Cassandra L/n was sad for a number of reasons.

She was sad that she was now only half of what once was a pair.

She was sad that she was alone.

She was sad that her sister was dead.

She was sad that she and Kenny McCormick seemed to be the only ones who even bothered to mourn Y/n when she fell.

On her short walk over to Butters' house, Cassandra had some time to think. Allowing herself to release that much emotion and display it for everyone to see would probably have some sort of bad effect on her reputation, but she had to admit that it felt good to finally let go of all of the ugly feelings she had been bottling up.

All of the rage.

All of the sadness. 

All of the fears and resentments and regrets. 

They all unfurled within a girl within a closet on the night her sister joined the angels.

But now, she had to consider this: she wasn't in that closet anymore, and she couldn't keep clinging to her grief. It's not what Y/n would've wanted her to do.

So, with a heavy heart, Cassandra L/n decided to lift her chin up and puff out her chest. She knew it would be hard for her to go on, but she resolved that she would endure her pain by any means necessary. There was to be no more cowering for Cassandra.

She mustered up her best impersonation of confidence as she walked down the street in her torn up Virus suit.

And as she walked, Cassandra L/n felt the facade slowly melt away as the spirit of her sister sidled up beside her.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

The Freedom Pals were holding another emergency meeting in Token's basement. The team was still frazzled from the events of last night's failed mission, and they were all interrogating Call Girl for details.

Despite watching everything unfold so clearly from above on the rooftops, whenever she tried to recollect her memories from that night, they all came out as a hazy blur.

"I told you guys already," She had said. "I remotely detonated some bombs that were lying around in the storage unit to distract the cultists, then I was able to throw down a rope to get our friends out of there! There's really not much more to it."

Everyone nodded their heads and murmured agreement. The story made sense to them, and no one wanted to put Call Girl's authenticity into question under the fears of getting their online accounts hacked. 

"But wait," Tupperware said suddenly. "What about that V/n girl? Wasn't she supposed to be apart of that mission too? I don't remember her being with you guys when you came back."

Call Girl's eyes flew open. There was the detail that she had missed! 

V/n. . . she had been at the U-STOR-IT too, but for whatever reason, all recollections involving the snarky villain were too blurred to decipher. V/n wasn't able to escape with the group, that much was easy to remember. But then where had she gone?

"I think," Call Girl closed her eyes, attempting to re-construct the memories. "that she ran away? I'm not entirely sure, to be honest." 

"Hey, that's what I said yesterday!" Professor Chaos exclaimed, casually strolling up to the group and inserting himself into the discussion. He was closely followed by The Amazing Butthole, who gave a sheepish smile and wave to his teammates.    

"Butthole! Good to have you back, man." Toolshed nodded. Everyone else chimed in with a chorus of agreement, making The New Kid blush a bit underneath his mask. Doctor Timothy wheeled up to the gathered group, giving the newly recovered superhero a small smile in greeting. 

"New Kid, I think I speak for us all when I say that I'm glad you're back with us. I'm uncertain if the professor filled you in. . ." 

He cast a glance at Butters, who gave an affirmative nod of his head. "Yup, I filled Butthole in on everything last night!"

"Alright then, now we can get down to business," He continued. "I know that last night's mission was . . . a bit of a failure, but we can't allow ourselves to be discouraged by our shortcomings. We are the only ones able to save the abductees, so we must return to the U-STOR-IT as soon as possible. Does anyone have any ideas on-" 

Doctor Timothy was interrupted by the loud sound of the basement door slamming open. Alarmed, everybody bolted up to face the perpetrator. They all feared that the cult had finally found their secret base- but when they looked up, the only person standing at the top of the stairs was Y/n L/n, heaving and exasperated. She leaned against the arm rail, panting for breath. As she puffed, a short, older woman awkwardly waddled in after her. 

Everyone watched, mouths gaping, as Y/n shook off her fatigue and made her way down the steps. "Hey guys," She jovially threw up her arms. "I'm alive!"   

