he saw in him now was just a grim sensation of fear forming through his eyes. He didn't know what really happened during that time he was trapped in that basement, but he could tell that whatever it happened in there it affected his friend so much that he thought it would, not for nothing he rushed straight to save him the moment he saw that copycat choking him like a rubber stick.
By that he could tell that these people have no boundaries regarding what people they should get rid off or how far would they go to have their master plan accomplished, as his doppelganger told him, "Weak dialoguers will be replaced by arm-strong leaders", and he was about to do that to him. If Butters hadn't interrupted that situation he would be dead by now, as well as Stan would be dead too if he hadn't looked up down there in the first place.
Heh, what would he have done instead? His super best friend was in danger, of course he got worried at that moment! So he could understand that Stan would be especially worried about Wendy's safety as well, after all, she's his girlfriend, of course he would get mad about those people!
Still, he didn't want to take any more dangerous risks, knowing the true nature of these people, so he tried to call him out to establish a much better plan once more.
"Dude…"
"And dude, once all this is over, I'll be glad that you explain to us what the hell happened to you and to that other Kyle a lot of years ago…"
And with that, Stan walked away, following the pink trail and heading to the east while ignoring everything else. Kyle reached his hand to him in order to try stopping him but quickly glanced back while he looked at him from far away the street.
"(*Sigh), Stupid stubborn…" He whispered at him as he pulled his ushanka down.
This was just ridiculous. Most of their common adventures occurred because of random events, incidents that they couldn't even handle, but this time he couldn't take out of his mind that all this copycat problem was somehow his fault. His past encounter led him to this, which consequently led it to hurt him and their friends, and consequently it led to Wendy's kidnapping.
They needed to save her, he needed to save them. If this wasn't resolved tonight, who else would be the next target?
"So… What do we do Kyle? Do we stay here and call for help? Call her parents? Call the police…" Butters asked Kyle as he got up from the ground, knowing that the tension between the two boys finally cooled down.
Kyle didn't know what to tell him since he was just debating what to do next: stay and seek help or go and face that witch again.
"(*Sigh), Let's just try not to leave him wandering alone with that stupid smoke. In the meantime, let's try to contact Kenny or Cartman, or even the cops, if there's any signal left in the forest…" Kyle said as he retook the march once more, trying to reach his friend.
"Hm, great unforgettable sleepover…" He said ironically.
"But fellas wait! Don't leave me here… alone…" Butters tried to tell them but by the time he said that they had already left Wendy's backyard some moments ago.
He sighed tiringly as he clenched both of his knuckles. With him being the only one alone in that place, he said to himself in a resilient matter:
"Oh, hammies. I knew I should have just accepted that family trip to Los Ángeles again. How would aunt Nellie react when I tell her about my escapade through the woods again?"
And with that Butters and the rest followed that trail of smoke, uncertain of where it could lead them. Kyle wasn't sure of what could potentially happen to them, but apart from his obvious intrigues, he couldn't let Stan or Butters wander alone in the forest, not at least without some company. If they were going to rescue Wendy, they would do it together, as they always do.
A few more meters away from them, Wendy…
"Grr… Are you sure we need that bridge, witch? I could finish the job right here…. "
The frozen closure of her forced sleep didn't make her ears not parallelly function. Wendy, despite being somnolent, was able to hear the voices of the ones who tampered her dreams, alongside her space and sleep in her real self.
"Yes, it's essential Elik. Just because we take some time to go there doesn't necessarily mean it won't work…"
"Heh… It better not. Otherwise I don't know who will be the one that's gonna remove the mud from my sole..."
Wendy, still enchanted by the pink fragrance, slowly started to regain her senses as the magical effect of the fragrance finally started to fade away, making her recover her thoughts, her ears, her eyes and her own self as she woke up from her bad sleep. When she regained her senses she instantly felt floating through the sky, something that made sense since she was really floating above ground, thanks to a magical bubble that Wands specifically created in order to keep her locked.
"Uhh… What the?" She tried to say quietly between yawns so they wouldn't be able to hear her.
She looked around the bubble, noticing that she was being dragged to the forest by her captors Wands and Elik, with the girl from her dreams suspending her in the air, preventing her from moving anywhere far away.
Wendy, clearly upset, noticed how even trapped she could still breathe inside that bubble. Maybe they weren't going to kill her but rather drag her somewhere else, to a place that Wendy didn't want to know, predicting they were likely going to get rid of her in there.
No, no they won't, she was going to escape from them, at least try to. Despite her confusion, she noticed how the material of the bubble was moldable enough to crack it, so by taking her gloves off she pulled both hands on the surface of the bubble, digging in both nails in order to break it.
"Grr… C'mon…" She whispered in silence.
She dug deeper, using all her brute force from the moment. It was like trying to rip cotton from a fancy purse, a really cheap fancy one.
After some struggle and tooth clenching it seemed like the fine texture of the bubble was already going to break in half. Soon, with the required time and the perfect stealth, Wendy could finally free herself from that magical trap.
"C'mon! C'mon! C'mon!"
Or so she thought…
"If I were you I wouldn't do that sweetie. The last one who tried doing that ended up more crushed like a crumpled ball of paper…"
Wendy obligated herself to stop when she heard the voice of her counterpart in her head. She thought it was just herself, tampering with her most recent concerns, but soon her instinct would drive her back to look at her counterpart, just to confirm that, indeed, it was Wands who actually warned her, as she was now staring at her with her bright magenta pupils.
Wands, somehow, knew what she was up to, and without even looking at her she still noticed her escape plan. It is no wonder why she was truly a forgotten witch from the forests.
"Hey, what's with those petty words witch? Have you just become delusional or w-…" Elik was about to make fun of her again until he noticed the sleepy brunette awake inside that bubble, so he turned his gaze to the front disinterested.
"Ah… Your patient has woken up. Make her shut up using that purpurin thing again…" He ordered her.
"You know I can't do that without breaking the bubble, dummy…" She told him.
Elik was about to respond to her menacingly, but instead, he contained himself.
"Grr… whatever…" He told her while accelerating his march just to not see the two women.
To all this, Wendy finally found the courage to start speaking again.
"Um… Excuse me, but… Where the hell are you two taking me? Is this a kidnapping or a f-..." Wendy tried to ask her counterpart, but Wands told her to remain silent.
"Shh… Quiet, silly me. We're moving really far away from our last encounter, we've already lightened up some curious heads. If we want you to disappear, we will do it unnoticeably…"
Wands told her sincerely, making Wendy start panicking.
"W… What? Disappear!? OH NO! Get me out of here!" She begged her.
"I'm afraid that won't be possible sweetie. We need you for our little plans, I need you for my little experiment. I can't let you get away that easily now that we're in the middle of our destination…"
"What the f*ck!? What's wrong with you? I haven't done anything to you, heck, I don't even know you! I don't understand…"
"Jiji! You won't need to sweetie! By the moment you understand the meaning of all this you will already cease to exist! Not for nothing I won't let you get away from this special bubble so easily. Besides, correct me if I'm wrong, but it sometimes feels good to not feel the problems from TroubleTown once in a while… Am I wrong Wendy?" Wands asked her between chuckles.
