It had finally happened. Some suspected that he'd snap one day, maybe even with a gun- but the way he snapped was unpredicted by everyone.

Everything was normal enough before now. He had been yelled at by his parents yesterday for being late to go home, which he was only because writing Eric Cartman's report took longer than expected. Those overbearing parents never cared for excuses, though, and he would have to go home to start being grounded right after school today. So then this morning he was shoved into his locker and locked inside twice, a little bit less than usual however. And he got repremanded by his teachers when he got out of the locker too late to make it to class, but nothing that was new. It had gone on for so long and with no objections, so why the hell would he take it out on anyone now, even if he had a semblance of balls?

To this day, he still couldn't give a straight, clear cut answer as to how he got set off.

The weirdest thing is that how it started had nothing to do with him at all.

Before that took place, she was at her locker fending off another idiotic male, as she called them. This time, it was Craig asking her for a date, but pretty much moreso asking her for...bed stuff. She figured it was just another case of a stupid unthinking male wanting her for her body, as the uneducated males often do. When she said that to him, of course, he only started to call her a bitch because he was angry that his penis wouldn't be getting any- not because he and every other one of his friends thought full time she was a angry hippie bitch, but still wanted to get some off her to brag and have a laugh. But no matter what she thought the motivations were, she wanted to just shrug it off and get to her next class by then.

By then, he was walking by, consumed by thoughts of his latest locker lockdown, how he would be yelled at yet again by a teacher who didn't know anything if he didn't hurry, how he could look forward to more yelling for some other reason by his parents, how he would be alone literally licking the wounds of his day to calm the pain, how it was the same exact formula every day and just how evil everyone he had known all his life was to him...

At the exact same moment these thoughts really started to overtake his brain, he turned his head for one brief moment. That was all it took to see his third biggest tormenter bang his fist against the locker when she wanted to get away from him, how the words of "bitch" and "dumbass" flew out of his mouth as easily as they did when he called him those words, and worse.

At seeing him use his evil tactics at some other undeserving person, even one he had gone to school with forever and barely ever had a talk with, his brain had all the excuse it needed to provide the final snap.

"Get away from her!!"

And with four quick kicks to Craig's testicles, his message was heard loud and clear.

And of course, the brief moment of triumph had to be balanced out by several teachers hearing the yell, and coming over to see the last two of his kicks.

"Butters Stotch, what the hell was that?!"

The riot act was well under way by the time Wendy Testaburger sat down next to the door of the principal's office. She would be called on to explain her role in this matter right after Butters was finished getting a dressing down.

Her first reaction was anger. She couldn't be here, she never got called to the principal's office for any reasons that didn't have to do with school planning and good standardized test marks and such. Besides, now she wasn't learning the things she needed to prepare for next week's test in her next class. Sure, Bebe would give her notes later, but she wasn't that reliable for accurate note taking. She already had Craig taken care off and would have got away from his crude advances, she didn't need some Melvin to kick him and drag her into explaining this mess. What would it look like if some nerd and loser was seen as defending her- hell, the thought of any man saving her as if she was some cliched, lame, sexist damsel in distress was sickening. She was mad at Butters and would let him know that when she had the chance.

At that point she actually started to hear what was coming out of the office.

"You're getting one heck of a spanking when we get home, Butters!"

"But dad-"

"Don't but your father, young man. You're lucky this suspension is only for a day as it is."

"But Mr Principal, Craig's done far worse things to me and he never got suspended!"

"If he did, you must have done something to provoke him. Your parents even admit you tend to be annoying and disrespectful and have very odd beliefs. It is only natural for people like Craig to target people like you, but the problem is when you fight back in such a violent way! That's not what we do here!"

"How come he gets to do it to me?"

"It is not about him, it's about you not sinking to his level, and you did. I don't care what it was for and how you say you wanted to help Wendy, you still attacked a student without him doing anything to you first at the time! You committed violence for no reason other than to satisfy your clearly damaged mind."

"But so does he! So does everyone!"

"That's how schools work, they're supposed to have one kid to take out their anger on. It's how it's always been, and it's better than having them go crazy and murder everyone else, at least here they just take it out on one person! Lesser kids like you have always been in this position, it's the way things work."