"Uh, cool," said Fastpass. "W-who are you again?"

Call Girl ran up to the front. "It's alright, everyone. This is Y/n L/n, V/n's alias." 

She turned to Y/n, confusion written all over her face. "Y/n, what happened at the storage unit yesterday night? I was calling for you to climb up the rope with us, why did you run away from me?"

Y/n's stomach lurched. Call Girl had been at the unit too? Y/n deduced that she was the one that got everybody else to safety after everything went dark. That much quelled her fears of Kenny or Cassandra having got hurt in the aftermath, but how could she have missed Y/n's crumpled corpse on the floor? 

Surely she had seen it as she was evacuating everyone. Y/n had imagined that it would have been hard to miss.      

Y/n, feeling in dire need of an explanation, began to form a question on her lips. "What the hell are you talking about? Can you explain how a dead body could possibly run away from you?" 

Before she was able to speak them aloud, M/n tugged down and whispered something in her ear. "They won't remember you dying, Y/n." 

Y/n whirled around, bewildered. "What?! Why?!" M/n only shrugged in response, which greatly pissed off her daughter. "Hey, I don't make the immortality rules, kiddo. Just roll with it."   

Upon her speaking, the Freedom Pals all suddenly glanced at her sideways, as if only just then remembering that she was there. "Y/n, who is this?" 

"Oh. Um, this is my mom." Y/n gestured beside her. M/n dipped her head in greeting. 

  "HAH! YOU BROUGHT YOUR FUCKING MOM?! FUCKING PATHETIC, DUDE!" The Coon jeered from his prison in the other room. Y/n spun around, flinching in surprise when she saw him through the half-open door.

"Hey, you're that fat raccoon kid who said he was gonna dismember my sister! Who the fuck do you think you are, you furry dildo?!"

The Human Kite sighed irritably. "Listen, Y/n, I know he's a fucking dick, but you'll just have to ignore him. We have more important things to worry about right now." He briskly walked up to the door, swinging it shut with a hard slam as The Coon protested from inside. 

"KAHL, OPEN THE GODDAMN DOOR YOU MOTHERFUCKING JEW!"

 M/n was the only one who winced at the sudden outcry. Everybody else just sighed in annoyance, for they have had to block out his profanities for countless years up until this point.  

"You know, I'd appreciate it if we could go back to the subject of Y/n bringing her mom to our super-secret superhero meeting," said Super Craig. "Like, I don't want to have to agree with Cartman, but that is pretty lame."    

Y/n tapped her foot against the floor impatiently. She was still anxious to see Kenny and Cassandra, and she hasn't caught sight of either of them since showing up.
Y/n didn't have the time to answer all of these stupid questions the Freedom Pals wanted to be answered, but she obliged just to hurry the process along. "Well Craig, it just so happens that my mother used to be a member of this cult we're trying to get rid of. I figured she would be useful, so I brought her along."

The Freedom Pals were surprised by this piece of information. They looked at M/n under a new light, somewhat reluctant to believe that this gentle-looking woman had once been among the ranks of the ruthless murderers that had almost killed some of their teammates. M/n flashed a sheepish smile at the group, a bit nervous from the attention she was receiving.

"Hello there everyone, it's very lovely to meet such a. . . uh. . ." 

She wrinkled her nose at the odd-looking costumes that they all wore. 

". . . tastefully decorated group of children! My name is M/n, and I'm Y/n's mother. As my daughter said, I did previously associate with the cult that now plagues your town. Seeing as Y/n has deemed you capable of helping to be rid of them, I will aid you by giving you any information you might need." 

The team seemed hesitant to step forward and ask M/n anything. They all looked at each other in uncertainty, waiting for someone to say or do something.

