"Hey, Karen. You doing alright?" Dovah quietly asked the six year old girl, being careful to avoid the blue flames littered around her.
"Kinda? My hands... they hurt weird." Karen admitted to him, presenting her dried, strained, and slightly burnt hands to the transmigrator.
He wasn't her big brother yet. It had only been a few weeks since the showdown with the ads after all; a few weeks that Dovah has spent recovering both physically and mentally from his fight with Leslie.
But for now, he's putting his own problems aside for the little girl he was forced to avoid for far too long. It was necessary to keep up his cover, but it still hurt plenty.
He pressed his fingers onto barely visible membranes at the bottom of her palms, right near the wrists. When Karen hissed from the pain, Dovah stopped while giving a light smirk.
"It means you've been working hard, Karen. Besides the dried skin and slight burns, you've also strained parts of your hands from using your power a lot."
"Huh?" The girl questions. "I was just... you know, shooting fire now and then. They weren't even Soul Slash attacks, just small, regular balls of magic fire."
"It was enough." Dovah shrugged and patted her head. "Keep training it every day. Learn to control it; you'll grow stronger and better from it before you know it. It isn't just the Netherborn power you're training, Karen. By doing this, you're training your whole self."
"How?"
"It's like the guys in those old kung fu movies. They didn't just learn how to fight; they also grew stronger and better as people." The transmigrator gently explains.
"Oh, okay... still hurts though."
"It means you're learning, Karen. When it no longer hurts, it means you've learned enough." Dovah assured the girl.
"Now come on, let's get you patched up before your brother sees you and blows a gasket. I'd use a Dire Shroud on you myself, but I just finished my own round of training and don't have much energy to spare. Timmy taught us both first aid though so that should hold you over until I recharge a bit."
"...Okay, but are you okay?" The little Netherborn suddenly asks.
"I'm alright; I've gotten a whole lot better at using this dual class after-"
"I meant after what happened at the Gun Show. Kenny didn't tell me much about your plans, but it looked like you really cared about that girl with the yellow Reddit shirt. Um... s-sorry if bringing it up hurt your feelings or-"
"It's okay, Karen. Leslie... I gave her a chance. I hoped she would realize that she was more than what the ads wanted her to be, but not every android is like the Terminator and Robocop." Dovah smirks before giving a sad sigh.
"It hurts a lot, but what's done is done. There's no changing the past, even with my TimeFarts. All I can do is learn from that experience and do better next time."
"And I'll help you with that! I'll help you and Kenny beat the bad guys, right?" The little girl chirps.
"If that's what you want, then yes. Only when you're ready though; your brother and I still have a lot to teach you. We both made a lot of mistakes over the years and we want to make sure that you can avoid said mistakes. We'd be pretty shi- uh, pretty awful teachers if we didn't."
"You guys aren't shitty teachers! You're the best teachers ever!"
"Thanks, Karen. But don't let your brother hear you using bad words like that or he'll have my head, and unlike him, I can't come back from that."
A lot has changed since then, but a lot has also stayed the same...
Karen's POV:
Y'know, when Dovah told Tricia and I that we were gonna start getting some practical experience in real life situations, I wasn't expecting that to result in stalking a Hot Topic store.
"We can't let those vile goths burn another one down, per se!" Mike Makowski aka Vampir whispers to me. "There are only three Hot Topics left in South Park as of now and getting supplies from elsewhere would be far too costly for our sacred treasury to bear... and our lunch money. Dealing with that stupid coup was costly enough already."
As for what this practical experience is meant for, well, Tricia and I are supposed to go on a classic hero's journey and take down the Dark Angel's empire, right? We'll probably be forming a resistance along the way too like in Star Wars.
So might as well get some experience in dealing with actual organizations to prepare for that. From leadership to infiltration and learning the ins and outs of groups to strategy and so on, these missions or quests our big brother is sending us on will help us become Street Smart as well as Book Smart!... in a manner of speaking.
The first 'mission' is basically a war game between Tricia and I. It's in a timeline where both the Goth Kids and Vampire Kids thrived due to a few episode endings changing (and butterfly effect taking care of the rest).
For starters, in season 7's "Raisins", Stan ended up staying as a goth. Kyle ended up becoming a goth too before season 8 began with his new color palette being green and black with a bit of rainbow mixed in. His ushanka hat is the same except for a small creeper face (the thing from Minecraft) at the front and he also has black fingerless gloves with black and light green spiked armbands plus a spiked collar around his neck.