Wendy was about to exclaim horrified once again, but then she stood there quietly. TroubleTown? Special bubble? It couldn't be…
"Wait… I think I know you. I've seen you before…"
"Oh yeah, doesn't it feel good to have a walking mirror carrying you…"
"In my backyard, in my room, inside… my own dreams…" Wendy recalled as she slowly started to recognize her.
"You're… that witch from my dreams…"
"Oh Wendy, please… Between witches we don't call us like that. We prefer to be referred to as our full names or missy…"
"No! I know who you are! You're that girl that pushed me down that hole from that horrific nightmare! The special girl! The mystery self! The one who told me to escape from the infinite mass and all that stuff…"
"Wow, and there goes another one who remembers her own dreams. Heh, not many people are able to remember them, Hm… I guess I am just lucky…"
"You still haven't told me who you are, and where are you both taking me?" Wendy still asked her, confused.
"I can't tell you right now sweetie, it'll be too easy. Besides, it's part of the mystery…" Wands sincerely told her.
"What?" She said, confused.
"What the hell is all that noise! I can't trace the route with both of you witchcrafting like rats…"
Elik angrily shouted as he returned back with the two Testaburger.
"Please Elik, don't be too harsh with her. She likes to ask too many questions…"
"Oh really? Well I know a certain green pot who likes to talk too much and a big fat chubby who almost loses his voice between insults, so… yeah… Shut your mouth! Stupid human…" Elik told her angrily, making Wendy frown him with anger.
"Grr… Wait, green pot? Fat chubby?... (*Gasp)! So you're the guys who have been stalking Stan and the others before!"
"Ah great! And now the regular witch has just nailed our master plan! Perfect! Wands! Could you give me a favor and make her sleep when you can? I'm not gonna consent this human to bother us throughout the whole freaking journey…" Elik exclaimed sarcastically as he turned his back on her.
"Who are you and where are you taking me!?" Wendy asked him in an effort to know what they were going to do to her.
"That's something that's really far from your comprehension, if you want more information about us then keep quiet and let us walk in peace. God! I have a green pot to catch! I'm already wasting time arguing with this thing!" Elik scolded her.
"Be patient Kyle! We're almost there…" Wands reassured him, but Wendy was so outraged with the words of his kidnaper that she wasn't going to remain silent for too long.
"Well… at least I can comprehend the severity of what you two are doing to me! Dipsh*t…" Wendy responded to him, muttering the free insult that she just threw at him.
Elik, however, was all ears and he wasn't having it at all.
"Grr… WANDS! Put your lab frog down!"
He ordered her as she landed the magic bubble with her inside. Elik angrily approached the bubble menacingly and held it firmly with his two hands, shaking it a little while Wendy hit herself in the head because of the sudden change of gravity.
"Listen up you little witch! I'm already taking a big f*cking risk taking you out of your stupid house so the pinky witch that I have right here can make her little witchcraft down here! If you can't stop babbling like a little f*cking parrot I would make it easy for you by cutting that tongue of yours!" Elik said as he grabbed his knife out of his pocket and showed it to her.
"Unless you want to show it to my own face while breaking this bubble to make your damn point, so… What will it be, Wendy?" He continued saying as he stabbed the magic bubble with the sharp point of the knife, scratching it a little like a small plastic cup.
"Wanna prove your point now?... Or are you gonna keep your mouth shut?..." He asked her in a menacing manner as he stared at her with an unfriendly face, showing her that he wasn't really in the mood of being insulted.
Wendy didn't say anything as she knew it wasn't worth it. Not because she couldn't do anything about it, but by just staring at the knife that Elik was pointing at her she knew that she didn't want to die at that moment, since Elik was the one holding the weapon, so she forced herself to remain silent as she looked back down to the ground.
Elik, now knowing that he was still in control around there, got up from the bailing and put the knife inside his coat, approaching Wands who remained still.
"I'm leading up from here…" He said as he retook the march without waiting for both of the girls.
Wendy gulped knowing she was trapped, cursing to herself as she wasn't able to do anything while being trapped. When she levitated inside the bubble again, she got reminded that Elik wasn't her only dangerous problem.
"Hey girl, please… Don't take everything that he has said literally. If in any case you break this bubble, I would simply just throw you far away from these woods…" Wands told her sincerely.
Wendy just frowned at her.
"Wow, thanks… that's reassuring…" Wendy said in a sarcastic tone while rolling her eyes, pretending that she wasn't seeing her.
She found herself floating again, only this time one of her captors Elik was really far away from the two, as he still grumbled to himself while leading the path.
Taking advantage that he was far away to hear her, Wendy decided to tie up loose with her other captor Wands who she still had answers that needed to be revealed.
"You still haven't answered my question yet…" Wendy told her
"Hm?…"
"Where are you both taking me?"
"I can't tell you silly, is what I have told you before, is part of the mystery, but don't you worry. We're not really that far away from our destination. It's only a matter of time until I put my little experiment in practice, sweetie…" Wands told her.
"(*Sigh)… Can you stop calling me that?" Wendy told her. She didn't wanna be called like that, especially from one of her captors.
"Heh, the leaves are falling short, sure this forest is getting old…"
"Grr… So you're not gonna tell me! That's what you're trying to say?" Wendy asked her, now annoyed by her counterpart's riddles.
"Ugh… To a place upon a million acres! Is that sufficient for you exotic? Jijiji!" Wands responded to her in a playful manner.
With Wands' indirects evading her question Wendy knew she wasn't gonna receive direct answers from her. She, tired and confused by all this, rested on the pink bubble, watching the oak trees pass while trying to deduce how far she was from her hometown.
Wands was really reserved when she wanted to talk about things. She made sure nothing confidential would escape from her throat. After another brief time, Wendy decided to take the conversation to another direction.
"Back in my house Stan warned me about your strange abilities, that you are able to create pink fogs and that you guys were stalking him and his friends before…"
"Hm, able to create pink fogs? Oh man, that dummy sure knows how to say everything too simplified. It's called Missing Mist for one reason…" Wands muttered to herself.
"Why were you guys stalking Kyle and his friends before? They have done something to you?..."
"Oh no, no no no no no no no no… No. Not exactly… Except existing…"
;)
Wendy sighed. Another riddle from her mystery self. She was starting to think that this girl was really crazy, but still, she continued.
"Our clothes… They are too similar…"
"Jiji! I know, right? I took them from a far place…"
"Why do you dress up just like me?" She asked her curiously.
"Hm, I love berets. They are the doors for knowledge…"
"No I mean, back in my dreams, you knew my name even if I have never heard about you…"
"Oh please Wendy, you're too important in the next centuries to even let you go unnoticed, that's why my role here as the secret witch from these woods will also turn the script on one side, making me the new and reformed Wendy from these lands…"
"What?" She said, confused.
"Yeah! And by the way, just to let you know, the girl who pushed you before in that grave wasn't me, the one who figured it out was you, or even an inferior version of yourself. And right before you want to divagate more in the rabbit hole, no… Neither Kyle nor the black-haired dork from your troubling world weren't the ones who told me about you, Kyle was the one that found you and knew about you, your name, your group of friends, your own home and a bunch of other things…"
"What? Kyle? But that doesn't make sense, you first tell me that Kyle wasn't the one who told you about me and now you tell me that Kyle was the one that found me? What is this!" Wendy exclaimed, now confused.