After a few tense moments, Doctor Timothy rolled up to the front. He pressed a finger to his temple, squinting his eyes and trembling slightly. A flicker of something flashed across M/n's eyes. Y/n couldn't tell what. She was mainly focusing on how Doctor Timothy looked kind of constipated while he sat there.

He eventually lowered his hand, appearing slightly startled and bewildered by whatever he saw in M/n's head. He gave a small cough, quickly correcting his posture.

"Well, it seems as if Y/n's mother is a trustworthy source of information. Knowing this, we gladly accept your offer of help. Now, if you don't mind, I'm sure that we all have a lot of questions that you can answer for us."

M/n nodded, beckoning for the Freedom Pals to come over to the other side of the room. They followed, bombarding her with an indecipherable wave of questions. Y/n didn't pay them any mind. 

She marched over towards Professor Chaos, who was standing off to the side with some other kid she didn't know. The Professor was babbling on and on about miscellaneous subjects while his companion bit into a chipotle burrito and nodded in contentment. 

The sight made Y/n's heart pang with a sort of envy. What she wouldn't give to be able to eat burritos like that with Kenny. 

"Hey," Y/n interrupted. Professor Chaos stopped talking, then turned up to look at Y/n, offering a small smile.

"Oh, heya Y/n! How're ya doin'?" He turned to the kid beside him, whispering in his ear. "Butthole, this is that V/n girl I was tellin' you about."

Butthole wrinkled his nose distastefully, looking Y/n up and down with a cold gaze. They didn't seem too happy at the news of another new kid in town. Y/n stood unfazed by the silent judgments, instead focusing her attention on getting Professor Chaos to answer her question. 

"I wanted to see Kenny and Cassandra. Do you know where they are?"

Professor Chaos nodded, still beaming. "Yeah, they're probably over there, with the rest of the team. . ." 

He craned his neck up to scan the group gathered on the other side. He squinted for a moment, then tilted his head in confusion. "Huh, that's weird. They're not here." He scratched his chin thoughtfully for a moment, blankly staring down at his feet. 

"You know. . . come to think of it, Cassandra was supposed to come by my house yesterday night for a sleepover." He turned to look at his quiet friend for confirmation. "She never did show up, did she, Fartlord?"            

Butthole shook his head, taking another bite into his burrito. Y/n bit her lip. Something was wrong about this, she could feel it. 

"Alright, uh, thanks anyway. I'll see you later." She turned away from the pair, making her way over to the stairs. "H-hey! Where are you going?" The Professor called after her.

Y/n, halfway up the flight of stairs, simply replied that she needed some air and asked him to let M/n know of her absence. 

"Fresh air,"  Y/n muttered, silently closing the basement door behind her. "I don't need fresh air. I need answers."

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

Y/n opened the door to the f/c house slowly. She hadn't been there in a long while, so she lingered in the doorway for a hesitant moment. Was coming back here a mistake? For all she knew, that stupid cult probably already knew her address and was waiting to ambush her.

"No, Y/n," She chided herself. "You have to go in. It's the only other place Cassandra could be right now."

Flicking on an interior switch, Y/n audibly gasped at the horror she saw within. She had imagined that the house would look a tad bit unkempt, sure, but she never would have thought that Cassandra's housekeeping would be this terrible. 

Furniture was upturned, red lego bricks were splayed across the floor, and there was the suspicious stench of day-old Mexican food that lingered in the air. Cautiously, Y/n entered the house, the front door silently creaking shut behind her.   

"Cassandra . . ?" She called out meekly. Her only response was the anxiety-inducing silence that her home provided. Impulsively, she raced up the stairs and bolted into her sister's bedroom. 

There was the possibility that Cassandra was just asleep, right? Yes, that was most likely the reason for her lack of a response. She was probably tired after that mission, and she was just catching up on her sleep. She had to be in her room, she had to-

Y/n swung the door open with a resounding thud. She looked to the bed, where she had expected, hoped, needed, to see her sister's sleeping form.