He also has light green shorts along with his black t-shirt and you'd think that all the bright green he's wearing wouldn't be very goth, but Kyle somehow makes it work. He actually looks pretty cool in my opinion; Dovah doesn't seem to think so though as he just grumbled something about 'Scene Kyle' and 'fucking fandom' before leaving.
Anyway, he and Stan (who still goes by Raven here) are still super best friends, but don't call themselves that due to conformism or whatever. Cartman and Kenny were stuck doing most of the episode plots from season 8 on themselves while more and more people got sucked down the gothic rabbit hole.
Wendy and Bebe are among those people with the former's color palette becoming black and gray (gray hat and sweatpants) and the latter's becoming all black except for the red writing on her black undershirt along with fishnet sleeves and a skull and bones necklace she started wearing. She even dyed her blond hair black when going goth.
The vamp kids' faction began to grow exponentially too shortly after with the season 12 episode "The Ungroundable" staying mostly the same until the end. Butters decides to stay as a vamp kid so Hot Topic isn't discovered to be where the vamp kids get their supplies until much later on.
The next few years welcome an influx of both goths and vamp kids with Team Craig breaking up as they couldn't agree on who to side with. Craig and Tolkien became goths while Tweek, Clyde, and Jimmy became vamp kids.
The point in time Dovah dropped us off at is the start of season 17 which was definitely planned on his part as the fourth episode of that season is where emos begin to become a problem.
For this test/game/mission, Tricia and I are to be on opposite sides, and in Dovah's words, "go nuts". The vagueness of this assignment probably means that the goal probably isn't to fight until one side remains. We will probably have to team up to deal with the emos when they start popping up, but for now, Tricia and I are at war.
I chose to side with the vamp kids which was pretty obvious considering I already sided with them before during the Fracture but Whole DLC and that left Tricia to deal with the goths.
That was several weeks ago and it's been pretty hectic from then until now.
There were some small fights here and there around town, but the main event was something I didn't see coming at all; a fucking coup!
The closest thing to South Park content this resembled was a cut out mission in Stick of Truth where a branch of the Vampire Faction called the 'Psi-Vampires' led by one of the 10 year old kids going by Count Ravyncrowe (really cringey name, I know) managed to take over the entire faction from Vampir before capturing the core four Goth group.
Firkle, Michael, and Pete were all locked up around the cemetery behind the South Park Church (which the Psi-Vampires took over) and Henrietta was brought into the main building there (that I'm pretty sure was another old secret lab of Dr. Mephesto) to be converted into one of them because the kid count had a crush on her.
He planned on doing so by reading Twilight to her. It didn't work.
New Kid also kicked his ass.
But there was no New Kid around so Tricia had to step up and lead most of the other goths against the Psi-Vampires. She kicked the count's ass after freeing the other goths.
I also took this chance to rise up among my chosen faction and help free Vampir (who was being locked up in another part of the cemetery).
I was still just a newbie vampire grunt at this point so I hadn't learned any of their spells (which are actually real here, or rather, they learned how to do the real deal instead of faking it), but my basic Netherborn powers were enough to easily get by.
Dovah also told us to try and limit our powers to the ones our sides wield when facing each other, so Tricia gets to use her Satanic spells while I need to learn some of the vampire spells. I couldn't do that though since I was a new member so I was, uhh... What was that saying again? Stuck between a rock and a hard place? Something like that.
I only used the basic Netherborn spells to try and keep it fair and once I learn some vampire spells, I'll switch to using those, so no big deal, right? I haven't gotten any messages from Dovah, so I'm gonna assume that it isn't.
The boss battle I had to deal with was a fight against Blooderella and a shitload of her bat summons. My big bro had to deal with her too during his Alternate SOT adventure, but he won and so did I! She couldn't stop me no matter how many bats and dire bats she summoned!
Also, this girl is actually Estella from that season 4 episode starring Pip. The one who killed a bunch of baby bunnies just to show how evil she was.
I had fun beating her up.
Anyway, Vampir was super thankful for me freeing her and once he got the Psi-Vampire branch back under control, I got a major promotion in this faction's hierarchy which actually let me start learning some of their vampire abilities.
