What's this, Chapter 5 is finally out? Well it's about damn time. Sorry for this being such a long wait… again.
At the moment I am at the end of a vacation in Mexico and I just finished writing this in my hotel room at midnight after my flight was delayed until this morning. Thanks Sunwing Airlines, you guys suck ass!
But hey, enough about me, I know what you're all here for so let's just get on with it.
Disclaimer: I do not own South Park. I wish I didn't have to say this every time, but I do.
Now then, with all that out of the way, on with the story…
The weekend had come to an end and students were piling out of the school bus and into the halls with a sour mood befitting a Monday morning.
Wendy walked casually through the halls heading towards her locker where her friends were waiting for her. On the way she passed by the boys who were all crowding around Kenny at his locker.
'Wonder what those boys are up to now.' She thought idly.
Honestly she wasn't too concerned with what went on with them, besides anything that could relate to her suspect list. She would have walked by them without a second thought, but as she passed by them the topic of their conversation drew her attention.
"Holy shit Kenny, you look like you went 3 rounds with Mike Tyson." Said Stan.
"Dude, Cartman's not paying you to fight homeless people again is he?" Kyle asked while glancing towards the fatass.
"Hey, don't look at me. I can't post that anymore since those uptight pussies banned me." Cartman said irritatedly.
"You finally got banned, great! By who? Facebook? YouTube? Twitter? Snapchat?..." Kyle went on listing all the various social media platforms that Cartman has been using for his nefarious, and at times illegal, activities.
"All of them." He grumbled.
"Look guys, I'm telling you, I just got a bit too close to my parents during one of their fights and got caught in the crossfire." Kenny said, surprisingly not in his usual muffled voice. Wendy looked towards the boy and saw that he had the hood of his parka more open and his face on full display, revealing several unsightly bruises on his face.
Kenny had actually received these new bruises from a sixth grader out for revenge on Sunday during his patrol that evening. Despite the bastard landing a good left hook or two it's sufficient to say that Kenny made sure that the older boy came out of it a hell of a lot worse than he did.
"Anyway guys, why does everyone have to make such a big deal about this? It's not like this is an uncommon thing for me." He said while closing his parka and pulling the strings tight, leaving only his eyes visible.
Wendy would have normally brushed this off, since as Kenny said he did show up with a few bruises here and there from time to time, and his parents were known for their less than stable relationship.
But with the events of the last several weeks since she first met Mysterion face to face she had been more aware of the activities of the boys who were still on her suspect list. And so, she decided to make a note of this for later.
Despite Kenny being one of the few remaining suspects so far, she still found the concept strange. The idea of the quiet yet upbeat pervert being the dark and brooding vigilante. She compared the two in her mind, but besides the fact that he lived in poverty, there wasn't much of a reason that she could see for the usually bright and cheerful boy to have the same sadness that she saw from Mysterion.
But he was the only one she had any leads on so far, and this is South Park, so far stranger things have happened. If only she could find more proof.
Wendy was walking around the schoolyard during recess, discreetly looking at the remaining boys on her list to check if they had any signs of the broken nose that Mysterion had before. She had managed to narrow it down to 3 boys, Kenny McCormick, Jason White, Kevin Stoley. Craig was also on the list, but she had already doubted him for a while, and after Mysterion's reaction last night to her admittedly rather flirtatious moments, she was confident enough to cross him off the list.
However, even with it down to the final three, Wendy was sadly, yet probably not surprisingly, unable to figure out which of them it was.
The fact that all these clues she tried to follow ended up leading nowhere was really pissing her off. Honestly, she had MET the hero personally on several occasions and learned a lot more about him in the process, so how was she getting stumped every time she tried to find him out of costume?
Of course, there was the most likely possibility of Kenny, but despite the considerable evidence in favour of him, Wendy wanted to explore all other possibilities as well. After all, Wendy was a thorough person.
Faced with the prospect of yet another failed attempt, she started walking towards her spot on the school steps when someone caught her by the shoulder.
She turned around and came face to face with a very familiar boy, one who she was purposefully trying to avoid during her search for more reasons than him not being on her list.
"Can I help you?" She asked the boy who was nervously scratching the back of his head.
"Hey Wendy, so um, how've you been?" Stan asked.
"That is the most basic question you could possibly ask. You would know if you read the school paper Stan." She says.
"Hey, I read the paper. I saw that you've been trying to figure out who Mysterion is." He said.
"Yeah, I am. That's what the whole school paper has been trying to figure out ever since he appeared." Wendy said. She knew that she was probably being a bit too hard on Stan, but she honestly didn't care right now. She was already frustrated, and she wasn't really interested in talking to her ex boyfriend who she was still bitter at.
Stan continued with his questioning, trying to awkwardly broach the topic of Mysterion and her paper. But she'd had enough of this conversation.
"Ok Stan, let's just cut to the chase. Why did you really want to talk to me? We both know that you aren't interested in the school paper, and you wouldn't come to me to talk about Mysterion." She said, making it clear that she wanted him to stop dancing around the specific question that she knew he was going to ask.