To Y/n's dismay, the bed's only occupant was Dr. Java, Cassandra's scraggly old teddy bear.  

Feeling her heart sink in her chest, Y/n looked around the room to at least find some evidence of her sister's recent presence. 

The bedroom was mostly empty, save for the dozens of electronics piled on the side of the room. They were all blinking and buzzing frantically, possibly from all of the weeks of neglect. Candy bar wrappers were strewn across her desk. Dirty clothes were carelessly heaped in the corner.   

Though Y/n didn't want to, she had to begrudgingly admit to herself that no one had been in their home for a long while. 

Y/n plopped herself down onto her sister's messy bed and sighed in defeat. Was she stupid to believe that Cassandra would have even been in here? "I just hope she didn't get kidnapped again. . ." Y/n moaned. 

She glanced over to the side, looking over at Dr. Java. He was bound up tightly in the untidy duvet, his small brown face poking out slightly. He was an old and patchy bear that was on the verge of falling apart, but thanks to Y/n's expert sewing skills, he was still somehow being held together. She scooped him up in her arms, silently fiddling with his scratchy tufts of fur. 

"You wouldn't happen to know where Cassandra is, would you, Dr. Java?" She muttered down at him. 

Dr. Java gave no response. The light only reflected off of his shiny button eyes with a mischievous glint, almost in the exact same way that it would have done for Cassandra. 

Huffing, Y/n set the bear back down on the bed. She didn't have time to mope around the house in the hopes that her sister would return. She had only an hour before she was due to meet Kenny at those coordinates he sent, and that meant she only had a few minutes to get her gear in order. 

She walked out of her sister's room, making her way towards her own bedroom. Since her V/n costume had been lost to the fires of the storage unit she had died in, she was going to have to salvage some of the unused backup gear that she kept in the-

Y/n stopped. She stood in the doorway, slightly alarmed by what she saw lying on her bed.

An exact replica of her V/n costume, complete with her signature f/w, was set out neatly on top of her sheets. Whenever she was just about to suit up for a mission, she had always laid her costume out just like this. 

Y/n approached the costume, marveling at the attention to detail. It was almost as if it had never even perished in the U-STOR-IT unit to begin with. 

Curious to see if it would fit, she stripped out of the casual clothes that her mother gave her, and slipped into the form-fitting suit that was practically a second skin.  Surely enough, it gave her the exact same familiar squeeze that the original did, as if it was, in fact, the original. At this point, Y/n would have been thoroughly convinced of that.

Feeling comfortable in her costume, Y/n gently hoisted up the f/w and gave it a playful swing. If she were lucky, her little toy was going to be put to good use tonight. She slid it into its holder, sighing in slight comfort. 

Being V/n again made her feel exceptionally more confident about her predicament, if not a little bit better than before. She looked to her watch for the time. Cursing under her breath, she hastily grabbed the rest of her utilities and exited the bedroom. She had to leave immediately if she wanted to be on time for her Rendez-Vous.

"V/n's coming your way, babe," She muttered. "and she's ready to kick some ass." 

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

He coughed and sputtered awake. 

"W-where the fuck am I? What's going on?!"

He tried to move, but found himself immobile. He looked down to see that his ankle now held a heavy iron cuff that shackled him to the wall behind him.  

He tried calming himself down. He tried to prevent himself from hyperventilating. He tried to remember the events that led up to this moment.

But he drew a blank as soon as he looked beside him and saw Cassandra chained up a few feet away from him. 

She was adorned with the same ankle cuff, but unlike him, she wasn't moving. Her unconscious form was trembling slightly, but other than that, she was out cold. 

"Cassandra," He whispered sharply. "Cassandra, wake up." 

If Cassandra could hear him, she didn't act like it. The petite brunette shuddered from the dankness of their holding cell, then murmured something about "turning off the goddamn air conditioning."  