Thanks to all the practice I had learning other spells and the super-adaption power Tricia and I got from our brother, I was able to learn everything they had to teach in only a few days. That got me labeled as a prodigy and made me even more respected among the vampires.
There's also the popularity powers Tricia and I got from Dovah influencing the vamp kids to become my friends. Even Count Ravyncrowe and the other Psi-Vampires were willing to apologize to me and become my friends in less than a week after the failed coup.
Incredible talent and crazy amounts of popularity; is this what it feels like to have the perks of New Kid? It's awesome! I feel like a main character in a fantasy story right now!
Getting back to the spells, most of them were lifesteal and siphoning (which I kinda expected) along with general healing and defense with only a few being purely attack-based.
They were all kinda weak too, at least compared to Netherborn and Satanic class spells, but if my big bro taught me anything, it's that big things tend to have many small components going into them.
Just look at his own arsenal! He doesn't have many abilities that are super powerful in their own right so my brother combines a ton of them together to make devastating attacks instead.
And speaking of different classes, the vampires have several of their own as well with most being from the TFBW DLC I mentioned earlier.
Here's some notes I took on them!
VKPs (Vamp Kid Powers):
Vampire Swarmer (Mostly kindergarteners): Baby Bat Dive (close range, heavy damage)
Vampire Medic (Usually 2nd to 4th graders): Blood Bond (shield one person), ReRaise Dead (large AOE heal, takes a while to charge)
Vampire Griefer (4th graders): Bat Swarm (either ranged multi bat attack or directly steals life force from target, bats or red energy return to attacker to give stolen HP)
Vampire Blocker (5th-6th graders): Feed (close range bite, heavy damage/lifesteal) Coffin Cover (multi-bat shield, shield effect on only themselves)
Vampire Summoner (Usually 2nd to 4th Graders): Bat Summon (summons 1-3 bats), Dire Bat Summon (summons 1-3 Dire Bats (Canada?))
Vampire Reaver/Vampire Guardian (Usually 2nd to 4th Graders): Mainly use weapons like scythes and staffs to fight in conjunction with the Feed ability.
While most of T.K's training style was either boring, annoying, or both, Tricia and I did learn a lot about how to properly analyze people. Dovah taught us that too, but it was more 'analyzing your opponent while fighting them' instead of regular observational analysis.
I was able to learn all those spells over the course of a few days and even got to learn some stronger spells from Vampir and his uncle (the Master Vampire from Casa Bonita) soon after. I basically became Mike's second in command after a couple weeks so it wasn't too weird to have access to the good stuff.
If I changed my personality a bit to be more in line with their style of thinking (worship the darkness and blah blah blah), then that was just to get more power and authority.
I know that Tricia and I are supposed to eventually become multiversal heroes, but being a demon vampire princess has its perks.
So Vampir's main spell is referred to as 'Attack Per Se' in the Casa Bonita DLC and while it has only medium range, it is still a much more powerful attack ability then moves like Bat Swarm.
It also involves using dark mist instead of bats which led me to taking inspiration from my big bro and eventually figuring out how to combine both of those spells into one super-lifesteal spell with a combination of bats and dark mist draining opponents' life force away.
I even learned the 'Frosted Tips' spell from the Master Vampire (aka Mike's Uncle who takes his role more seriously here) so I have another cyrokinesis spell now too. That's helped me a ton with learning how to customize and control the magic ice I can create as a Netherborn, something I've been struggling a lot with.
According to Dovah, learning how to use my ice isn't much different then how I learned to use my flames. Mental image, willpower, repetitive training, squeezing the freed energy into the correct shape, and so on. With a good enough control, you can even customize the type of ice you create, something Dovah has long since figured out.
(A/N: Chp 105 "Alternate SOT Part 9 - For Whom the Sleigh Bell Tolls")
He did all the hard work already, figuring out how exactly to do that without anyone teaching him. I have him offering me tips and advice to learn faster, but I'm still having some trouble with the concept. Tricia too, but I know we'll get it down eventually.
We both already have the initial ignition down since that's a side effect of powering up into Grim Fate (it's what gives anyone surrounding the person the 'Chilled' effect upon powering up). The real tricky part is maintaining and manipulating it from there, especially when we're forced to flat-out skip the first step and attempt to use cyrokinesis in our base forms without relying on any other abilities for a crutch.