"Not your Kyle silly, that one…" Wands said as she pointed out Elik right in front of them.
"Wait what? I don't understand…"
"His name is also Kyle, and is a name that he has been willing to take in a long time, as well as me with yours…"
"What?" She said again.
"(*Sigh), You see Wendy, We're not really that different from both of you. I'm also a Testaburger and I also play volleyball. I like to dress up as a French girl and I also have pimples on my forehead. I have my own council and I love reading every single book that I dare myself to find. But most importantly… I like to fight my own battles in order to save my ideals, even if that means I have to use anyone to obtain what I want to have…"
Wendy listened to her intrigued, as she could recognize everything that Wands told her. She couldn't have guessed all that by mistake, she was sure that the mystery girl was something far more weird that he could have thought of, and if Stan warned her about their evil intentions, she knew that they were hiding something far more sinister that she could have thought of.
"...And this is one of these battles, Wendy Testaburger. I wanna find a reason to exist in this reality, I wanna find a reason to have a family, I wanna… find my own reason… to coexist in a world that doesn't take me as another witch. That despite everything that they throw at me… I'll make sure to impose my own freedom against the devouring mass that dares to destroy everything that it touches and recover what was originally intended to be part of our world, part of our souls… And I don't need a stupid council to know what they want me to do…" Wands told her as she noticed the arrival of her grumpy yellow boss.
"Hey frenchies! Stop whining! We're here…"
Upon arriving at the destination Wendy noticed where they were dragging her. They were on that small rock bridge that was near town, having crossed all the east forest upon arriving at the destination that would probably seal her fate.
"Is it enough for you dollface?" Elik asked her rudely
"Yes, it is…" She responded to him cordially.
"Perfect…" Elik said while breaking purposely the pink bubble that retained Wendy with his knife on a clean cut, making her fall down to the street while hitting herself hard on her back.
Wendy groaned in pain while scratching her back, however, she wasn't gonna stay there for too long as Elik pointed at her with his bloody knife, ready to be the one who would be keeping her under control.
"Huh!" She gasped.
"Move…"
He ordered her.
Some meters away from them, Stan…
The falling leaves of the oaks were unnoticed upon the little trail that the forest witch was leaving behind, leading that little curious to follow in unison.
Stan, now leading the march, didn't care how much noise he could produce with all the broken leaves he stepped on. He was determined to find Wendy in those surroundings and beat the crap out of that witch who dared to blow up her bedroom and forcefully dragged her by force into the woods.
He accelerated his march noticing how the thin trail of the pink smoke was slowly dissipating, but by looking to the ground he saw the signs of footsteps and cut marks, confirming that they were near them.
"The fog is more recent here. We must be getting closer…" He thought
Stan wasn't going anywhere until he found out where Wendy was. His worries grew bigger when he saw the knife cuts from the ground, warning him to move fast.
To all this his friends Kyle and Butters followed him from behind. Apart from the obvious search, they were also trying in vain to contact Kenny or Eric and the cops, using some of the battery that was left of Butters' phone.
"C'mon Kenny, pick it up…." Kyle begged.
They tried, and tried. Every number, every application, Whatsapp, Facebook, Coonstagram, some routine phone calls or even Snapchat, but as they worriedly predicted, no one was in the other line.
"Dammit! Ugh, unknown status!…" Kyle cursed to himself.
"Try calling Eric again!" Butters suggested, receiving the same result.
"Nothing! We've tried everything, any of their socials, but no! They've just vanished in thin air…"
"Jeez, don't say it like that Kyle! I don't fear the worst…"
"What else would they not pick up our f*cking messages? Grr… Dammit! Goddammit! Damn bastards…"
Kyle said as he turned down the phone and gave it back to Butters while touching his forehead from the headache he was about to get. For the little battery it had, he didn't want to ruin it for him.
"It's okay Kyle, you're stressing yourself out…" Butters tried to calm him down.
"No! It's not okay Butters! Our friends are disappearing as we speak and we're likely to be the next ones on the list. This is all happening so fast that now I'm starting to think that I'm becoming paranoid for real!…"
"Well, it's not bad if you look at it from another perspective. At least we can't tell if they are dead, which brings up more hope that they could be alive!" Butters said optimistically, trying to cheer him up between all the uncertain tension.
"Well, damn Butters… I wasn't really thriving in that direction…"
"Yeah, sorry. I just tried to cheer you up…"
"Mh… It's alright Butters. Um… I'm sorry we had to drag you into this…" Kyle told him as he remembered how the blond bursted in tears in Wendy's backyard.
"Oh! Nah, it 's nothing. I'm already used to passing through this kind of stuff with Eric and his wacky adventures, hehe!" Butters told him in a playful manner.
"Hehe… Sure you do…" Kyle said as well.
He was astonished, not only to see his classmate Butters still in shape but quickly on foot after he had demoralized on his feet by collapsing in fear back in the neighborhood. For that he had to give Butters the benefit of the doubt, despite everything that happened around him he was still gonna keep walking straight to help them with the search.
With that now in mind, Kyle quickly stopped centring in Butters so he could give his attention to Stan. He, despite being meters away, could notice the sense of worry that he was developing throughout every step, desperately accelerating his feet in order to not lose the only source that could lead him to find Wendy.
"Stan hasn't stopped walking since I found out that smoke…" Butters told him.
"Yeah…"
"Do you think he knows where he's going?"
"To be honest, I don't know…" Kyle responded to him.
He always saw Stan as a headstrong who always liked to act without analyzing his situation first, even if his intentions were almost driving to really good intentions. In his mind, he still would have preferred to just try to find better help or just plan this situation with more common knowledge, instead of playing a maze trick of witches.
However, on the other hand, it wasn't like he could do much else about it. His friend was really worried, scared, about to puke and with guilt that could potentially develop in stress if he knew that Wendy's fate was sealed because of him.
If his little brother was the one missing, he would also have likely followed that trail. Looking by that side, a sense of guilt also started to cover his skin. If those guys came here because of him, he was responsible for this as well, and Stan was right when he made him see it. He was too afraid that his nightmares had become a reality that he forgot entirely that he wasn't the only one risking his life around here.
He should be the one leading that march. He felt he was indirectly responsible for Wendy's disappearance.
Butters noticing his worried expression came to his rescue.
"Ehm… Kyle, what if you talk to him?"
"What?"
"I don't know, like, talk to him. Tell him something so we can at least be sure if he's okay..."
"Butters, I don't think he's gonna be in the mood for that. He's really sure where he's going…"
"Yeah but, still…"
Kyle tried to recapacitate if he should approach Stan or not, however, after some seconds, he decided to gain some march and approached Stan quickly, at least to calm him a little.
"Hey dude…"
"Hey…" Stan told him.
"Any guesses for where she could be?"
"No, and the trail is fading out soon, if we don't move quickly we're going to miss her…"
"Oh…"
Some empty silence for around a minute.
