Universal Inconstants

Chapter 11

The meetup was set to take place at 4 pm at Stark's pond, and of course the remaining Freedom Pals, along with Corey and Butters, were the first to arrive in the area. They sat in near silence as they waited for the others to (hopefully) show up, few words being spoken other than trying to plan who was going to say what. Kenny sat next to Butters with his arm around the other's shoulders as they tossed around ideas, while Kyle sat beside Tweek and Corey sat on the ground beside the bench, despite the fact that the bench was available to sit on. Jimmy had stepped away for a moment, excitedly explaining that he had to give Timmy a call, as he had promised the day before.

There were only four kids that they were waiting for, yet it seemed like the whole universe was about to show up. 

The first one to show his face was Stan, who slowly walked into view about five minutes after the others had sat down to wait. They all tossed him a wave as he moved to sit down next to Kyle, who looked at him worriedly, noticing that he looked even worse than he did earlier.

He started to ask the other if he was okay, but Scott and Tolkien suddenly showed up, causing everyone to look back at the sudden shuffling of feet that approached them from the path. 

Corey surveyed both of them; neither of them wore even a hint of a smile as they joined the group. They didn't sit down, but they stood silently as the group waited. Five minutes passed. No sign of Craig. Corey moved to actually sit on the bench, facing the others with one leg propped up on the seat, the other hanging off. Another five minutes went by and Jimmy returned, a smile plastered on his face. 

Kenny realized that Craig might not come after all and stood up.

"Mrmm mm mrm mhm mmhm mm?" Kenny asked, and everyone shook their heads.

Corey bafflingly looked around at the group. "What the hell?" They asked.

Stan looked at them. "He asked if anyone knew if Craig was coming. You kinda just start understanding him after a while," he explained.

Kenny chuckled and unzipped his parka enough to speak clearly. 

Corey looked at him and smiled. "I know he'll be here. Might take him a while to decide to, though."

The others glanced at them with slight confusion, but Kenny just nodded. "Freckles is right," he said, and Corey opened their mouth to protest. 

However they were unable to as Kenny continued. 

"You all saw the virus that went around yesterday, right?" He asked.

Tolkien, Scott, and Stan all nodded. "It was the crab people. We traced their location to a point in this very forest, and there we overheard some of their plans," Kenny explained.

Kyle continued. "They're planning to attack next week, but we don't know exactly when. We don't know what they're going to do, but it's going to be big."

"Th-they said they w-were g-gonna take over the w-w-world," Jimmy added.

"And you need us... why?" Tolkien asked, not wanting to help unless it was truly important. He was too uninvolved in life at this point to care. He would only be reminded of Clyde, he knew, if he tried to fight again.

Kenny opened his mouth to speak, but stopped as suddenly, out of the blue, he noticed Craig standing behind the others. He beamed brightly. 

"We're all together now. Good," he said. 

Craig frowned at him and held up a middle finger in his direction. Kenny just nodded. 

"Okay, now that everyone's here... we need you because this is bigger than the four of us can handle. We can't fight this fight alone. If they're planning world dominion, they're going to throw everything they have at us."