The tour begins with two particular heroes missing from the canon group. I left Wendy and New Kid to their own devices for this final attack and they decided to sneak in and rescue New Kid's parents while the other heroes (unintentionally) distract Cartman and Mephesto's many-assed mutants.
I'm considering this as like a final exam for the duo to see what they've learned and right off the bat, I can tell they're adamant on doing their own thing.
Now Cartman actually wants to kill the others this time in order to make this plan happen based on the dialogue and opponents in Mephesto's lab, so I don't think Wendy and New Kid will be showing any mercy either. If Cartman does somehow escape from them, I'll be taking care of the loose end myself.
...Oh? Seems like Timmy is trying to telepathically contact me again. Is this about what happened with Stan and Kenny earlier? Pretty poor timing considering that they should be getting ambushed by many-assed cats right around now.
Considering that this is my final day here, I suppose I'll humor him and... oh. Oh, that's not good.
New Kid's POV:
"Ok, Cartman should be distracted now. Let's head in." We hear the alarms go off so Cartman must have sprung the trap. I swear, if he did anything to my parents, I'll tear him apart for good this time!
Wendy and I head in through the third floor after climbing up the wall and do our best to sneak around some massive, gorilla-like 6th graders who are beating some of the lab's workers to death.
"Raaaaah, school is dumb!"
"Parents are dumb!"
"One's blocking the way, New Kid. You think you can do one of those 'time stops' and take him out?" She points at a mutant 6th grader by the gate and I nod.
I stop time and pummel the thing using bone hands before appearing where I started from a few seconds later. The others hear their friend scream and check it out before returning to what they were doing after a few seconds. Pretty stupid of them to do so, but they don't look to be very intelligent to begin with.
We both slip by right after and head into another lab where a mutant 6th grader is in the middle of beating my mom to death.
Wendy's POV:
I gasp as we enter the room where New Kid's parents are and time suddenly starts reversing all around us. It stops after a minute or so with New Kid's mom being much less bloodied and the 6th grader looking around confused before a giant apparition of death appears behind him.
New Kid just powered up into Grim Fate and uses some bone hands to literally tear the 6th grader in two. I free his dad in the meantime from some tube thing he was strapped onto and he thanks me before heading over to New Kid (while putting on a hospital gown since the guy was naked).
Both parents begin to argue after thanking their kid and New Kid only seems to get angrier at them making the same mistakes yet again.
"DO NOT MAKE OUR CHILD CHOOSE SIDES!"
"Well I told you if our child's powers were discovered, they'd try to harvest our DNA and make a genetic clone!"
"You did fucking not!"
"BOTH OF YOU, SHUT THE FUCK UP!" New Kid finally loses it and starts screaming at his parents.
"I KNOW THE FUCKING TRUTH AND I FUCKING DEALT WITH IT ALREADY! THE GOVERNMENT CAME FOR ME 4 DAYS AGO AND EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM WAS KILLED ALONG WITH MR. EYEPATCH MCBADGUY, NO THANKS TO YOU! I WOULD HAVE BEEN FUCKED UP BEYOND BELIEF IF MY FUCKED UP SELF FROM THE FUTURE DIDN'T COME BACK AND HELP ME!"
He starts to tear up as he continues pouring his heart out to them.
"I get you were trying to protect me, but you were doing the exact opposite this entire time! Keeping this all a secret tore this fucking family apart! The government won't ever bother us again, so would you PLEASE STOP FUCKING FIGHTING FOR ONCE IN MY LIFE?!?" He's sobbing at this point and I do my best to comfort him while glaring at his parents.
"Maybe try thinking about how your kid will be affected by your "protection" next time instead of just assuming whatever you do is for the best." The two look down with guilty expressions before his mother asks him,
"Is this your girlfriend, sweetie?" WHAT? Where did that come from?
Before either of us can answer, more 6th graders arrive and New Kid and I don't hold anything back. Grim Fate plus our upgraded arsenals are complete overkill against these guys.