"Ehm, dude, listen… what just happened before, I'm…"
"No Kyle, stop. It 's okay. I'm the one who should be at fault. You were trying to protect us and my cynicism got the best of me. I shouldn't have shouted at you like that, dude…" Stan apologized to him.
"Well dude, it's true that you weren't focused but at least you were just trying a way to find her, and the only thing that I was doing was starting to get annoying. Part of Wendy's house was destroyed and I still believed it was a cheap trick…" Kyle apologized too.
"But you stopped my feet when I was about to do something unthinkable. That's really good because at least it's smart…"
"Yeah, except for the "scared" part. Hehe, I owned it…"
"Oh… right… Sorry to call you like that dude…"
"Nah, it 's okay. I'm sorry for almost telling you that you were a f*cking doofus…"
"Hehe, c'mon now! Isn't that common knowledge already?" Stan said between laughs.
"Hehe… Yeah! At least you're not the one who dresses up as Britney Spears while twerking with a cardboard cutout of Justin Timberlake..."
The two cracked with the jokes despite the obvious darkness from the forest. Even when things get hard between them they always found a way to make it up together. Not for nothing no one dared to take their super best friends brand from them.
Some strange peace invaded the scene after that, with both of them not sure of what they could say to each other that wasn't the obvious search. Despite this, Kyle continued.
"Um… Hey, Stan. Remember what you said about taking responsibility for our actions, back in the neighborhood…"
"Oh, yeah…" He said.
"You were right, I mean yeah, you're right. These people came out after me and in the end they took out Wendy because of me. I should have been the one who should be missing here, not them. I'm so-…"
"What!?" Stan said, surprised at what his best friend was telling him.
"Dude, don't say those things to yourself! You didn't know how far they were going to go with this. Those soulless just started attacking random people, including us. This is too much for a dumb night joke even if our risks are always high…"
"Yeah, now that you're saying that, I remember what you told me about the basement thing, how it stunned you, how it affected you… What the hell did you find down there? Apart from… you know… that guy…" Kyle asked him curiously
"Ah… Yes. The basement. Well, I don't know, this guy frantically started talking too fast, made me light candles and confirmed to me the obvious: He's the Smelly Two Feet Weeder everyone is talking about..."
"Wait what?"
"Yeah! He really was the one who stole part of the plantation of my father's farm and several ones across the state. He also told me that they did it in order to divert public attention…"
"Oh! So that's why the 911 operator didn't attend my calls!"
"Basically…"
"Those f*cking bastards. They have really planned all this too well, huh?"
"It seems so, I don't know for how long, but they really have used my father's pride to their advantage. Mh… At least they haven't come that far with him than with Cartman's mum. Well… at least I hope so…"
"Wait, what happened to his mum?" Kyle asked him intrigued.
"Oh! Yeah, you didn't notice it but, back in that basement, me and my counterpart weren't the only ones inside there. Cartman 's mum was also there and those soulless threw her down the hole. I couldn't stop hearing her little growls of help while she was covered by that black substance and the fact that I couldn't even move in there made my skin crawl…"
"Oh God…" Kyle said.
"Yeah, I know. I just hope Cartman's mom is fine when we return back to the house. I'm now just hoping that they don't do the same thing to Wendy…"
He nodded at him as they continued in their way. As much as he wanted, Kyle couldn't take off that feeling of guilt that he was enduring during this whole night. The fact that these reversals really planned this so well that they even managed to divert public attention in order to isolate them for any kind of help was outstanding, even for him. And they all did this just to take them out, jeez. How far this version of himself would go in order to fulfill his own mission?
"And you?"
"What?" Kyle said, confused.
"How do you know this guy? You know, the other Kyle, the one from the yellow builder hat. If I'm not wrong he told us that he knew you from before, from some years ago. I mean, I'm sure if they have found out about us it will be for one thing or the other…"
Kyle got so lost in his thoughts that he wasn't paying attention to what Stan was saying, so he decided to enter indiscreetly into the conversation.
"Oh, um… Well… It's really hard to explain dude…"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, I… (*Sigh) Remember the st-..."
"FELLAS!"
The two boys jumped by surprise upon Butters' sudden interruption, making them shake a little from the jump scare.
"Butters! Jeez, a little bit higher and you scare the trees…" Kyle protested
"Look! Over there! Is Wendy!…"
"What!" Stan exclaimed by surprise, looking at the front of the trace again.
Thankfully, Butters was right. Wendy was there, on the small rock bridge that they talked about before, tied up with some strong ropes. A part of him was happy and with joy, knowing that she was fine and still on her feet, but he forced himself to stop once he took notice of the magical pink rope she had tied up around her container, who was none other than her counterpart Wands.
"She's there… But with her…" Butters pointed out.
"Yeah, I see that… But I'm afraid she's not the only one…"
Kyle said as the three stood there frozen once they saw Elik in the distance, grabbing his knife with a lot of force, not letting it escape in any form.
"Sh*t…" Stan said.
Somehow, that word made Elik look at their direction, noticing like three strangers from afar."
"Quick! Over there!" Kyle ordered them, as he grabbed Stan from the wrist and hid themselves behind some bushes. They couldn't be noticed if they wanted to make it out from there alive.
"Some feet, more steps away…" Wands ordered Wendy as she tried to positionate her in a specific part of the bridge.
"Jesus, is that far enough for you?" Elik protested.
"Indeed…"
Elik, at the point of his knife, was navigating Wendy where she should be positioned while Wands was trying to find the perfect spot for her.
"Alright, a little bit closer. Uh… There! Right there! Perfect…" She said
Elik led Wendy to the edge of the bridge. She almost slipped away to a guaranteed fall.
"Alright everyone, the experiment can start…" Wands announced.
"What the hell!? Are you planning to throw me down to the river…" Wendy said.
"Jiji! More or less…"
"Make it quick, witch! I'll keep a guard around here meanwhile…"
Elik said as he led the two mind their own business, which led him to Wands taking action immediately.
"Well, Wendy, you see… We wanna try a little experiment around here…"
"Yeah, you've already said it, a lot of times. Nope, not interested…" Wendy told her.
"Hm, that's not up to you girl. It's actually up… to your soul…"
"What?"
"You see Wendy, my people, my friends, have a little identity, a problem that leads them to think they are someone that they aren't and subsequently act in ways they shouldn't act. It's a little miserable that they have to live long enough with this cruel perception of life charging on them everyday, knowing that for the slightest mistake they'll vanish from existence forever, so I want to prove a way to make it up for them…"
Ugh… What do you mean?"
Wendy said while trying too hard to strain herself from the magical rope but it was too tight to even remove it.
"To make it short for, we're gonna throw you down to the river, making you land directly in the river, hopefully in your neck. If you want to guess, yeah, you'll die, instantly. As a matter of fact we need you dead so we can make this work…"
"W… Wh-?"
Wendy tried to say but Wands simply continued.
"Once you hit yourself and subsequently break one of your vertebrae we will lift you up and consequently take your free soul. If you know a little of anatomy you'll understand that the spine is the bone that shares all the information of the brain to the rest of the body, right? Well, that leads us to my magical spells. With my special tools I will extract your soul out of your body and I will replace it from mine, so your empty carcass doesn't stay forever empty since I will be the one who will take it as her new host..."
