I don't own South Park - it's owned by the very talented Trey Parker and Matt Stone.

Super Hero

by cell12

Chapter 1

Monday - The Genius

It was a typical Monday morning in South Park. After a pleasant weekend of sitting in front of the television, Eric Cartman was not pleased to be woken up by his alarm but he knew better than to lounge in bed.

Like most boys his age, he had calculated to the last second, exactly, how long it took to get up on a morning and had set his alarm to give him just that amount of time. Trailing up and down the stairs was stupid so he always showered and dressed before coming down to breakfast. It had become one of his least favourite meals of the day. As usual, his mom was out - she'd been out all night - so his breakfast choices were between cold cereal and something zapped in the microwave. Disgusted with both options, he tore open a box of cereal bars and crammed two into his pocket - he would eat them later. Next he changed Mr Kitty's water and opened a tin of cat food - if he left it for him mom to do, poor Mr Kitty would starve. Before leaving Eric checked his jacket pocket for his wallet and made sure he had enough money for lunch. Noting that he was low on cash, he ran upstairs to his mom's bedroom.

Cartman hated going into his mom's bedroom, it had an odour that turned his stomach. Try not to imagine the smell of cheap weed and mouldy sperm, badly masked by a liberal spraying with perfume. The sort of smell you could taste on your lips and remember in your nightmares. Eric hurriedly pulled open the drawer in the dressing table where his mom kept some cash. Bravely trying to ignore the crack-pipe and unopened syringes - still in their sterile plastic bags - Cartman reached for the box where the money was kept. Inside was a measly 130 dollars - barely enough to see them through the week. Eric sighed, he would have to use his savings to pay the bills and grocery's - again. Why couldn't his mom be more normal and not such a useless drug-addled whore?

Not wanting to be late, Cartman grabbed the cash and quickly left his house - he had stopped thinking of it as his home years ago. Now he was running late and would have to hurry to catch the school bus.

Stan, Kyle and Kenny were already at the bus stop when he arrived, slightly out of breath. Kenny, at least, had the sense to not engage him in conversation on a morning - Kyle on the other hand...

"You're late Fat-ass," Eric calmly noted that Kyle was being his usual, bitchy self, "what would you do if you missed the bus. There's no way you could walk that far with all that blubber."

Apparently Kyle had not noticed that Eric's clothes fit him a lot looser than just a year before. The only reason why Cartman still wore them was because he couldn't afford to replace them.

"Thank you for your insight, Kahl," Eric had learned years ago that the more polite and calm he stayed while arguing with Kyle, the more he pissed off the Jewish boy. "It's reassuring to know that somebody can't take their eyes off my hot body."

Kenny chuckled under his parker.

"Dude," Stan chipped in, "you know Kyle's not like that."

"Well, not for you anyway," Eric couldn't help himself, he had to out-insult anyone he argued with.

Just then the bus pulled up and Stan and Kyle climbed aboard with Cartman and Kenny not far behind. In a hurry to sit down, Cartman tried to push past the other two boys to get in front of them and Kyle stuck his foot out, just enough to send Eric to the floor.

Eric pulled himself onto his knees - the laughter he heard made him feel as embarrassed and he was furious, "You did that on purpose you worthless kike."

Kyle, Stan and Kenny just laughed as they pushed past the Fat-ass and claimed their seats.

Just as Cartman regained his feet he was startled by the shrill bellow of the bus driver, "Sit down and shut up!"

"I think the bitch has got her dildos in the wrong way round today," Cartman muttered under his breath as he retreated to the back of the bus, "you're supposed to put the eight inch up your cunt and the six inch up your ass."

"What did you say!" The vile woman shrieked.

Cartman thought quickly, "I said that I give piano lessons after school, in the music room, so I've got a special hall pass."

The woman just nodded and returned her attention to the road, Eric hurried to get to his seat. Cartman pointedly ignored a greeting from Butters as he made his way to the back of the bus, as expected, his seat was waiting for him.