"We'll continue this later, we need to get you two out of here." I tell the two and New Kid nods in agreement. We head back out the way we came and tell New Kid's parents to head back home for now.
Once they leave, New Kid sits down and starts to tear up again.
"It's okay, they know now. I'm sure things will get better from here on out."
"*sniffle* I hope so. Thanks, Wen-"
*BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM*
Two massive lasers suddenly shoot out of the building and they would have obliterated us if they were positioned 10 feet lower.
"WHAT THE?!" New Kid rushes in and I'm right behind him. What we see when we head back inside is nothing short of a nightmare.
"IIIIIIIIIII'MMMMMMM BAAAAAAAAAAAAACCCK!!!!!!!!"
Giant laser beams disintegrate Craig as Butters is crushed to death. From the looks of it, only a few heroes are still alive with me not even seeing half of them in this area of the lab to begin with. Did the others die due to the mutant 6th graders on the way down?
'Holy shit, Cartman really is serious about killing us this time!' I realize in absolute shock and terror... but that's quickly replaced by determination.
Fine then. It's time for us to be the heroes this town deserves.
New Kid looks to be charging up another time reversal but giant laser beams force him to dodge instead. The lasers shoot past us and cause a massive explosion a few hundred feet away.
"COVER ME!" New Kid shouts as he charges in and I obliged by shooting out flame blasts from my Netherborn-enchanted phones. They don't seem to be doing much and what looks like Kyle's cousin if it ate The Blob charges up another laser attack.
New Kid then summons his own royal golden scepter which he uses to turn the sky green and dozens of green meteors rain down on Kyle's cousin. This doesn't stop him from charging his lasers but New Kid dodges them by boosting away with a bone hand.
He flips over the mutant and summons his golden hammer to swing at the back of his head. The attack lands and the giant stumbles forward but still backhands New Kid away while he's close by. He goes flying into a big pile of rubble and I rush in after him, only to nearly get crushed by the mutant's belly flop.
I barely dodge the many-assed kaiju and he charges up his laser again which I use a wave of my own fire to clash with. I get easily overpowered though and I'm blasted back, but a bloodied-up New Kid catches me and lands with me in his arms before I take any more damage.
"You okay?"
"Yeah, you?"
"I'm fine, but our attacks don't seem to be doing much."
"We'll just have to bring down the house on him then. Or lab I guess." I use a Phone Destroyer on him which stuns him for a bit as New Kid and I run deeper into the facility with Cousin Kyle right behind us.
We both summon bone hands to try and slow him down, but he plows right through them so we resort to attacking the facility's foundations (or at least the obvious ones that are in plain sight) to bring the building down. Our attacks aren't big enough to do the job, but the New Kid grins soon after our attempt failed.
"I'll be right back." He tells me before running straight at the mutant while I ask him what the hell he's doing.
He boosts up to Kyle's face with a bone hand and Dragon Shout and starts taunting him with lasers being charged up by the mutant jew soon after. I scream at New Kid to get away which he does by summoning a bone hand on Kyle's giant glasses to boost him back the second before the lasers fire.
The beams of energy tear through the building and it starts to crumble all around us. New Kid got slammed into a wall from the boost and looks to be knocked out so I have to pick him up and run as fast as I can as the building comes down.
Most of it does so with New Kid and I barely escaping on time. The reality of the situation then hits me when I realize that New Kid and I are probably the only South Parkers playing hero who are still alive. The others were acting like assholes, sure, but that doesn't mean I wanted them dead like Cartman!
A mutant cousin Kyle covered in blood and wounds then erupts out of the rubble and fires his giant lasers at us. I use a Dire Shroud and my own body to shield New Kid, but I doubt that's even nearly enough to stop something like this. I'm sorry New Kid... Dovah... I failed you.