Kenny sighed through his teeth. Once again, it was up to him to take initiative and find a way out of another harrowing predicament. He noted that he was still in his Mysterion costume, so he must have been kidnapped during one of his patrols. . . or perhaps while he was on his way back from a Freedom Pals meeting?

"Ugh, knock it off," He chided himself. "You don't have time to speculate about that crap. It doesn' matter how you got here, what you've gotta worry about is finding a way out."

"Oh, you've no need to worry about that. We have no plans on letting you two leave."

A hearty laugh echoed out in front of him. Kenny craned his neck up to see the face of the person who found his situation to be so hilarious, slightly taken aback to see the face of the cult's leader jeering at him through the bars of his iron prison.

"To be honest, I feel kind of like an idiot right now." Kenny spat. "I should've known as soon as I woke up that you guys would have been behind all this." 

The leader chortled. "Well then, I commend you on your deduction skills. You figured it out, Bravo." He snickered again, causing Kenny's eyes to narrow out of suspicion. "You're awfully chipper. Is this the part of the story when you monologue the schematics of your big evil plan?"

"Certainly not, though you and your little friend do play a big part in it."  The cult leader obviously didn't seem to pick up on his blatant sarcasm. "Both of you seem to be very close to the Deathless, so you two will be essential in getting her to surrender her life."

A raw rage began to unfurl deep within Kenny's psyche. Didn't he get it? Because of him and his cult, there was no life left to surrender. His lovely Y/n was dead because of them.

"You're really sick, you know that?" Kenny whispered in a dangerously low voice. "You know that she's dead, and yet you act like she's still alive and breathing." He stumbled over his words, barely able to choke them out. "WHY? WHY ARE YOU STILL DOING THIS TO HER?! SHE'S GONE!"

The man before him dismissed his words with a bored wave of his hand. "No, she's not."That which is dead cannot die," as the saying goes. I cannot fault you for not understanding, it is very much beyond your mortal comprehension." 

Kenny froze. "That which is dead cannot die." He had heard that saying before, back from when he and his friends played superheroes in the fourth grade. It had resonated with him strongly when he was still trying to uncover the truth about his immortality, and now it was being used to describe Y/n?

Before Kenny could put the pieces together, the cult leader interrupted his thought process. "Well, anyhow, I should be leaving. I've not a lot of time to organize the ceremonies, and I don't want to waste it here." 

He turned on his heel to leave.

"HEY, GET BACK HERE! YOU OWE ME AN EXPLANATION, PAL," Kenny yelled after him. "AND YOU BETTER LEAVE Y/N L/N OUT OF THIS!"

"Trust me, you won't need to worry about the Deathless," He sneered. "She'll be returning to hell very soon."

Then he slammed the door shut behind him. The loud noise made him flinch, and it caused Cassandra to stir from her unconsciousness. Dazed, she blinked awake, pressing a hand to her pounding head.

"Fuck, dude- what the hell's going on?" She looked over to the side, taking notice of Kenny slumped against the wall with her. "K-Kenny, where the hell are-"   

 She looked down at the cuff on her ankle, putting the pieces together.

"Aw goddamnit, it's only been three fucking hours since I got out of that fucking U-STOR-IT building! How the fuck did I get kidnapped again?!?"

______________________________________________

Just a quick note: I wanted to clarify that when Y/n conveniently found her V/n suit on her bed, I was just going based off of the unspoken immortality rules that were kind of implied in the series. (i.e, clothes reverting to their undamaged forms prior to death.)

so ANYWAYS, lads. holy fuck, lads. 

firstly, if you have corona, I am so sorry. 

secondly, if you don't, enjoy your two-week march break extension. 

thirdly, thanks for 6k reads I fucking want to hug all of you right now. I'm going to crush all of your windpipes in the friendliest way possible. 

fourthly, I've run out of points and I'm kind of prolonging this ending sequence.

fifthly, goodbye. make sure to eat your hands and wash your soup, chapter 22 is coming soon!

-Ever