"Why can't it change, then?"

"Because that sort of talk is for lame people and gays and Communists who wanna drag us down just to satisfy some flowery gay Utopia crap! Trust me, it is acceptable and deserved in this case, and you can't be such a lame wuss for questioning it! Just don't say anything about it and take it like a man, unless you really are a fag girl like you claim they said you were last week!"

"Thank you for clearing that up, Mr Stotch."

"You're welcome, Principal."

"So, I'm a girl if I don't accept it, but if I try to fight back, I'm a bad guy?"

"Exactly, glad we could work this out before you had to go. When you come back, you will apologize to Craig and take whatever revenge he gives you. Remember, it is lame and unmanly to question why you get targeted so often, because it is a time honored system that makes us realize which kids are lame people that must be marked as such. You are one of those kids, so you must accept it because that seems to be all you're good for around here, and nothing else. But you won't be good at all if you sink to their level, is that clear?"

"Yes, Mr Principal..."

"Good, now you may take your son home, Mr Stotch. Hand me the bottle of whiskey over there first, though, I don't feel like getting up for it today."

15 seconds and one audible drinking sound later, Mr Stotch departed the office with his son. The boy didn't even bother to turn around to see Wendy sitting nearby, and she barely got a good look at him when she did.

Indeed, as the principal promised, Butters was not seen at school for the remainder of the day, or for the next day. In between the wait for his return, the other students either mocked Craig for being kicked so hard by a Melvin, or couldn't wait to see him get even, or both. The anticipation for that provided much buzz around the building, and provoked much thought about the whole thing and where it would go. Wendy too, wasn't immune to this buzz- but for vastly different reasons.

Her often knee jerk liberalism caused her to defend any non white, non heterosexual, non American, non Republican, non Christian, non maleor male if he was gay and/or not whiteperson when they did something wrong- after all, the evil Establishment and Republicans must have provoked them to do it, or secretly wished it to justify keeping him down or suppressing their own homosexual attractions to his kind. But here, a white male straight American had done something that he got punished for, even though he was in the moral right to do it. There's no doubt everyone secretly wished to kick Craig like that, if they hadn't already- and yet those same people couldn't wait to see Craig take his revenge. Indeed, Butters's treatment and how he was yelled at for hurting a bad guy who deserved it- that kind of situation would have stirred Wendy to make protest signs and flyers in a minute anytime else. It really was no different than other injustices that pissed her off- so why wasn't she more outraged?

Why did she react with anger originally when it happened? Why did it almost seem suitable, commonplace, and easy to agree with when she first thought about it? Why did she blame Butters for this at the start when she would have blamed everyone else in a similar sitation? Why did it almost seem okay because he was the scapegoat?

For that matter, why was she still thinking about someone she rarely, if ever, thought about in the last 8 or so years?

Though she was no closer to the answers, even more questions were about to pop up after she heard the sound of a skull landing hard on the hallway floor.

The revenge hadn't taken long to get carried out. Under orders from his parents and the principal, Butters headed to Craig to apologize. His thanks was a punch, instead of a kick, to the balls, and a harsh shove to the floor. Once the crying got started, so did the laughter and the usual pussy and gay insult towards him. Even though who were glad to see Craig get hit earlier applauded him, saying his manhood was back and everything was now back to the way it was. Butters somehow got himself to head to the nurse's office while no one but Wendy was looking, even while knowing he would be reprimanded for being late to class later on.

As lunchtime went on later in the day, Craig continued to have several people complement his moves. Wendy took note when one of them, Clyde Donovan, walked off to head back to his table. She moved quick to get to him before that happened.

"Aw, I already told you, I'll sign the 'Save the mongoose' petition later!"

"Thanks for reminding me of that, but this is different, Clyde. I was just wondering...yesterday, you said you were pretty happy to see Craig get kicked around by Butters, right?"

"Well yeah...that was before he bounced back and evened things out."

"So when he got kicked by Butters, he was lame and uncool because Butters is lame, right?"

Clyde nodded quickly. "Of course, I'd say the same thing about anyone who let that guy push him around!"

"But you were happy to see Craig get a taste of his own medicine before. Lots of people did, I could tell."