"Good job, you two. I never expected Cousin Kyle to be strong enough to do this after his mutation; that was my mistake." Dovah is in front of us with his hero costume on, blocking the blast with just one hand. He then disperses it with the flick of his wrist before walking towards the monster.
What looks like multiple Netherborn and Satanic spells then surround New Kid and I as all our wounds heal in seconds.
"The others are fine. I turned back time myself to resurrect them. I didn't think New Kid not being there would end up being so fatal for the others; no wonder he's the main character here.
You two have done more than enough tonight, I'll be finishing this fight myself. Watch and learn, Wends."
He then instantly appears in front of Kyle and stacks various powers on a bone hand covering his right arm before punching him in the face, sending him flying through the destroyed lab and shattering his glasses in the process.
He appears behind the mutant after the fat titan crashes through the massive pile of rubble where a genetics lab used to be and sends the mutant thousands of feet into the air with one tremendous kick.
He then turns into a purple comet that flies straight through the massive abomination's chest, only to turn around and go right through him again. He does this over and over with the mutant screaming in pain as he gets turned into swiss cheese.
Cousin Kyle is then sent even higher into the air for the grand finale of this total ass-kicking.
The light purple flames surrounding Dovah seem to only grow more intense as he roars his final attack name.
"PROMINENCE...... BURN!!!" New Kid and I look up in awe as a giant beam of fire erupts from Dovah and completely disintegrates Kyle's cousin while lighting up the night sky.
"Incredible." I can't help but mutter as I watch the battle's finale. I'm sure the others agree with me about that... wherever they are.
Dovah's POV:
"Wha- WHAT THE FUCKING HELL ARE YOU?!?" Cartman screams right after I cut off his left hand when he tried to pull his Mitch Conner shit again.
"It's a shame, really. You just couldn't keep living with the failures, could you Eric? You did some awful shit before, but trying to kill all the other kids for your little mayor scheme? Well, I guess you did try doing this before when you got Cthulhu to banish them to another dimension, but my point still stands.
Seriously, you really should've learned to appreciate what you had instead of always wishing for more and being an absolute pain in the ass to everyone when something was out of your reach, no matter how small or insignificant it was." He should've done that like how my Cartman eventually did.
The Cartman back in my timeline went to extreme lengths too, yeah, but he still appreciated his friends until the end. He was even willing to put aside our grudges and differences to avenge them alongside me. Sure, the way we did it wasn't very good, but it's the thought that counts.
(A/N: He doesn't know Cartman tried to kill him to accomplish this while he was unconscious during the final ManBearPig fight)
If he did try to legitimately kill me or the others, then I would have killed him with no hesitation. I wouldn't have him ruining everything if it came down to either me or him getting what we wanted.
We actually came to a mutual understanding through Nahkriin and were on decent enough terms before Butters ruined everything, something that worked out for everyone (except Butters, apparently). What happened back then shows that doing so is possible.
This Cartman, however, is way past the point of no return. As if his descent into madness wasn't bad enough in canon TFBW, me being here sent him completely off the deep end in a matter of days.
I effortlessly foiled his plans and squashed every threat he sent my way which pissed him off to no end. There was nothing he could do to stop me and that drove him even more insane, something I didn't even think was possible.
I realized that little detail about his current mental state after coming across the third thoroughly mutilated corpse of a Freedom Pal hung up on some equipment in the massive genetics lab.
That and the wooden board being carried by every corpse that had 'heal me if you can, Dickvahkiin 2.0' carved on it felt like more than enough of a reason for doing what I'm about to do.
Too bad, fatass. I can, in fact, heal them via time reversal. Better luck next time. Oh, right. There won't be a fucking next time.
I won't let him ruin this world and its inhabitants any longer, so I do what I need to and make sure he won't ever do this again.
Prominence Burn.
It's pretty fucking ironic how his whole bullshit multiverse plot in the Superhero DLC of Phone Destroyer ended up being his end here. I mean, I'm literally invading here, causing trouble, and taking some resources like the crab king's scepter. All I need is a white necromancer costume and goatee and I'd be golden... or parallel I guess. Ok, I'll stop now.