Cartman had got fed up with all the shit that went with choosing where to sit on the bus, so he chose his seat - in the centre, at he back - he had informed everyone who rode the bus of his choice. The next day Kyle was in his seat, so he sat on him - only getting up when Kyle promised to move. The following day Kyle was in his seat again, but this time with a gleam in his beedy Jewish eyes. Eric knew that Kyle had a plan but he had thought one move ahead. Expecting something pointy, like a pencil or a compass, Cartman had taken the time to slip a protective pad under his jeans. "Comfortable Fat-ass?" Kyle had asked after Eric had sat on him. "Not yet," he had replied before wriggling about and letting off a huge fart - a supper of broccoli and beans the night before had made sure it was nice and stinky. After that, everyone had steered clear from Cartman's rightful spot - it just wasn't worth it.

Remembering that incident had brightened Cartman's mood somewhat and he decided that he was hungry. As he took the cereal bars out of his pocket he could feel the eyes of his, so called, friends upon him. He knew what they were thinking - the Fat-ass is having snacks on top of his breakfast while poor Kenny has nothing. Did they even consider the fact that these bars were his breakfast, no they just saw his large shape.

Desperate to avoid another lecture from Kyle he handed one of the bars over to Kenny, "Here," was all he said.

Kenny quickly opened the bar and started eating. By the way he was relishing every bite, Eric could tell that Kenny hadn't had much to eat all weekend. The fact the the poor boy was beyond feeling ashamed for taking charity from his friends told Cartman all he needed to know. He looked down at the other cereal bar, swallowed his own hunger pangs and pushed it towards Kenny.

"Take it before I change my mind," he didn't even look, he just felt the bar slide out of his hand.

"Thanks dude," Kenny said, muffled by his coat.

Ignoring the questioning looks been sent his way, Eric drifted off into a half slumber. Sometimes the oblivion of sleep was the only time he came close to being happy - of course at other times he had the nightmares.

Cartman drifted through the morning in a half-daze. His friends had become used to it and usually led him to his classes. For the last couple of years he had been suffering from, what the doctor called, migraines - terrible head-aches that left him feeling like shit. Apparently it was an after-effect of all the head traumas he had received. Sometimes Eric saw sparks of intense colour and light and his head felt like it would explode. At other times it was like the world was closing in around him.

Unfortunately Eric came out of his daze just before math class. Not his favourite subject and Garrison had decided that today would be a good day for a quiz.

While the tests were handed out Cartman stole a glance at his friends. Kyle was smiling confidently, he had probably studied really hard - like the nerdy Jew that he was. Stan looked reasonably confident as well - Eric assumed that he had gone over the work with Kyle last night. Kenny was flirting with Red and she was nodding - Cartman guessed that she was going to let Kenny copy her answers.

Mr Garrison returned to the front and sat down before giving them permission to begin. Cartman turned over the paper and looked down at the math test in front of him. How, the hell, was he supposed to know any of these answers. Garrison spent all his teaching time rattling on about his favourite soaps and other such meaningless shit. The only question Eric knew he could answer was the one that asked for his name.

Early in his school career Cartman had realised that he was expected to know and remember all sorts of things that were completely pointless and meaningless - all sorts of things that he had no interest in ever learning. He had also found that he could easily get the answers off other pupils in the class. Unfortunately, as he got older the other kids became less inclined to help him and he'd been forced to resort to other means. Homework was rarely a problem, both Kyle and Butters regularly supplied him with the right answers - willingly or unwillingly - Stan was usually willing to let him copy his work, he'd even resorted to copying off Kenny on occasion. Project work was even easier, he just let the person or persons he was working with do all the work.

The main difficulty in Cartman's cheating lifestyle was tests and pop quizzes but he had developed skills to allow for cheating - even in these difficult circumstances. His main skill was his ability to read handwriting from any direction at a glance. Unfortunately for Cartman his classmates had found out about his devious, cheating skills - in no small part thanks to a certain Jewish boy's mouth - and so, for the last few tests, Eric had found hands and turned-over papers where once he had found answers.

As Cartman brooded on how unfair everything was he drifted in a relaxed daze, he figured that he would just write anything and hope for the best. He looked down at his paper. It was filled in, completed, in his hand-writing. Eric remembered picking up his pencil and writing his name in the box but after that he had just, sort of, drifted off. Well, right or wrong, they were answers. He may as well hand the damn thing in.