"Yeah, it was funny to see him shut up that way." Clyde got a good deal of laughter in before Wendy's retort.

"But now that he hurt Butters back, he's cool and acceptable to be around again?"

"I...guess so?"

"So you liked seeing Butters hurt him, but yet you cheered Craig on today anyway, although you hate Craig. But when he pushed around Butters, you liked him?"

"Well...at least it made sure that guy knows his place again. I mean, now that he knows not to mess with us, he won't think of hurting anyone else or probably shooting us sometime."

"So basically, Craig's automatically cool again because he hurt Butters in particular. Does it always work that way? Are people only labeled cool because they hurt him?"

"Well...when Cartman does it, it's one of the few times we can stand to be around him, that's for sure." Clyde was now officially confused by the interrogation. "Is this going anywhere, Wendy, because my food's getting cold."

Having gotten some of what she needed to know, she nodded and let him go on his way. The things Kyle, Token, Kenny, and even Jimmy told her when she asked the same questions confirmed it too.

The other students were stunned at seeing Butters defend himself, and a bit indignant even though they had done worse. Because he stood up to one of his tormentors, they were worried he might target them next, and Craig had thankfully put him back in his place. They liked seeing him in the doormat place, and had gone back to being fully upset at him for trying to leave it. Any joy they had at seeing an enemy go down turned to gratitude towards him for sending Butters back to where he belonged.

And although she was upset at him for different reasons, were they really no different in Wendy's case than theirs? Once she returned to her own table, that kept running through her mind frequently.

It was the knee jerk reaction of seemingly everyone to think of Butters as a nothing, and had been ever since grade school. Even Wendy, who thought of herself as so enlightened and beyond that thinking, thought that way as well. And because of what- that he actually came to her help against someone bugging the hell out of her? Would she have felt much more gratitude if it was someone with a better social standing? Perhaps so- and for someone who prided herself on bashing people who mistreated the lower classes, this was bordering a little too close on hypocrisy for her to take.

Once Bebe asked, "Wendy, are you there, girl?", she snapped out of her thinking and decided to conduct her final interviews for the day.

"Guys...do you think Butters is as lame and nerdy as all those other people said?" After a series of confused and puzzled facial reactions by the girls, it seemed obvious their answer was yes.

"The guy doesn't curse or nothing, he has a barely developed body type, he has that nasally little voice, and he just keeps on smiling and being friendly to assholes! How isn't that lame?", asked Jordan.

"I know, I know what you're saying...but if those guys are assholes, and they are, why aren't you more mad they pick on people like Butters?", Wendy replied.

"Wow, talking as if someone else is in the spotlight, I never thought I'd see the day..." Luckily for Red, Wendy didn't quite hear her muttering.

"Come on Wendy, he has no taste in anything cool, and he always acts like an annoying little bug around everyone! Who wouldn't wanna swat away someone like that?", Bebe said in a more outloud voice. The other girls nodded and quickly returned to their normal line of conversation, as Wendy once more was too busy thinking to join in.

It was true, even back in grade school, he was one of those kids you weren't supposed to be friendly with or defend, or else you'd be the target of Cartman's fag and pussy jokes for weeks- ones which even so called better kids like Stan and Kyle didn't disagree with. Ones which Wendy had never noticed until now. The fact she didn't notice this line of thinking, even though she had taught herself to see it everywhere else in society, was still a might disturbing.

But even if he didn't like to fight back against it, or say anything bad about his tormentors- why then did he choose to snap at that moment, on her behalf? What made that too much to bear for him, after all these years of him going through a lot worse?

Being a sociologist and an analyst of human behavior, these were just the sort of questions that would make Wendy wanna get to the bottom of anytime else. Now that she had been made aware that not speaking out against Butters's treatment undercut her own skills at finding and protesting injustice right under her nose- and since now it actually involved her in some way- perhaps it was time to check this out.

Perhaps it was time for her to get to the answers of the Butters Stotch phenominon and mystery. At the very least, it would give her something to do until the next big social crisis, and confirm she wasn't nearly as ignorant as the bigots she had to spend her days with.

Her new project would begin later tonight.