But getting back on track, the really weird thing here is that despite these powers being real, the vamp kids (and grown ups) are still just kids cosplaying as vampires instead of real ones. That's probably a good weird thing since I don't want to actually get turned into one myself.
"Here they come, per se! My fellow vampires, do not let them through!" Mike- sorry, 'Vampir' announces as Tricia along with a dozen or so goths walk on up to the Hot Topic with half of them carrying spray cans that double as makeshift flamethrowers when paired with a lighter.
"Step aside, posers." Tricia demands as all the vamp kids hiss. She's in her own goth outfit too and her personality is honestly pretty in line with them already now that I think about it.
"Not happening, mutherfuckas!" The adult black vampire 'kid' from the Casa Bonita DLC barks back. "You want this shit right here, you bitch-ass mortals? Because you bitches will have to pry it out of our COLD, DEAD HANDS!"
"So you want to be burned alive along with your stupid store? Fine by us." Goth Bebe deadpans while preparing a PentaKill. She then fires it only for the adult black vampire kid and several vampire blockers use [Coffin Cover] while a few healers in the back prepare [ReRaise Dead].
"You attack what you don't understand."
"Fuck off, wannabe posers!"
*BOOM* *BOOOOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOOOOOOOOM* *BOOM*
Several other goths follow Bebe's lead and fire their own PentaKill spells, starting the latest skirmish between the two main factions in South Park.
Now you'd think that an internal civil war between the branches making up the Vampire Faction would take their focus away from the goths, even if it only lasted for a couple days, but nope. Remember, the Psi-Vampires kidnapped the original goth group members right after they took over.
The infighting did let the Goth faction get the advantage for a little while, but there were still dozens of small skirmishes like the one going on right now over the last few weeks. Several bigger battles too.
This let Tricia and I learn all we needed to about the years-long war going on between the two factions.
The vamp kids still have the advantage when it comes to numbers with around a 2:1 ratio of members when compared to the goths. The goths have over a hundred members to begin with, so do the math. The goths, however, are the better fighters in general with their Satanic spells being more powerful than the vamp kids' own spells.
It helps that so many are geared towards offense while the vamp kids focus on lifesteal, healing, and shielding over damage.
Tricia took advantage of this fact (and the temporary infighting) and mainly focused on training the goths (or rather, the ones who decided that beating up the vamp kids was worth the effort in training) to make their spells stronger as well as dodging and countering the vamp kids' powers.
She's always been better at fighting and the skills that it requires, but I have her beat when it comes to overall strategy, something I've taken advantage of myself during this war.
For starters, the Clamato Juice Fountain present in the Casa Bonita DLC has the large AOE heal and attack-boosting effect it has in game when a ritual is done on it to grant it that power (another spell I learned recently).
I found out from Dovah (we're allowed to ask him small, clarifying questions like this if need be, but most of these missions involve figuring out stuff for ourselves) that it is a similar process to those 'Healing Fountains' that the angels have as well as the tower or 'totem' in Phone Destroyer.
I had the vamp kids invest in quite a few of those over things like random decorations for dark lairs and some expensive, non-plastic fangs. The coup actually helped in that regard since it led to these guys becoming more willing to spend their funds wisely after losing so much of it from infighting.
About two thirds of them were placed at important locations around our territory like the Hot Topic stores (something Tricia just found out after witnessing all her enemies get both healed and buffed within seconds), major hideouts and lairs, and so on while the final third are placed around the border of our territory.
Keeping them in the front lines is risky since they aren't easy to replace if destroyed, but we already lost a bunch of territory to the goths during the coup so we need to be aggressive if we want to get it back.
Once again, the coup actually proved to be helpful in this situation. The Psi-Vampires were forced to guard the fountains on the frontlines as punishment while doing their best to get the land we lost back.
The healing and buffing from the fountains made that easier, but the coffee-addicted goths can practically stay up 24/7 so the Psi-Vampires had their sleep schedules completely wrecked in the few weeks since then.
The strategy worked and we got all the territory we lost back, but even with the advantage in numbers and the fountains backing them up, the Psi-Vampires look more like zombies after several weeks of constant warfare.
Those guys will be down for the count for a while (which I timed perfectly with the Emos popping up since both factions will be forced to unite when that happens and the Psi-Vampires will be too busy or exhausted to become Emos), but the goths aren't doing much better right now.