"..." Wendy didn't say anything. She was too impressed by the sincerity of her counterpart, not in a good way of course.
"I'm basically borrowing your corpse, Wendy.."
"WHAT THE F*CK!" She exclaimed, astonished.
"Don't worry girl, I have it all pl-..."
"NO!" Wendy exclaimed as she wasn't gonna let her counterpart talk anymore.
"WHAT THE F*CK IS YOUR PROBLEM! That doesn't even have any logic or sense! How in your right mind can you even think that's even going to work?"
Wendy exclaimed, knowing now the true intentions of her magical counterpart. Wands for her part, never lose her composure.
"Because it's an experiment, silly. Why do you think I called it like that? We don't know yet if it's gonna really succeed, but we won't lose anything by not trying it, am I right? Jijiji! Well, if you want, you can take it as in your dreams: You can fall and be one with the mass again or rise up and shine for us! Only this time as our symbol not really far away from rebellion…"
"Grr… YOU GUYS ARE SICK!" She protested between struggles.
She tried her best to escape by foot but Wands quickly trapped her in a magical spell, suspending her in the air while slowly approaching her to the edge of the stream.
Stan watched everything from far away. He wasn't happy.
"Oh no! They wanna throw her to the river! Let's g-..." Stan said before being grabbed by the arm.
"Dude no! We can't risk it! My stalker is literally watching the area…" Kyle warned him.
He wasn't wrong. Elik would scratch anything or anyone who looked really suspicious.
"So what can we do? A little time left and Wendy will drown…"
That's when the two boys look up to Butters.
"What?" He said.
Coming back with Elik, he witnessed how her companion was managing the situation, crossing her off annoyingly since she took too much time to just get into the act.
"Jesus, why does she like to stretch things up! Grrr… By this time I would have finished the job pretty quickly…"
That's when he heard the noise from the bushes. His instinct activated
"Hold up your sorcery!" Elik ordered her
"What?" Wands asked him confused
"We aren't alone…"
Elik watched carefully the nature surrounding him and immediately witnessed how a bush was moving frenetically. With no time to question he pulled his knife off, approached the bush and stabbed it with fury to end its hectic movement. However, he got the contrary of what he was expecting to see.
"AAAAAAAH! F*CK! My hand hurts like hell!" He protested as he yelled in pain. It looked like he had just punched a big rock or something.
"Hey! Watch your mouth, friend. The little trees are all ears…"
A deep voice emerged from the bush, revealing to the reversal who he really was. It was none other than Jonathan, Eric's counterpart, who managed to find them fair and square
"What the-! YOU!?" Elik exclaimed surprised as he witnessed how his knife was stabbing Jonathan's chest, almost bent a little at the tip thanks to the big one's potent skin.
"Don't exaggerate Elik, you haven't hit me that hard…" Jonathan told him
"Jonathan! Hm… What a pleasant surprise…" Wands exclaimed as she floated to his position.
"Same to you, Wands. Long time no see…" He greeted her.
"Jiji! Yeah... Still heavy as usual…" She told him.
"Hehe, yeah… Heavy and calm, my two favorite spells…" Jonathan said playfully. However, Elik wasn't up for sweet welcomings, he was pissed.
"WHAT THE F*CK!?" He exclaimed
"Elik…" Jonathan tried to call him.
"NO! Shut up! Shut up and listen, you fatbutt! Never, ever appear like that again! But like never! Ugh! I almost dislocated my hand because of your stupid body pillow!" Elik exclaimed, enraged.
"Oh… oh my… I'm so sorry my friend. I didn't know you were that afraid of little bushes…" Jonathan told him.
"Jijiji…" Wands giggled at his response.
"Grr… Save it! Damn inflated! Ugh! ANYWAY! Have you done your deed yet?" Elik asked him angrily.
"Oh, yes! Yes, indeed, I have done it boss…"
"Oh! Okay… okay… okay… Do you hear him witch? He has done it! Okay… okay… AND WHERE THE F*CK IS HE!?" Elik asked him, angrier than before.
"Aah… My counterpart, yeah. Don't you worry Elik, he's with Kenny, which is… Eeh…" Jonathan says as he notices that RKenny is not with him, for some odd reason.
"Which is where?" Elik asked him while frowning at him.
"(*Sigh)... Nowhere… to be seen…" Jonathan said without the desire to even find him.
"HA! That's a lame excuse for a bowling ball..." Elik mocked him.
"Hey, friend… It's not an excuse, it's true. RKenny has them trapped inside his pocket dimension. He'll arrive here with us soon, I hope… Anyway, do you guys have spare pairs?"
While the three reversals were engaged in the conversation, Kyle and the other two tried to make up a rescue plan.
"Uuh fellas, I'm not too sure about this one…"
"It's really easy dude, just listen closely. You go there where those dumbasses are discussing, you distract them a little bit and meanwhile me and Stan will sneak under the bridge and pick up Wendy from there. Do you understand?" Kyle explained to Butters, who was unsure to be the bait on that plan.
"Uuh… I don't know!"
"It sounds pretty easy…" Stan said
"Oh yeah! Good for you! I'm the one who's gonna get impaled in all this!"
"Relax Butters, if you think about it you're the only one who doesn't have a counterpart around here, I have a feeling they won't even recognize you at all..."
"But, but Kyle! I threw a ball of doom to the one with the knife! Uuh! I don't think this is a good idea!…"
"C'mon Butters! Please…"
"No! no I won't!"
Stan kept hearing him while noticing that Wendy was still alone in that bridge alongside their kidnappers who were about to settle their argument. They didn't have much time left. If they wanted to rescue her, they needed to do it now.
"(*Sigh), Butters! We don't have time for this! You're gonna go and try to distract them while me and Kyle try to get her off the bridge. Once they notice she's not with them try to run straight to the woods! We'll meet you there, okay?"
"What? To the woods! But…"
"Dude! C'mon! We don't have much time left…" Kyle told him.
"Ugh, okay fine! I'll do it!"
"Perfect! Let's go dude…" Stan told Kyle as they went straight to the river.
"Oh jeez, why do I always have to be everyone's favorite bait! (*Sigh), Alright… You can do this Butters!" He said as he prepared himself for the outcome.
Returning back with Elik, he was still taking it out with Jonathan, who stood there quietly while changing the pair of shoes he had to a pair of new ones generated by Wands' magic.
"Thanks for the shoes Wands…" He thank her
"Heh, no problem…" She responded to him.
"Don't change the f*cking subject on me Jonathan! Can you explain to me who the hell could you have just lost your f*cking objective when I told you to just finish your job?" Elik asked him angrily.
"Elik, I told you, he's been trapped by Kenny…"
"I didn't want him trapped, I wanted him dead! And judging by the fact that Kenny's not here, I have a feeling you just don't wanna do your job…"
"Elik, I wanna do this as much as you want to do. Still, you never told me we had to take care of adults too…" Jonathan told him.
"Hm, collateral damage…" Elik responded to him.
"And what we are doing now is a collateral damage too?"