Cartman raised his hand up and spoke, "I've finished Mr Garrison."

All at once every pair of eyes in the room were fixed on the fat boy - some with envy that he had finished before them but most with disgust, they assumed he had found some new way to cheat.

"Bring your paper up here so that I can see it, Eric," Garrison said.

Eric approached the front and handed his teacher the paper. Garrison grabbed the sheet and started checking the answers against the back of his answer book. His jaw dropped - the fat little bastard had gotten every question right.

"Eric," the teacher asked, "did you copy off Kyle?"

"How could I have copied off the Jew? he hasn't even finished yet," Cartman was indignant so he spoke without thinking, "and I can see from here that he's got four wrong answers."

Kyle had heard the Fat-asses comments and was about to make an angry retort when Garrison spoke first, "Eric, there is no way you can read Kyle's paper from where you're standing and the only way you could possibly know that his answers are wrong is if you know that yours are definitely right. The only way you can know that is if you're a genius," Garrison's voice was mocking at this point, "or you've, somehow, gotten hold of the answers."

Cartman looked his teacher in the eyes, "I haven't cheated."

"Well there's an easy way to prove that, isn't there," Garrison's voice sounded smug.

At this point Eric was getting nervous. How, the fuck, had he managed to get all those questions right? How had he been able to read Kyle's paper at this distance? And how had he known that Kyle had four wrong answers?

"Here we go," Garrison had produced a text book out of the locked drawer in his desk. It was a text book on math. He opened the book and flicked through a few pages until he came to a page of problems. "See if you can answer these, genius."

Cartman looked at the sums on the page. With a single glance all the answers came flooding into his head. The numbers and the symbols span around in his mind. He didn't just know the answers, he understood how the math could be related to engineering and science.

"I'm waiting, Eric," Garrison snapped Cartman out of his daze.

Cartman lowered his head, he knew the answers to the questions. They were easy for him. He also knew that they were very advanced math problems, probably for college students. There was no way he wanted anyone to find out that he could answer questions like that. The bare minimum would be that he suddenly got a reputation as a nerd, like Kyle - he shuddered at the thought. Even worse would be if anyone started asking questions - like how could a borderline C/D student, known for been lazy, suddenly start answering advanced math problems?

"You were right Mr Garrison," he spoke quietly, "My mom bought me a teachers copy of the text book and I memorised the answers."

"Well Eric," Garrison revelled in his victory over the the child, "you've just earned yourself a weeks detention, but I'm glad you told the truth. You'll have to take a make-up test and I'm sure that Mr Mackey will want to have a word with you about your cheating." He wrote out a note and handed it to the boy, "Take this to his office straight away."

Cartman gratefully accepted the note and fled the classroom.

Of course Kyle couldn't wait to taunt Cartman about the math test.

"What did Mackey say about your cheating?" Kyle asked.

The walk home from school was usually Eric's favourite part of the day. He could switch off and finally relax, but that wasn't happening today. Kyle had decided to skip the bus and wait to walk home with Stan - who had football practice. Well that was what he claimed, anyway. In reality he had waited behind so that he could taunt Eric all the way home.

Eric decided it was easier to just answer Kyle, "He gave me a lecture on cheating, how I was really cheating myself out of an education - or some such shit."

Kyle looked smug, "And?"

Eric lowered his head, "Five, one hour detentions."

"A weeks worth," Eric felt like wiping the grin off of Kyle's face, "but you know that you deserve it."

"Not a weeks worth Kahl," Cartman informed Kyle, "it will be spread over two weeks to allow for my after-school activities." Eric hadn't been lying when he had said he taught piano to the bus driver that morning. It was a way to make money that wasn't too strenuous, money he needed because his mom was such a worthless crack whore. His friends cared so little about him that they probably didn't even know.

"You don't have any after-school activities, Fat-ass," Kyle shouted at him.