I also took some more inspiration from the alternate Stick of Truth timeline Dovah went to for our latest big power play. I purposefully let the goths find out that the vamp kids were planning on summoning H.P. Lovecraft to assist them in dealing with the goths after the coup and they were extremely pissed off to hear that.
I then dedicated a bunch of the vamp kids, several Clamato Fountains, and even Vampir himself into being a distraction for the goths by making them pretend to be going through with the summoning ritual while the Master Vampire, me, and a bunch of other vamp kids did the actual summoning ritual for someone completely different.
In Tricia's defense (we still keep in contact, unknown to our current factions), she thought something was fishy about the major intel some of the goths discovered, but most of the other goths wanted to stop them regardless and fell for the bait.
The goths also summoned the real spirit of H.P. Lovecraft using a third of their forces to handle the ritual while another half of them went to stop the goths.
They destroyed the Clamato Fountain and beat up Vampir along with every other vamp kid there, but just as the goths were celebrating their victory (or the goth equivalent of celebrating), the vamp kids present all suddenly got 'revived' and shielded.
Michael Jackson then entered the room and single-handedly turned the tables against the goths. This spirit celebrity is immensely powerful in the final boss battle of the Casa Bonita DLC and this one has all the abilities of said boss.
The goth kids were crushed and had to retreat while the spirit of H.P. Lovecraft held the celebrity back. The newly energized and motivated vamp kids also took this chance to completely take over the Village Inn (one of the goth's hang-out spots/home bases where they sit around and drink coffee at in canon) as most of their forces were already occupied.
They installed 2 Clamato Fountains there right afterwards and at least a dozen vamp kids are now guarding (hanging out at) the place whenever it's open, beating up any goths who try to get their coffee fix there.
Needless to say, the goths were fucking furious about that particular bridgehead being established.
Their retort to this major victory was going around and destroying every single Hot Topic in South Park (again) to limit the supplies the vamp kids could get their hands on.
I actually had the Hot Topics in town somewhat disguised recently by making them look like Party Cities and other Halloween stores so the goths would have a harder time finding them, but that plan hasn't worked too well so far.
That brings us to the current point in time where the goths are out for blood, but the regular vamp kids won't budge one bit despite the Psi-Vampires being pretty much down for the count.
"Noooo, I am drained...!"
"You look pale, but not in a cool way."
"You dare attack a true servant of darkness?"
At the very least, the goths' most powerful offensive ability, Wall of Hellfire, can't be used here since we are currently indoors (this location is at the South Park Mall), but this is still far from an easy fight.
We also don't have Michael Jackson with us since he is currently going around healing the Psi-Vampires after their weeks of late-night fights against the goths. The Psi-Vampires are then being sent to the front lines again as well as Village Inn to reinforce our current position.
As for why that's currently needed despite the goths focusing on taking down Hot Topics left and right, the goths also summoned Edgar Allen Poe a while back and bribed him into helping their side alongside Lovecraft, so now the goths have two powerful undead spirits to our one.
Michael Jackson will probably get sent to the frontlines too once he's done healing the Psi-Vampires since his fellow spirits are a massive pain for the vamp kids to deal with.
As if that wasn't annoying enough, this was also a psychological blow to the vamp kids since according to the upcoming season 17 episode, "Goth Kids 3: Dawn of the Posers.", they saw him as the first vamp kid and their most sacred entity. The goth kids have similar opinions over the guy and just managed to get to him first.
Michael Jackson is still the most powerful spirit of the three and is an amazing team player with all his abilities to help heal and shield the vamp kids, but Lovecraft and Edgar are fueled by pure spite which helps even the odds.
"Welcome the darkness."
"You want darkness? I can do darkness."
"My night children! Drink deep from the Unholy Calmato Fountain and be rejuvenated!... Per se." Vampir shouts and we all once again get healed and strengthened.
"Ugh, someone take out that stupid fountain!" Goth Wendy demands as she blasts a few vampire swarmers back with [Cigarette Burn].
"You will never get past us, per se!"
"Wanna bet?" A deep voice growls, interrupting both sides before dropping down from the ceiling and kicking Vampir right in the face.
'Oh no she FUCKING didn't! God damnit, Tricia!' I internally lose my cool as Mysterion uses Dark Whisper to yank the fountain over and cut it in half with a well-timed Soul Slash.