Almost half of the Freedom Pals died before they even got to Kyle's cousin and the rest (excluding New Kid and Wendy) died to the massive abomination afterward. Looks like they were missing New Kid and maybe plot armor as well since there's no way in hell that normal 10 year old kids are surviving giant fucking lasers blasted straight at them and a several tonne giant, ass-covered belly flopping on them right after.
I'm able to reverse time, saving all of them in the process and watch as New Kid and Wendy try to fight the behemoth. They do a pretty good job and even come up with the idea of having the building collapse on the mutant, a pretty clever plan if I do say so myself, but it just isn't enough. They did come pretty close to winning though and I decided to finish the job for them once the two heroes were down for the count.
Once that's taken care of, I bring them over to where the other heroes are and let them know that Cartman's dead which most seem fine with as he was responsible for all of their deaths to begin with.
Stan then walks up to me and gives an awkward "thank you" and the rest do too for bringing them back from the dead.
"No problem. Like I said before, I just wanted to help my brother and his friends out. I hope you guys learned a thing or two from this experience and quit acting like entitled jerks to everybody."
"We will, dude. We kind of owe you and New Kid big time for this shit."
"Good. Well, I guess I'll be off then. Have fun at this crazy ass mountain town, little bro."
"Wait what? Where are you going, Dovah?" Stan asks and I let him know that I was only visiting for a few days. Most seemed to sigh in relief internally at this (I wanted them to be friendly with New Kid, I don't care how they feel about myself) and I bid them goodbye before heading back to New Kid's house.
Sorry, Stan. I know how much you desire change. Your speech during season 15's "Ass Burgers" made that clear as day. It's why the Stan in my timeline was so happy to work with me. It wasn't just about changing his crappy future, it was about starting something new, something different.
Pretty much any kind of change would do as long as it wasn't completely fucking awful, which just so happened to be the exact kind of change he got starting in season 22 when Randy started Tegridy Farms. Then Covid happened and Stan did another speech in the Pandemic Special where he wished for the exact opposite of what he did in season 15, aka, everything going back to normal.
I can't really blame him for that. Covid and Tegridy fucking sucked for the canon world of South Park. But most other potential big changes like what nearly happened in season 15 aren't even close to being that bad, or bad at all really.
In said season 15 episode, Stan was all ready to start a brand new life with his parents' divorce being permanent and him making new friends and letting his old group continue on with Cartman's idea of getting into the restaurant business, but then everything went back to normal during the last few minutes of that episode, just like almost every other episode in the series (excluding the first part/parts of two or three-parters of course).
The canon Stan resigned himself to that fate. The Stan in my timeline jumped right on the bandwagon I was driving. This Stan, well, Cartman being gone for good will certainly change things for the better because this is fucking Cartman we're talking about here. It'll be up to Stan to follow through with this wave of change and begin a new chapter of his life alongside New Kid.
As for me, I won't be staying here and changing this timeline any further. I have my own timeline to save.
This was only goodbye for the other heroes as I can't give Wendy and New Kid a proper goodbye without exposing a thing or two to the others that I would rather keep secret. Things don't go as expected unfortunately as I run into New Kid's parents as soon as I get to his place.
"Oh, uhhh, hey. I'm your kid from the future and I need to head back to my own timeline in a bit. Just need to grab some stuff."
"Oh, so you're the one who told our child then. Well, our child from here... We're sorry, squirt. We only wanted to protect you." I sigh at this.
"There were much better ways to go about it. Bottling up emotions and secrets inside will only destroy you from the inside out.
You two died where I came from without me ever admitting I knew the truth after I found out about all the lies and secrets you kept from me... and I always regretted it. You both died with pain and hatred for each other in the end with me being forced to choose which one of you to kill in that very room you were trapped in earlier."