Eric raised an eyebrow - he had called it right, they didn't give a shit about him and probably never had, "Kahl, I've been teaching piano after school and on weekends for two years."

"No you haven't," Kyle argued.

Stan shook his head, he knew that Cartman did something after school because they walked home together twice a week. He had never cared to ask what and had told himself that he was respecting his friend's privacy. He wondered now if maybe he should have asked.

Cartman turned to Stan, "Stan, tell him."

"We walk home together twice a week after football practice," Kyle looked mortified - like Stan had been keeping a big secret from him, "I just thought that he was in a club at school."

Cartman looked at Kyle with an I-told-you-so look on his face.

"Why would you help anyone with anything, Fat-ass," Kyle sneered, "you only care about yourself."

"I get paid," Eric responded, "we don't all have rich parents."

Kyle felt the venom in that remark - Cartman was right, money was never really a problem for him - but there was no way he would let Cartman win, "You need qualifications to teach."

"You forget Kahl," Cartman smiled, "I'm a fully licensed teacher with a proper teaching certificate and everything."

Kyle vaguely recalled Cartman's time teaching high school in Denver and cursed under his breath. Not that he was about to give up, "You're such an ass, no kid would want you as a teacher."

"Your brother seems to like me."

Kyle knew that his brother had been getting piano lessons and was always proud to show off what he had learnt in front of his parents. He even remembered Ike saying how much he liked his piano teacher. It couldn't be Cartman, could it?

"You're Ike's piano teacher," he asked half-stunned.

"Don't sound so surprised Kahl," Cartman felt like he needed to justify his teaching abilities, "I do a good job. I try to make the lessons fun."

"Why didn't I know about this?"

Eric had a lot of crap to deal with in his life and he never got to unload the stress. Kyle's prodding and prying had opened Cartman up and he was ready to vent, "You're so tucked away in your own world that you don't have time for anything else, or anyone else for that matter! All you care about is your life and your problems! Do you even care about other people?"

"I care about my friends," Kyle countered, "I just don't count you amongst them."

"No, of course you don't. I'm just the guy who has saved your life a bunch of times and who's kidney is keeping you alive as we speak." Cartman slammed his fist into the wall they were walking past. Sparks of electricity moved across his fingers and jumped in tiny arcs. "What the shit," he thought before cramming his hand into his pocket.

"What was that," Stan asked.

"What?" said Kyle who hadn't seen anything.

"I just thought I saw a flash of something by Cartman's hand," Stan demonstrated his point by gesturing towards the hand in Cartman's pocket.

"It was nothing, hippy," Cartman turned to go into town rather than the way home, "I've got shit to do so I'll see you tomorrow." This was directed at Stan as he deliberately ignored Kyle.

"Yeh, see ya Fat-ass," Stan said to the retreating back of the larger boy.

Kyle turned to look at his best friend, "So what else has Cartman been up to that I don't know about?"

Stan looked at Kyle's jealous face - why did Kyle have to get so obsessive about Cartman, "Look," he said, "I don't know a lot, just what he's told me when we walk home. From what I can gather his mom isn't there a lot and when she is she's either screwing some guy or off her face on drugs."

Kyle's face blanched. Did Cartman really have it so bad?

Stan continued, "Kenny told me that Cartman pays the bills but I didn't really think about it until today."

"You mean he's been using his teaching money to support himself," Kyle was shocked.

Stan stopped and turned to his friend, "You didn't hear this from me."

"Should we try to help him," Kyle asked, "maybe my mom..."

Stan cut him off, "Cartman hates your mom and all the authorities would do is put him in a children's home. Anyway you know how independent he likes to appear."

"I have to do something."

"Let him rant at you when he needs to," Stan smiled, "you're good at that."

Kyle nodded.

The two friends walked the rest of the way home in silence.

Eric Cartman couldn't believe what was happening to him, not that he knew what was happening anyway. First the inteligence - he had always considered himself smart, just not book-smart. Now he seemed to be generating electricity.