Stan tries to speak, but his mouth just wouldn't form the words. Wendy stood there tapping her foot impatiently on the ground as he fumbled and fiddled with his hands. After several long and awkward moments she tells him to just spill it, only for him to end up puking and running away. Thankfully he just puked on the ground, so her coat wasn't ruined. She simply rolls her eyes thinking 'typical Stan' before going to the steps of the school and sitting down.
As she began to absentmindedly doodling random things on a spare page of her notebook, her thoughts wandered elsewhere. She knew exactly what he wanted to say. He was going to give her one of the usual offers of a simple date for them to get back together. But she wouldn't have agreed even if he hadn't had his usual nervous puke session.
The routine was always the same with Stan, date and then breakup, only to get back together and do it all over again. It just felt so tedious. No offense to Stan, he was still a good guy, but just not for her. She wanted someone who brought more into the relationship. Someone complex and interesting, who provided a challenge to her.
'I really hope I'm not thinking of my relationships as a project of some kind.' The girl thought. She already had an idea of who would fit that particular bill, but before she could follow that train of thought, a certain blond came up and sat down next to her.
"Hey Wends," Bebe said "I hope I'm not disturbing your valuable investigation time while you're sitting here alone."
"Hey Bebe." Wendy says while glancing up at her friend.
"So," The blonde girl said as she sat next to her. "How's the search going? You haven't really hung out with the girls since that night Mysterion saved you from those sixth grade assholes, and I haven't seen much of you outside of that."
Those words made Wendy pause as she heard them. It hadn't occurred to her how much time she was actually spending on her pursuit of the cowled crusader's identity. All the times she had used the excuse of hanging out with Bebe or the girls had been a ruse to allow her to continue her search. Had she really been so absorbed in her own work that she neglected her friends in the process?
"Bebe, I'm so sorry. I've been so wrapped up with my own priorities that I forgot about you girls." She said.
"It's alright, I can tell how important this is to you. So how'd it go with Mysterion? On Saturday you mentioned that you were going to meet with him that night, so spill the juicy details." The ever curious girl inquired.
Wendy described some of the highlights to her, such as his fight with the carjacker, him saving her from falling, and the moments where she saw the person hidden past the cowl, but leaving a few of the more personal details out. She became so engrossed in her recollection that she accidentally let it slip about her kiss.
"Oh, okay, now we're talking." Bebe said mischievously as she perched forward with her chin resting on her hands and her elbows on her knees. "So you got a crush on the town vigilante."
"W-what?! N-no!" Wendy tried to deny it, but her red face told a different story.
"Oh yes you are. You're flustered. You never get flustered." The blonde girl teased.
"S-so what if I am. It's just a bit warm out, that's all." Wendy said. Bebe chuckled at her friend's denial.
"Your mouth may say that, but your red face tells another story." She said
Wendy stayed silent at that point, not wanting to further dig herself in this hole she found herself in. After a minute Bebe stopped her teasing and offered some of her patented BFF advice.
"Look Wendy," She began. "You are my best friend, and I want to see you happy. I saw that little moment with Stan back there, and it was the same routine as it always has been. In my honest opinion, your on-again, off-again relationship with Stan hasn't seemed to go anywhere. The two of you date for a while, break up, are awkward for a while, then get back together like nothing ever happened, only to repeat the whole cycle over and over again. Maybe you should take a risk and see where this Mysterion train takes you. If it doesn't work out, then you can go back into the cycle with Stan like it never even happened."
Wendy simply stared and listened as her friend said all this. Bebe was always much better with boys than she was, so it made sense to hear her giving her advice. But it was still so strange to hear such an introspective assessment of her and Stan's relationship from someone other than herself.
Sometimes even she forgot that Bebe wasn't just your stereotypical dumb blonde. The girl was very smart when it came down to it.
As Wendy sat in thought of her friend's sage words, Bebe added another sentiment to try and ease her friend's mind.
"You can make whatever choice you want to. It's your life and I will support you in whatever choice you make. But, ever since I took the risk to confess my feelings to Clyde, I've been really happy, and I think you deserve to be happy too."
Bebe then sees Clyde waving at her from across the schoolyard and smiles.
"Thanks Bebe." Wendy said.
"Anytime, see ya. Don't be a stranger." with that the blonde ran off after her boyfriend.
Wendy spends time drawing doodles in her notebook, but right as she's in the middle of some halfway decent picture her pencil breaks.
"Damn it." She mutters. She reaches for her pencil case but finds that her sharpener is missing. Then she remembers that she left it in her other pencil case in her locker. She sighs in frustration before standing up and walking inside.
Thanks to her very organized locker, Wendy found her spare pencil in a matter of seconds. But as she was about to head back outside she heard a voice coming from around the corner of the hallway. Out of mild curiosity, she followed it.
Peeking around the corner she saw Kenny standing at his locker with his hood down, muttering something about Cartman being an asshole and surprise water balloons in the middle of the boy's football game.
As he was drying his face with a cloth Wendy noticed that the cloth was wiping away some of the colour from his face, revealing a very familiar bruise on his nose.
'Wait a minute…' She thought as she started to put the pieces together. She would have gone further with that line of thought, but then she stopped herself.