Now one thing I forgot to mention in this war of ours is the fact that we are also temporarily replacing the Karen and Tricia of this timeline's South Park. Tricia wasn't happy about the 'severe big brother downgrade' as she put it, but Dovah countered by pointing out how important undercover missions can be despite them usually sucking a lot.
The latter is doing something with those versions of us (probably taking them to an amusement park or something) while we play this game, but what's important is that Kenny's reaction to his little sister becoming a vamp kid is... less than pleasant in pretty much any timeline.
Just look at the Casa Bonita DLC or cut vampire TFBW quest. He can and will beat up every vamp kid in the state of Colorado if it means saving me from them which is why I did my absolute best to hide my current allegiance from this timeline's Kenny for as long as possible (while subtly convincing Tricia that he already knew and was convincing me to stop).
Looks like she found out about that particular lie. And now I have this to deal with. Fucking fabulous.
"I feel like something tragic is about to happen." Henrietta comments and I grumble a bit before swapping to a surprised look. Acting is nothing new for me, so this isn't a big deal.
"Guardian angel, what are you doing here?"
"I'm here to save you, Karen. These vampire kids aren't cool; they're just making you think you are!"
"Hey! Step away from the vampire princess, per se!"
"Leave Karen alone!" Vampir and several vamp kids come to my defense and I sigh internally while telling Kenny that "They are cool!"
I absolutely hate the idea of fighting against any version of my big brothers, and while I don't consider Dovah and 'New Kid/Dovahkiin' to be the same person at all, it's a different story for alternate Kenny McCormicks; especially ones that are doing their best to protect me.
I hated having to work with Cthulhu to put Dovah down during the Nahkriin War and I can only thank my lucky stars that I didn't have to face Kenny too back then. However, I know that this is something I need to get over.
What if I have to fight a truly evil version of Kenny one day? Like Eric Cartman and Dark Angel Red levels of evil? I can't let personal bias be the death of me.
"I can finally knock your choppers out completely instead of just chipping them off, and I am going to enjoy it, you discount bloodsucker!" The caped crusader growls.
"They're fangs!"
"And they must've cost a lot to get this white and shiny. What a waste of money and your few remaining brain cells."
I send a swarm of bats Kenny's way to restrain him for a bit while signaling the vamp kids to fall back. I can sense another wave of goth kids coming and while the vamp kids' lifesteal spells help them recover health, the same can't be said for their stamina.
TwistedSisters:
KareBear: srsly trish?
🖕: you're the one who lied to me about Kenny knowing
KareBear: so i didn't have to deal with the guilt tripping. Kenny started gaslighting me the literal second I got home after the battle, doing everything but outright admitting he was in the middle of it all. Even this timeline's me would've been able to put two and two together about his superhero alter-ego at this point.
🖕: rofl
KareBear: 🖕
🖕: what?
KareBear: screw you. Also has anyone on your side been sent to emo camp yet? The quote unquote 'episode' should be starting in a few days
🖕: 4 kids so far. I may not be a master strategist (yet) but i know how to fucking count.
🖕: Stan was one of the victims btw so you should probably avoid Goth Wendy and Kyle at all costs. They look ready to burn the school down.
KareBear: well that's just great. Want to investigate tonight?
🖕: is this an elaborate trap where you sacrifice me to ghost plants for getting a Kenny to gaslight you?
KareBear: i plead the fifth
Several hours later, Tricia and I are standing at the front of 'Troubled Acres: Rehab for At Risk Teens' aka the Emo Factory secretly run by ghost plants.
Tricia would probably comment about how only pre-teens seem to be getting sent here, but she's too busy paling at the terrifying amounts of spiritual energy inside this place.
"Ghost plants?" I can't help but ask.
"Fucking ghost plants." She responds and we then hear what sounds like an army of rattlesnakes behind us.
I wish there was an army of rattlesnakes instead of what's actually behind us.
Potted ghost plants. Lots and lots of potted ghost plants that are all shaking in anger.
"...Right. Forgot that they don't like being called plants."
*SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS*
"...Bail?"
"Bail. AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!"
"OHSHITOHSHITOHSHITOHSHITOHSHITOHSHIT!!!"
*SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS*
The ghost plants probably weren't too happy about us stalking them that night because in the following week, over two dozen goth kids and three dozen vamp kids were all sent to the camp and returned as emos a few days later.