"Grr… Don't question my methods, bowling ball. All this is her plans, not mine. I still want to persecute that green living pot…" Elik said to him.
"For once he's not wrong Jonathan. It's true, I want to try something here…" Wands told him.
"Try something?"
Wendy watched her kidnappers from afar. She could notice their third wheel appearing in those bushes, something which made her sigh in a worried tone.
"Oh no… There's more of them… Dammit. I'm not getting out of here alive…" She thought to herself.
But when she thought every kind of hope was lost, a mysterious figure emerged from the bushes approaching the three copycats nervously. She immediately recognized him.
"Wait… isn't that… Butters?" Wendy whispered confusingly.
Butters approached them from behind, nervously and scared the hell out of his mind, not knowing what could be the outcome from all this. As he was closer to them his heart started to beat at a fast pace. He needed to save them as much time as possible while trying not to get his hands cut.
"I thought you were against knowledge experimentation, Wands…" Jonathan said to her.
"Not when it comes to fresh souls…" She told him.
"You should really take this job more seriously, puff ball…" Elik warned him.
"Look friend, I'm not the one here obsessed with changing his own lifestyle, ok?"
"Uuh…" Butters tried to catch their attention, but he was so scared that the only thing that came out from him was a small thread of voice.
"Obsessed? Grr… Listen Cartman! You don't have any idea how much I have prepared for this moment so you guys can go and ruin it for me!"
"Um…" He tried again.
"Memorize their schedules, guess their stupid hangouts, heck! I even had to establish a big perimeter in order to indicate to our stupid labrat where to rob those farmers, and know when it comes the moment to shine, I'm stuck here watching you change your SHOES!"
"Ehem…" Butters cleared his voice
"NO! I say no! I'm not gonna let you ruin my plans! So this is what's going to happen: You're gonna lift your ass up from the ground, you're gonna wrap up this dumb experiment and we will hunt those bastards DOWN! And I swear by the family branch from all my ancestors that we will not sleep until we find him, we won't leave until we trapped them and I will NOT sleep until I receive the life that I actually deserve. COMPLETED! With a hawk, ONE HAWK! Besides…"
"Ehm… Hey there fel-…" Butters tried to say, but he wasn't able to go that far from his sentence after the three reversals subsequently turned quickly to face him while pointing him with a knife, in the case of Elik, some of that magic glitter, in the case of Wands, and with a clenched fist, in the case of Jonathan.
"Oh Jesus!" Butters exclaimed surprised as he watched the sharp knife being almost two centimeters from his face.
Elik examined him from their short distance, making sure if he was a threat or not. After a little bit of pressured silence, he talked.
"Excuse me… Haven't we met before?" He asked him seriously, although he already knew who he was, he wanted to make sure this wasn't another trick.
"Oh! Eeh… Y-Yeah! I think… Um… Hello mister! Ehm… L-Lady… Hehe!" Butters nervously said as he noticed the forest witch from before.
"U-um… Well… I… Oh jeez, I… My name is Butters, Butters Stotch… Although some people like to call me for my second name Leopold, you know… Butters Leopold St-..."
"Yes, I already know. The blond guy who attacked me by throwing a balloon of water to my face…" Elik told him, he obviously never forgot that.
"Oh, yeah. I'm sorry mister. Listen… Um… Kyle right? Yeah Kyle! Ehm, I just came all the way back here to apologize for my behavior, okay? I knew that throwing water balloons would be a bad idea, but still, I did it… And I wanna apologize for it… So hey, pretty cool right? You fellas are gonna let me march in peace, right? Hehe… Right?" Butters was about to have a heart attack knowing that his efforts to even try to engage them in a conversation were failing at every word he spouted, making Elik to just frown at him and about to give his own medicine.
"..."
"Yeah, yeah… Yeah… no problem fella… Grab him from the back Jonathan…" Elik ordered him as he was going to take the hassle off him. However, Butters panicked.
"Wait wait wait! Wait! LAY JUST A FINGER ON ME AND YOU WILL GET IT!" Butters shouted to them as Jonathan backed off after the sudden act of threat. Butters couldn't realize what he just said before he started screaming internally, now really fearing the worst.
Elik, not being in the mood to deal with idiots that night, just frowned him with knife in hand as he walked slowly to the blond without breaking their eye contact.
"Oh… Really?... What will I get?" Elik said menacingly as Butters gulped from horror.
X/
In the middle of their conversation Wendy was still witnessing the exchange from afar, still not believing that Butters came really that far from the town just to have a nice chat with those people. This couldn't be a mere coincidence, Butters wasn't the type of kid who liked to do night escapades. However, between the weirdness of the moment, she remembered that he was during Stan's call, so if he was now there with them, then that me-...
"Psst! Psst! Wendy! Over here!" A male voice tried to call her name.
She, while she was bound by both of her arms, was caught by surprise by this. She immediately looked into all her directions in order to find the source of the calls, which led her to look down the bridge, where she found out the source of her calls.
"(*Gasp)!" She sighed, more relieved than before, as she found out that Stan and Kyle, the real Kyle this time around, were the ones trying to call her, as they didn't raise too much their voices in order not to attract unfortunate visitors.
"Kyle? Stan! You'r-..." She exclaimed, surprised.
"Shh! Don't raise your voice, keep it down. Butters is trying to mislead them while we try to get you out of here, Wendy…" Stan told her between whispers.
She heard him as he looked up to her kidnapers, who were still distracted with Butters.
"But… but how? They don't even let me move two centimeters from here and I can't get these strings off…" Wendy said in a worried tone.
She was right, Wands wasn't gonna let her leave that bridge so easily, so Stan had an idea. A really crazy one.
"(*Sigh), Ok, wait… Wendy, listen closely to me. You're gonna need to jump from the bridge…"
"What!" She almost said that out loud.
"No no no! Trust me! Me and Kyle will pick you up once you land in the water…"
"The river is not that deep Stan! I could break my legs while doing it…" Wendy told him.
"Wendy! The bridge is not that tall! Once you jump, you'll be fine when we hold you! Please, trust us…" Kyle reassured her.
Wendy, knowing that Butters' play wasn't gonna last for too long, decided to trust their words as she waited for the perfect moment to escape.
"Ok guys, wait for my signal. The moment that witch turns her head to see me will be the moment that I'll fall down…" She told them about her plan.
"We don't have time for games, Wendy!" Kyle told her, annoyed.
"No wait! This can be good…" Stan told him while Kyle gave him a confused look.
Meanwhile, Butters was literally killing it with his own plays.
"So as I am telling you fellas! She's a smarthead! She doesn't even get involved in much of the stuff that happens around here, I AM! That's why I think you should tie me instead of her. Heck! My mommy got so shocked one time that she almost threw me down a river, a much bigger river, let me tell ya! So that's why I think I should be in her position, so… What do you think fellas?"
Elik and Jonathan, who were already bored after a long speech of kindness and crazy mums slowly turned their heads to Wands, who was also bored beyond belief.
"Hey, don't look at me. The spell only works with the other side of the coin. And we haven't brought our half mask with us, so…"
She said before Elik and Jonathan returned his gaze to the blond, now with frowns on their faces.