He pulled his hand out of his pocket, the sparks had gone away but when he concentrated they came back. Looking around, he noticed that there was no-one about. He ducked into an alleyway and held out his hand. As he focused the sparks grew larger and started to merge into each other. A sphere of electrical energy was forming inches above the palm of his hand. Eric stared for a second before instinctivly flicking his wrist in a throwing motion, ball lightning he thought as it hit a streetlight - making it turn on briefly before overloading it.

The noise snapped Cartman out of his contemplation and he realised that he had to go somewhere quiet to think about this. There was no way he could be around people if he didn't have this thing under control. He knew he had to keep this a secret, even from his friends. If the government found out, well, he didn't think they would have any problems with kidnapping and disecting a child. Knowing that there was nobody in the whole world he could trust was not a new feeling for Eric Cartman but the fact that his new-found powers would make him a massive target was.

Eric realised that he had been running for some time and wasn't winded, in fact he wasn't even breathing heavily. He knew that he had dropped some weight, mainly due to his mothers inattention and lack of money over the last few years, but he also knew that he was pretty unfit. There was no way that he would, under normal circumstances, be able to run like this.

Cartman looked around and noticed that he was almost home, he also saw Stan and Kyle - just ahead of him. He slowed to a walk, the last thing he needed right now was having to deal with those two ass-holes.

Unfortunately what Cartman didn't see was his third friend, Kenny. Kenny had seen Cartman running and couldn't believe that the Fat-ass was so fast. He also knew that Cartman didn't have a teachers copy of the text book and had wanted to know how Eric had really cheated on the math test. Something was going on and Kenny wanted to know just what it was.

Eric knew, the second he entered the house, that his mother hadn't been home at all. Not because everything was exactly as he had left it but because there was no smell. The odour that Eric had come to associate with his mom - a vile combination of cheap perfume, sex and drug sweat. Of the three Eric hated the drug sweat the most. In the same way as a person who eats too much garlic starts sweating a garlic odour - Liane Cartman's sweat smelled of drugs. It was sickening and it lingered for hours in any room she occupied. Of all the things his mother did, it was the excessive drinking and drug taking that bothered Eric the most. He could see that his mother was on a spiral of dangerous self-destruction, he just couldn't do anything about it.

Eric locked the front door behind him. His mother had her key and if she was too addled to use it, she was not opposed to banging on the door at any time of night to get Eric to let her in. The shame he felt when she would pushpast him with some guy who she'd picked up was overwelming at times, but Eric had learned to be polite and hold his tounge. Sometimes it just wasn't worth it.

Eric wanted to get his homework done first. Normally it was something he ignored until the last minute, until he had to copy off Butters or the Jew - but today was different, today he was a genius. He opened his history book and looked at the homework sheet he had folded up inside. The questions were easy but he wasn't going to make the same mistake as he had with the math test. It was surprisingly hard to deliberately spell words wrong and even harder to get answers wrong when you know the right answer. He couldn't just write anything he had to base his wrong answers in relation to the questions - you couldn't just answer Santa Claus to the question, who was the eighteenth president of the United States. Even so Eric completed all his homework in less than twenty minutes.

Cartman wanted to just forget about the weird things happening to him for a while and focus on his dinner. He cursed himself for forgetting to go to the market after school, remembering that he still had to go to the bank as well. A couple of months ago he'd set up direct payments on his secret bank account, that way he could be confident that all the essential bills were paid. He suplimented the drain on his savings by depositing any money that his mother left around the house, except what he needed for groceries, into his account.

He called it his secret bank account but in reality the only person it was secret from was his mother. When he had first started earning money, he had been so proud of himself and had saved the cash in a box he kept in his underwear draw. After a few months he had built up a nice amount, nearly 500 dollars. Sadly, one afternoon, he had come home from school and checked his box only to find the money gone. He didn't see his mom for a couple of days and when she did finally return she crashed out on the floor - off her face on drugs. It was then that Eric had started hating his mother, yes he'd said it before but it had only been hurtful words until that moment. It had taken anouther couple of years for him to stop hating her - now he just didn't care.

Eric resigned himself to a frozen TV dinner, the portions weren't generous and they had way too many additives and salt but they were hot and relatively tasty. As a once-in-a-while meal they were tollerable, as an every day meal they were sickening. Eric had been eating a regular diet of microwave meals for more than eighteen months. The gloopiness and poor quality ingredients was really getting to him.