The emos all actually have a bit of spiritual energy in their head controlling them, something most of the goths and a few of the higher tier vamp kids picked up on and it wasn't long before the goths and vamp kids had to join forces to combat this invasion.
"What we need is a spell that can exercise the emo spirits out of them!"
"Like that'll do shit to stop them. We need to destroy the source of these things, you fucking posers."
"Yo, watch who you assaultin' motherfucka!"
"You're just jelly of my dark powers."
Both sides start arguing again and Michael Jackson's attempts at calming everyone down don't go well since nobody is in the mood for playing and having fun.
"WILL YOU ALL JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP ALREADY?!?" Kenny is the one to stop the fighting in his Mysterion alter-ego.
"I fucking hate you vamp kids for turning Karen into one of you, but her becoming an emo is a hundred times worse. I'm stopping this stupid camp even if I have to die a hundred fucking times in the process! Either help me or not, I don't care which."
"...That was pretty goth."
"I don't care. Are you coming or not?" The caped crusader growls at Henrietta after her little comment.
"We will aid you, per se." Mike cuts in.
"Good, because it would be a shame if you had a sudden accident and lost those bleached tusks of yours."
"For the last time, Mysterion, THEY! ARE! FANGS!"
The goths agree soon after and the other vamp kids join in too with both sides then getting ready for a combined assault with everything they have at their disposal. It's as they say, go big or go home.
Unfortunately for us, two more vamp kids and another goth kid were forcefully sent to the camp by their parents during our preparations, so we completely lost the element of surprise.
We still have around 150 kids total (plus the Master Vampire and adult black vampire kid) with several hundred bats and dire bats, three spirits, and over a dozen Clamato Fountains being carted over as support.
Unfortunately, this camp wasn't just targeting goth and vamp kids in South Park, they were bringing these kids in from all over the state of Colorado and the bats we sent to scout ahead found around 500 teen and pre-teen emos waiting for us by the camp's entrance.
We also found a few hundred ghost plants who got veerrryyy pissed off when a random vamp kid referred to them as such despite Tricia and I SPECIFICALLY instructing them all not to!
Another unfortunate occurrence came when we realized that despite changing sides, the emos still remember how to use their spells from when they were goths and vamp kids.
We did have some advantages though. Michael Jackson proved to be a major thorn in their side with his amazing support abilities and could still fight a few dozen emos single-handedly. The spirits of Lovecraft and Edgar also helped out a bunch by hitting the emos with similar debuffs that Mysterion could whenever he was turned into a spirit in TFBW.
The latter could lower defense, make them chilled to prevent them from attacking, or hit them with confusion that made them sometimes attack each other. These spirits could do similar stuff, making it easier for the kids on our side to beat them up or the bats on our side to swarm them.
The Master Vampire proved to be another heavy hitter for our side (I would hope so since he's another DLC boss) as his frosted tips and makeshift flamethrower tore through groups of emos pretty quickly. Unfortunately, the 'Emo King', a massive version of the emo ghost plants, decided to show up and possess the vampire leader, turning him emo as well and pitting him against us.
More of our forces were getting possessed left and right and it was obvious that we needed to finish this quickly or our entire army would be turned against us.
Tricia and I both teamed up to fight the Master Vampire with her providing me buffs from Satanic Seal and Baleful Blessing while directly fighting the vampire/comedian/detective in a melee.
"Karen, DON'T! IT'S TOO DANGEROUS!" Kenny calls out to me while being dogpiled by several emos.
"I'll be fine, Kenny!" I call back and realize a few seconds later that I was supposed to not know his secret superhero identity.
Whoops. Looks like I still have a long way to go when it comes to acting.
I have no time to worry about that though as I nearly get skewered by some ice spikes erupting from the ground. I then fire a Bat Swarm at the Master Vampire (Master Emo now?) that is mixed with Vampir's stronger lifesteal attack before dropping down on him to do a [Baby Bat Dive x Bite] combo.
It works and he is knocked back from that attack combo while I get healed from both that and another combo of lifesteal abilities from both Tricia and I. Her Baleful Blessing went off at just the right time.
'What's the point in even holding back against these dumbasses?' I think to mys- wait a second. I didn't think that just now.
An overwhelming presence then fills my mind and I'm forced to clutch my head and kneel in pain.