"Ehh… E-Ehm… W-… Well… You know what they say!... Every cloud… oh jeez, has a silver lining!" Butters stuttered nervously as he was running out of options.
Elik, being tired of the blond's stupidity, was about to get rid of him, as he caressed the surface of his knife in order to achieve his quick act.
"(*Sigh), This guy is driving me nuts. Hey witch! What if you take care of our lab frog while I rip the guts out of this insolence?…" Elik suggested Wands.
"Heh, I was about to do that anyways…" Wands sais as she got up from the ground and went in direction to the bridge.
"Uuh what? Insolence! B-But… But I don't even have insulin with me!" He exclaimed, not knowing the meaning of that word.
"You'll wish…" Elik responded to him.
While Wands was beginning to approach the rock bridge again she had to stop dead as he watched how her human counterpart was now standing still over one edge of the bridge, now frowning her from a certain distance while indicating to her that she wasn't gonna stand there for too long.
"Ugh… What is she trying to do?" She thought.
Knowing that Wands was in a decent distance from the two, Wendy spat out a few words at her before making his leap of faith.
"Here goes your experiment…" She told her as she let herself fall down the bridge.
Wands immediately reacted by going after her position while Elik and Jonathan dropped what they were doing as they pushed Butters out of their way to go where Wands was.
"OUCH!" Butters yelled as he fell to the ground.
The three reversals arrived on one of the edges of the bridge, looking down while Wands created a magic rope in order to grab her. However, much to their surprise, Wendy was nowhere to be seen.
"What the hell? SHE'S NOT HERE!" Elik exclaimed
"Heh, what an imprudence…" Jonathan said.
"Shut up Jonathan! Do you see anything witch?" Elik asked her.
"I don't have… no idea…" Wands responded to him, confused.
They thought the current just drove her fast down the woods, however that was far from reality since Wendy, Stan and Kyle were actually not really far away from them. When Wendy fell down to the river, Stan and Kyle immediately grabbed her and hid down the rock bridge, breathing frantically as they tried not to lose their head.
"(*Sigh), (*Sigh), Phew... God, that was a close one!" Stan muttered in silence, but soon his attention went towards her girlfriend Wendy, who was a little bit dizzy by her sudden fall to the river.
"Oh sh*t! Are you okay Wendy?" He asked her concerned.
But soon his worries would rest aside as he noticed how Wendy raised her head up from her abdomen while narrowing her eyes to his. They were scared, almost glassy, but soon she would wince with relief, knowing that she was now in better hands.
"Yeah Stan. Thanks…" She responded to his worries as she received a hug of relief from his part.
Wendy took this by surprise, but naturally she tried to hug him back, leaning her head on his shoulder as she still had that rope tied around her. She didn't know how much she was getting out of him, as his guilt and fear was slowly getting replaced with calm and tranquility.
"(*Sigh), Good… (*Sigh), I should have taught them a lesson when I had the chance…" He told her relieved.
"Hey… don't worry… it's okay... At least now I have the chance to join your sleepover…" She told him mockingly, making both of them laugh a little bit despite the commotion of the moment. That was better than nothing.
Just in that calmed embrace, Stan noticed how his friend Kyle rested his back on the surface of the rock bridge, sitting on his side as he touched the bruise that he just made on his forehead.
"Oh no, Kyle…" He called him concerned.
"Wendy, I honestly don't know what brand of shoes you actually use, but I'm sure you could be able to break walls with it…" Kyle said to her, making her notice his purple bruise too.
It seemed that when Wendy landed on their arms, she accidentally stomped on Kyle's face, provoking that purple bruise in the process. Wendy noticed his obvious scar and went straight to apologize to him.
"Oh! I'm so sorry Kyle!" She apologized for the injury.
Meanwhile, just above them, Elik and Wands were still trying to guess where the little bastards could have gone while Jonathan inspected the scene meticulously.
"Who the f*ck could you not have grabbed her quickly! Ugh! You have magic for a f*cking reason, WITCH!"
"Hey! My magic could never have predicted any of that, smartass! If you wanted a fortune teller, invite Thobias Tucker next time to the mix! Besides, I thought she would just land into the water…"
"Grrr… This is incredible! Yeah! I can't trust any of you! The first one loses one of us and now the smoker loses her labrat! Ugh! I'm so mad right now with both of you…"
Jonathan chose to ignore his friend's fits of anger as he noticed a weird turbulence coming from the bridge. Having hunted wild animals before, he placed an ear in the rocky floor of the bridge, trying to link the turbulence he was noticing with the life source of his own hunter's instinct.
"Jonathan, do you have a crush with the floor now or what? GET UP!" Elik ordered him.
"Shh… Don't raise your voices, I think I'm hearing something…" Jonathan suggested him as he could hear the grumples of Stan trying to untie the pink rope that retained Wendy.
"Grr… C'mon c'mon c'mon!" Stan said while trying to undo the knot from her back.
"Are you even undoing it Stan?" Wendy asked him.
"Grr… I can't! It's really tight without my tools…" Stan responded to her.
"Ugh… Let me try that…" Kyle said as he slightly pushed Stan away.
Jonathan heard their conversation and slowly raised his head to his fellow companions.
"Friends. Lady. I found them…" He said as he pointed to his feet.
Elik and Wands narrowed their gaze to each other. They then grinned.
"Hehe, got it…" Elik said as he grabbed his knife out of his pocket. Then by holding it with his two bare hands a dark light started to emanate from it, making itself large and pointy as it turned to a sharp blade.
"It's time they meet my super best friend…"
X/
Meanwhile Kyle finally was capable of untying Wendy on her entirely, throwing it to the ground as Wendy could feel her circulation flowing again.
"Ugh… Finally! God, how tight that f*cking rope was!" Kyle exclaimed, annoyed.
"Yeah… They are really sav-..."
SLASH!
A big cut was made on the other side of the bridge, cutting the pointy rock in the left of the small bridge. Sparks flew towards them.
"HUH! What the-...?" Wendy was about to say until another slash cut the other side of the bridge. With nothing holding the center of the rock bridge anymore the structure was about to fall apart.
"Holy sh*t dude!" Stan exclaimed.
"WATCH OUT!" Kyle ordered them before the whole rock fell apart, and with them, their counterparts.
"Hello there, snowflakes…" Elik said as he swung his new weapon to them.
"Have a taste of my precious Shadow Blade…"
X/
"Sh*t… RUN!" Kyle shouted as they ran away from them.
Wands, not letting her experiment be in vain, noticed Butters who also saw the exchange and immediately ran towards the forest.
"Oh no, Oh no, Oh no, Oh no, Oh no, Oh no, OH-!... Huh?" Butters panicked before not feeling his feet anymore.
Wands had managed to paralyze him with a spell and with her magic she made him float in the air, throwing him at Stan like a big play of dodgeball.
"OUCH!" Stan and Butters yelled in pain.
"Oh no! St-..." Kyle was about to rescue him before Elik pounced on him, stamping him in a tree.
"(*Gasp)! Kyle- WOOOOOAAAAAH!" Wendy screamed as she and Stan were magically floating in the air. Wands wasn't gonna let them run from them anymore.