Eric grabbed the box out of the freezer and readied it for the microwave. By now he knew all the different instructions for each meal by heart. He set the timer and started the food cooking. As the microwave buzzed and whirred, Eric studied the appliance - it was on its last legs, like a lot of things in the house. When the vacuum had broken down two months ago, he had cursed on seeing the price for a replacement. Small items he could, just about, afford to replace but if something big, like the fridge-freezer, broke - he would be completely screwed over.

The ping of the microwave snapped him out of his thoughts and he grabbed the meal, along with a fork, and carried them into the living room. Maybe if he could veg out in front of the TV for a couple of hours, give himself some time to get his head around what was happening to him. Maybe then he could figure some things out.

A couple of hours watching mindless crap was all Eric could stand and he switched the set off. He contemplated doing some housework but decided against it, that sort of crap was usually left until the weekend. He wasn't an early-to-bed person but the idea of a few hours of oblivion sounded good to him.

Cartman always felt safer in his room. One of the first things he had purchased with his tutoring money was a lock for his bedroom. As as a young child he had regularly been woken up by a drunken pick-up of his mothers looking for the bathroom. Then there was the parties that his mother liked to have. He would be packed off to some other kids house for a 'sleep-over' while his mom enjoyed an all-weekend orgy. The idea that those people were using his room made him physically sick. A new matress and bedding had been essential as soon as he could afford it.

As Eric settled into his bed he wondered about whether he would get a full nights sleep without interuptions. He had come to perfer the times his mother stayed away from the house for days on end.

"Will he remember any of this?"

"Not at first, but as the nano-borgs work on enhancing his mind, he'll remember it later."

"Professor Arryx, I can understand why we revived the boy - the alien technology that was implanted inside him is a treasure trove. I can even understand why we cloned him a new kidney to replace the one that he's missing - it's a normal medical procedure that we would do for any of our citizens. But why are we implanting these nano-borgs in him?"

"We were unable to remove all the alien tech, he also has some circuitry embedded in the base of his skull, giving him access to latent electricity absorbsion and redirection powers. Add to that there are parts from an ancient piece of tech called a trapper-keeper inside him."

"So the nano-borgs are going to dismantle and remove all the remaining tech inside him?"

"There not just doing that, Jarko, the tech that already exists in his body is going to be put to good use, enhanced and updated. Along-side that, our nano-borgs are going to re-write his DNA - making him stronger, smarter, faster and more resiliant. The bilogical upgrades will work in tandom with the tech making him near-unbeatable with amazing powers."

"By science, what's the point of that?"

"You don't get it do you? Our world was used and abused by numorous different alien forces for centurys - humans used for entertainment, medical experiments and sport. It all came to a head just a few years after this boy's time. Our planet was stipped of most of it's resorces and our people captured and sold as slaves through-out the galaxy. Because of AU theary we know that we can't change what happened to our ancestors but, what if we could send someone who belongs to that time period back to write those wrongs."

"If he changes the past won't we cease to exist?"

"Possibly."

"And if we don't exist, who revives the boy and puts with all this technology into him?"

"I understand what you're saying but, when we send him back, his very presence will create an alternate universe. Hopefully one with a better future for mankind."

Authors Note: I've been finding it hard to decide which one, of two multi-chapter stories, to work on next. I find it easier to focus on one story at a time - but which to chose?

I've decided that the easiest thing to do is let the reviewers decide. I've typed up the first chapter of each of the two stories and have posted them both at the same time with this authors note. This is strictly down to review numbers - so review your favourite, or the one you hate the least. I think a good cut-off for this is the end of March 2011 - reviews after that date won't be counted.

The original plan was to post the two stories up a couple of weeks ago. Sadly this hasn't happened because I was unable to post up any new stories. The new deadline is April 15th.

Leaving will have shorter chapters but will be updated more often - I'll try for one a week or more.

Super Hero has much longer chapters - so obviously they will take that much longer to write.

Kyman love to all my readers, cell12.