"KAREN!" Tricia cries out, but I'm too busy trying to fight this thing to notice.
(("Why play his stupid game? Dovah doesn't understand you."))
'He's helping me, you stupid plant! He's preparing me for anything I may have to face in the multiverse, even asshole telepaths like you!'
(("He seems to be just fine doing that without you; he's turned you down every time you wanted to help after all. He just keeps you around to satisfy his own guilty conscience. You're like a fucking bird in that poser's cage."))
'Looks like you really do lack a brain, you fucking garden decoration. Is Dovah overprotective of Tricia and I? Yes, but he has every reason to be. He told us and even showed us what he went through while traveling throughout spacetime... how even someone like him barely managed to pull through in the end.
He knows what's out there and wants to make sure we're ready for it and I'm perfectly fine with that. I want to kick ass out there and I want to become even better than my big brother someday, so I'll pass every test he throws at me, and if I fail, then I'll just try again!
But I won't be failing to a fucking telepath again. I WON'T have a repeat of Zarganor! So GET... OUT... OF... MY...'
"BODY!!!"
*BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM*
*SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS*
I wipe out every single stupid spirit spore the giant plant put in me before dashing over to it and smashing its pot into pieces. I then grab it by the roots and after spinning it around for a bit, chuck it into the night sky before powering up to max.
"Game over, you fucking weed! PROMINENCE..." I yell as purple flames encompass me.
"...BURN!!!" A massive wave of purple flames then incinerates the giant plant while shooting off into the stars.
"Yeah!" Michael Jackson cheers. "No one likes to be defeated! Shamo-"
"FREEZE!!!"
What the...
"GO! GO! GO! MOVE! MOVE! GO! GO! GO! GET ON THE GROUND! GO!"
*CRASH* *BOOM* *BANG* *BANG* *BANG*
A small army of what looks like ghosts in police outfits suddenly explode out of a glowing red crack, making me more dumbfounded then exhausted (and I'm really freaking exhausted right now).
"Oh, ignorant! If a ghost cop asks, you never saw me. HEEEE, HE! Shamona!" The spirit celebrity cheers before legging it, leaving me even more confused.
"Ghost... cops?"
"They're called 'InSpectres'." I hear a familiar voice pipe up right behind me. "It's a really funny pun. I won't bother going into details right now, but timelines like this one where spirits and ghosts are summoned waaaaay more often have their Satans create this group to deal with the issue. Any spirits they catch as well as anyone who helped summon them are getting a police convoy down the highway to hell, so we should probably get out of here."
"DOVAH!!!" I cheer before jumping at him and hugging him like a koala.
"Yup, I'm back! Who wants some rare snacks from other galaxies?"
"ME! Memememememe!"
"Same. Did we pass, by the way? I know we were supposed to limit our powers to the ones our sides have, but-"
"But that was only fighting each other, so by technicality, you passed. Don't you just love loopholes?... We really should get out of here though."
Yeah, the scene around us is a total mess. Dozens of ghost plants are hopping away along with the emos they possessed, but the ghost cops are relentlessly pursuing them. The goths and vampires are also flipping out because Michael Jackson is making them dance against their will to distract the InSpectres, much like he did with me during his canon boss fight.
Dovah then warps Tricia and I out of there through the EOD, and once we're safe and sound, he gives us another round of congratulations while ruffling our hair.
"Good job, girls. Telepaths gave you both a lot of trouble last time so I wanted to work on that some more now. It just so happened to line up with a bunch of the other stuff I wanted you to get better at using this timeline." He explains while I giggle and Tricia smirks.
"I'm sorry for limiting you two so much and stopping your own time traveling adventures. I just want to make sure you are 110% ready for anything out there."
"We know, bro." Tricia snarks back. "I don't mind having fun on a few missions before going kicking ass as heroes with Karen. These training tests are actually fun... unlike basically every other test I've ever taken."
"Glad to hear it. The next mission will start tomorrow after you get some much needed rest. Are you two up for it?"
"Anytime, big bro."
"What do you fucking think?" We respond and he smiles while patting our heads.
Head pats feel great and even Tricia agrees despite being a massive tsundere about it. But even that can't compare to the satisfaction I feel right now from winning.
We'll be sure to keep the win streak going this time around. This won't end like South Park 64 did.
No stupid alien clones or oversized evil space rocks will stop us this time.