"Where do you think you're going, silly…" Wands scolded her devilishly.
Jonathan for his part just went where Butters was and retained him in the ground.
"Oh c'mon mister!" He exclaimed, annoyed.
Now the situation was chaotic, the reversals managed to retain them and they couldn't even call for help since they were far away. It looked like the reversals were the ones with the advantage now.
"Grr… Guh!" Kyle tried to free himself from his counterpart, but he was too strong.
"Hehe… This is it Kyle. I'm the one standing!" Elik said proudly.
"You're welcome…" Wands rhetorically said.
"Gh… Leave us alone! Motherf*cker…" Kyle insulted him while trying to kick him in the abdomen.
"Beg me…" He said as he narrowed his eyes to Wands, giving her the signal.
She smiled as she created with her magic two big pink arms grabbing both Wendy and Stan, choking them without remorse.
"Gr… Gh… A-air!" Wendy desperately begged to breathe.
"Ug… W… Wendy!" Stan tried to say between breaths.
Kyle tried and tried to get rid of his other self, but Elik immediately positioned his sharp shadow blade on his throat, attempting to kill him while watching his own friends die running out breath.
"Well, well, well… So this is where you want us to go, just slowly get us to the point? Well, thanks Kyle! You have my deepest gratitudes! You guys have already made me scratch my balls for long enough…"
"Gh… D… Dude…" Kyle tried to say but Elik's blade was more persistent.
"No Kyle! No balls are gonna be necessary in order to save you from this! So this is what I get: I get to steal your name, I get to steal your house and I get to steal your LIFE!" He shouted at him as he punched him right on his guts, making him yell in pure pain.
"A-ha! Jeez…" Kyle tried to say without throwing up.
"Shh! Shut your trash mouth! I should be the only one around here asking for a human soul, speaking of witch, I'm gonna get two in a row…" He said as Wands' magic started intensifying its pressure, attempting to end the lives of Wendy and his super best friend.
"No!... No no NO!" He tried to scream between breaths.
"Yes! KYLE YES! Now listen to what I'm about to say before you get your vocal cords chopped in small pieces… Do you think you're gonna be able to ever forget me after th-..."
"SPEAR OF DESTINY!"
:J
Miraculously, before Elik could finish up his evil act, out of nowhere, a flying large object, similar to a thin spear, hit him right in the eye, bouncing off him like a rubber stick before bouncing in Wands too.
"¡AAH! F*CK DAMMIT!" He protested in pain while letting Kyle get off his hand, who was breathing frantically.
The spear bounced and also hit Wands in the process, hitting her right in her back while giving her a throbbing pain.
"OUCH!" She protested too, canceling all her magic in order to cover herself. Because of this she let go Wendy and Stan fell to the ground, alive but breathing deliriously too.
"(*Cough), (*Cough)... W-Wendy!" He said as he rushed straight to save her.
The spear kept bouncing until he hitted Jonathan in the face, not really affecting him at all since he was more tough than a street light.
"Hm… What a sudden play change. I know what this is…" He said, knowing too well who was the owner of that spear.
That's right guys, when we thought they weren't gonna show up, Carus came there in order to save the night! Or well, that's what he thought…
"Yeah! I DID IT! I beat the ass of those humans! Yay! I'm superior!" Carus exclaimed proudly of himself. However, he wasn't also the only friendly face who would show up between the woods.
"Nope. You haven't pal…" A familiar voice responded to him. It was Sebastian, Stan's counterpart, who also made his way between the woods.
"What do you mean Stanley? I hit the humans that you told me they were gonna show up!"
"Ehm… Carus? Look again…" He said as he pointed out the people that his friend beat with his own saber.
"You hit the wrong people pal!" He told him.
"Wait what? Really?" Carus said as he looked more closely to the people he had hit before, making a surprise grin when he noticed he hadn't hit any human at all.
"Oh gosh! You're right Stanley! They aren't humans at all! They are just Sergeant Elik, Wands and Jonathan!" He exclaimed, surprised.
"Darn it! They look so similar that they are like two big reflections!"
"Nah man… Things like this happen…" Sebastian reassured him.
Soon their involvement would be paid off as Elik got up from the ground staring at them. He was absolutely pissed off beyond belief.
"Grrr… YOU!" He shouted at Carus.
"Oh! Uuh… Knight Soldier Carus at your service, Sergeant!" Carus greeted him while making a weird salute with his hands.
"What's up Kalico!" Sebastian greeted him on his way.
Elik, pretending that the purple freak wasn't even there, approached angrily at Carus, with a face that looked like he was about to beat him up instantly.
"What the F*CK did I tell you about not going to our MISSIONS!"
"Sorry Sergeant, I couldn't bear it. Once you're a knight by day, you are by the rest of the night! Oh hello Wands! Jonathan…" Carus said as he greeted the other two.
"Heh… Nice aim Carus…" Jonathan complimented him.
"Yeah, as much as my back hurts right now you've really improved the intensity of the shot, Carus…" Wands greeted him too.
Despite his silliness Carus was always the reversal that brought a little bit of positiveness through their team.
"HA! Thank you fellas!" Carus exclaimed happily.
"Grrr… Huh?!"
Elik was about to really beat the crap out of the half-blond before he suddenly realized that he was forgetting something important, rapidly turning himself to see if Kyle and the rest of the humans were still in there.
Unsurprisingly, no humans were there to be seen.
"What? WHAT!?"
"Ehm, is there anything wrong sergeant?" Carus asked him worriedly.
"You see? I told you, Carus. Your mere presence was gonna affect him a lot…" Sebastian told him mockingly.
Elik ignored their comments as he approached Jonathan.
"Dude, where the f*ck all they?" He asked him.
"Huh?" Jonathan said, confused
"The humans! Kyle! WHERE ARE THEY!"
"Oh… yeah…" Jonathan said as he looked around, actually seeing that no humans were around the corner.
"Well… no idea…"
"WHAT!?"
"Hey Kalico! I've a feeling they took the opportunity to escape while you were whining like a little girl…" Sebastian told him.
"Yeah, that's pretty much what has just happened, Elik…" Wands told him, but Elik was so mad and so stunned by his failed trap that he stood there frozen, unmoved, like a computer trying to process all the information that was entering inside his memory.
"We were… close… We were… so f*cking close… I was about to get my identity… I was about to obtain my reason to exist… and all that… in a matter of seconds… has been spoiled by another one of those retards… This time… Our retard…" He muttered to himself as his head started boiling lava.
"Ehm, guys? I don't think Sergeant Elik is okay…" Carus told them worriedly.
"Hm… He has turned redder than a tomato…" Wands added.
"Try your back scratcher pal…"
"What?"
"Like I said. Take your back scratcher and point it at his butt. Maybe by doing that he'll re-..."
"UUUUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Elik made a high enraged scream that literally blowed the hole slumber of the forest.
Now he was pissed off, more than ever. Because Kyle and his friends had managed to bypass his master plans…
Again!
"DAMN YOU KYLE!" He shouted to the nightsky.
He wasn't gonna let his objective get away that easily, now that they were so close to finishing their duty...
So…
Freaking…
Close…
X/ :I ;) :) :J