I pretend to have gone through what New Kid did in canon to emphasize my point.
"I hope you two use this second chance to start acting like a family again. Dovahkiin is doing much better now, but he still has a long way to go before he's completely recovered mentally. And don't worry about the government. If they do come after him again, well, I gave him a few extra superpowers so he can defend himself and his parents if push comes to shove. Goodbye, mom and dad."
I walk out of the house with a tear in my eye and a new golden scepter strapped to my back only to see New Kid and Wendy waiting for me.
"I had a talk with your parents. They should be acting like much better human beings now. Well, I guess this is it then. I wish I could stay longer, but I still have tons of work to do and a home to go save. While I can theoretically travel to any point in time, I'll never be able to get the trouble my true home is in out of my mind until I stop it."
"I know Dovah... and I want to help. Please, take me with you!" Wendy begs and I'm honestly shocked at this offer since she would be throwing her old life away in order to go on this adventure with me.
I can tell when someone is making a spur of the moment decision though and let her know as such.
"Wendy, I know you want to repay the favor, but-"
"It's because I'm too weak, isn't it? And it's not just that, Dovah! You helped me get my spark back, my craving for adventure! It's been forever since I've felt such a rush and helped so many people in the process! I want to become like you, Dovah! Please, I'll get stronger and-"
"Wendy, you're making an impulsive decision right now. I'd be doing you a disservice dragging you into my mess while you're in this state. It would be no different than taking unfair advantage of you." She seems dejected at this and I decide to make a compromise. I did say I wanted several good allies that I can rely on after all.
"I'll tell you what, I promise that I will come back here someday. It may be in a month, year, or maybe even longer for you and that should be plenty of time for you to really think this through. If you still want to start this new life alongside me when I get back, then I'll let you join me, okay?"
She seems to brighten up at this answer.
"Deal! I'll be sure to train my ass off in the meantime so I can be as helpful as possible. I'll be waiting for you, Dovah." She then pulls me towards her and kisses me for a few seconds before letting me go.
"Heh, it's nice to not get puked on afterwards for once. Other me is lucky." I blush a bit but get myself back together and begin to focus as I prepare to leap through time again after giving one last goodbye to the two.
This ability mainly revolves around believing in yourself in the game so I'll just have to believe in myself now. I need to know... I need to know if this option is possible. Even if it's only a one in a million chance, well, Luke Skywalker managed to blow up the Death Star despite those odds in Star Wars, didn't he?
As that's going on, I use my Netherborn clothes beam to switch back to my regular outfit. With where I plan to go, I see no reason to maintain a superhero persona.
Little did I know that I'd end up never wearing that costume again...
A golden light surrounds me and I find myself back in an all-too-familiar looking bathroom. The door suddenly creaks open as a kid who looks as sleep deprived as Mr. Aizawa from MHA peeks in.
I can tell right away that this isn't another New Kid or Dovahkiin. This is my true past self.
(A/N: The past Dovah shown now is from Chapter 16's "Light at the Distorted Tunnel's End". Take a look there if you need a reminder of past Dovah's present situation before the current Dovah arrived on the scene.)
"Oh shit, there *yawn* really is a future me here! Ummm, do you talk or-"
"Yup, I'm future (y/n). Sorry for interrupting your recovery, but Fractured But Whole won't be happening for a few more years so you have plenty of time to catch up on sleep after I fill you in on a few things."
Good news is I'm finally back in the right timeline. More good news is that I got the point in time I was aiming for too. While I doubt that this will change anything in my own world, I can at least create a branch in the timeline with a much better ending.
And if multiverse theory actually isn't a thing in this particular timeline... and I end up being wiped from existence like the android in season 4's "Trapper Keeper" after I change the future, well, at least my friends and world will have a better ending now.
Sorry for potentially lying to you Wendy, but my own world will always come first. I at least have to try and make a better future for me and my friends, even if I myself can't be a part of it.