Wendy was known for many things, one of which was being a very thorough person with any tasks she was committed to. So while Kenny was her most conclusive suspect by far, she wanted to be absolutely positive before confronting him.
Meanwhile, Kenny was reapplying a new layer of makeup to his nose, first the foundation, then some concealer, followed by powder, and lastly a bit of blending.
"I really hope I'll be able to finish this before recess ends." He commented aloud to himself. But just as he said that, the bell rang.
"(Sigh) I just had to jinx it. Well, it'll have to do. Maybe if I'm quick enough I can get there and change in time to catch the girls indoor volleyball team before they all leave." He said before closing his locker and rushing off.
As he made his way through the halls, Wendy quietly followed after him, being careful to not make too much noise.
When they reached the boys locker room, Wendy carefully peered through the door while hoping that no one came around and saw her in the rather compromising position.
From where she was, Kenny was facing away from her, so she only saw his back as he removed his parka. He still had a white T-shirt on, but he soon removed that to before he started fishing around for his jersey.
With what she could see, Wendy noticed the traces of some sort of wound on his side.
"Come on, just turn this way…" Wendy whispered to herself. She tried to think of some way to get the boy to turn just a little bit.
She then got her wish when he turned around, and she saw them. The slash on his chest, the stab wound on his side, they were both there.
'Th-There they are. It is him. Kenny is Mysterion.' She thought. Even though she had been suspecting the blonde boy for a while, it was still a little jarring to know now with absolute certainty.
But just as she shook herself from her shock, she saw that the boy was walking towards her.
Oh no. Had he seen her? She tried to move in an effort to hide herself, but found that she couldn't. She was frozen still as he got closer and closer. Closing her eyes, she waited for him to catch her red handed, but it never came.
"Aha! There's my jersey." Kenny said as he pulled the worn shirt from the bin next to the door.
Wendy breathed a sigh of relief as the boy's form retreated around the corner.
She stepped back and away from the door, her mind still going over the recent revelation she just had.
"All this time, everything that happened, it was all Kenny." Her mind went back over everything that happened with the town vigilante. From the time in the alley, to back on the roof the other day.
Then there was the pain she saw from him. That pain, it was Kenny's all along. However bewildered she felt at what the source of that pain could be when it was just Mysterion, it was nothing compared to how she felt now.
And then there was that kiss. She didn't even know what to think of that now, or her budding feelings for the boy.
She shook her head, trying to clear her mind of all these thoughts. One thing at a time. First things first, she had to confront the boy. Then she could tackle all these thoughts later.
One thing was certain though, Kenny McCormick was going to have a very awkward meeting with her very soon.
Kenny panted as he walked out of the gym. Today's class had been a rigorous series of drills and fitness tests.
Thanks to his nightly escapades and overall active lifestyle though, he had scored top of the class, much to the praise of the coach.
He was worried that his sweat would cause his makeup to run, but thankfully it stayed on.
He walked upstairs to where his next class was, when he was suddenly grabbed by the arm and pulled into one of the empty classrooms. Looking at the person who dragged him in there, he was met by a very familiar face.
["Wendy? What are you doing?"] He asked.
"I know you're Mysterion." She said. No dancing around it, just straight to the point.
Kenny, to his credit, did a fairly convincing job at feigning innocence. Just not good enough…
["Uh, what are you talking about? As much as I'd like to take credit for everything that guy's done-"]
"Don't deny it!" Wendy hisses at him. "I've been looking into Mysterion's identity for weeks, we even met in person three times, and all the evidence points to you."
Kenny started to sweat internally, but managed to keep his outward composure.
["Wendy, I'm telling you, I really don't know what your talking about."] He said while holding his hands up defensively.
Wendy was seething now. She had been put on this wild goose chase for long enough, and now she was at her limit. This charade had run its course, she was ending it now!
"When you saved me in the alley, you were stabbed twice. I saw your scars in the locker room." She said with finality.
Kenny's eyes widened, and he just stood there. He didn't move, he didn't breathe, he didn't even blink.
For several moments all was still and quiet. And then…
["Shit."]
That was all Kenny said before he suddenly broke into a full sprint towards the window and hurled himself through it.
"KENNY!" Wendy screamed as she dashed to the window faster than she knew she could. Upon looking down, she froze. There on the pavement, covered in broken glass and laying in a pool of his own blood, was Kenny, his body broken and lifeless.
Wendy stood in shock, her mouth quivering, just staring down at the boy.
In the room downstairs, the fourth grade math class were all also standing at the window staring at the corpse of their recently departed schoolmate. And two boys in particular were the first to break the silence.
"Oh my God, they killed Kenny!" Said Stan.
"You bastards!" Kyle followed.
Kenny's death was a heavy blow to many people that day, but as with every time, by the next morning no one would remember. His wounds would heal, and all would go on as normal in South Park with no one the wiser.
At least, that's how things should go.
But, as anyone familiar with the bizarre mountain town would tell you, there is no such thing as normal here. And even the most long-standing traditions can change on a whim.
Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed it.
As always reviews are very much appreciated, so if it's not too much trouble, let me know what you think.
With that I will see you next time Titans…