Chapter Text
Shouts and cheers came from T.K.O.'s house as the two boys raced to the end in their videosgame. Like usual in these matches, they were neck and neck, but also like usual, T.K.O. won again. He reached the goal ring and took no time to rub the victory in K.O.'s face. K.O. didn't really mind.
T.K.O. continued gloating but picked up his controller again for another round. He could probably go all day if he could, but K.O. just looked over at the clock in the room.
They'd been playing for an hour already?
The games had been so quick he didn't even notice the time fly by like that.
K.O. rested his controller on the side of the beanbag and stood up, interlocking his hands and stretching his arms way above his head, though it would do nothing to impact his physical body, the act just felt normal to do after staying in one place for a while.
"We should probably go fix up the doors now." He told T.K.O.. There was some clear disappointment in his tone of voice when he said it, but mostly a sense of urgency.
"Heh, yeah, you're just saying that 'cause you keep losing!" T.K.O. teased, holding his controller with two hands and randomly pressing the buttons.
"Oh, it's not over, I'm gonna rematch you later!" K.O. smiled, but then face a little more neutral again. "But if we don't do it soon everyone's gonna wonder what I've been doing."
T.K.O. seemed to have forgotten about all that. He was too busy thinking about all his victories in the videosgame and the awesome team-up fight against Shadowy Figure earlier. Man it felt amazing to beat up that creep, even though it was only for a short while. It slipped his mind that they broke the doors to the Glorb Sanctuary on the way in and that he told K.O. he'd help fix it up to return the favor. He sincerely regretted that action now.
Or maybe some part of him thought K.O. would forget about it somehow so he wouldn't need to be concerned about it.
Nevertheless, he was more than unamused about the situation, but gruffly obliged.
"Ugh fine." T.K.O. dropped the controller and held his hands out. K.O. wordlessly pulled him to his feet, them they both headed to the roof, put the suits on again, and prepared to plug each other in.
"Ready?"
They gave each other a thumbs up.
P.K.O. woke up back in the Glorb Sanctuary, back resting on the great tree. Glorbs floated all around him, shining their faint blue light all over the area. As he got up, P.K.O. brushed some of them out of the way. Even a little touch could make his whole body tingle, fizzling with their great energy.
P.K.O. hopped down from the area where the tree stood and surveyed the location for the two doors. Eventually he found them crumpled resting against a wall at the end of the room. He leaped over to them, floating down gently, then scooped them both up with such ease he surprised himself. He knew he had T.K.O.'s strength, but he didn't even topple backwards to redistribute the weight. He was just perfectly balanced without trying.
He then headed off to the sewer entrance, bypassing all the stairs by leaping to the top again and landing just as easily before. It was more out of tedium than potential exhaustion from climbing all of them. In this form the kid felt like he could keep going forever.
After reaching the entrance again, P.K.O. dropped one of the doors to the floor as he spun the other one around to be upright and slotted it into place, followed by the other one.
Only to notice a glaring problem.
The doors had been completely broken off of their hinges. Small parts of them were missing, leaving noticeable gaps, and most glaring of all, both curved inwards into the centre in which laid a dent.
A 6-11 year old's fist sized dent.
And it was also a little charred.
Ah.
"Good as new right? We can go now." T.K.O. dismissed, but K.O. immediately shot it down.
"No, no this isn't good!" K.O. worried. P.K.O.'s hand ran down one of the doors, feeling all the bumps and scratches. "Me and Mr Gar fixed up this door! He'll be able to tell that it's broken." K.O.'s gaze locked onto the fist dent again and gulped. "And who did it."
The last think K.O. wanted was to disappoint Mr Gar again. Maybe even more so than the possibility of-
"And any villain can get in with the doors like this! We have to fix it. Properly."
T.K.O. raised an eyebrow. "We?"
"You said you'd help?"
"And I did. There it is. My work here is done." T.K.O. did a little bow in response.
But K.O. just shook his head. "No, we're not done yet."
T.K.O. just slumped over and let his arms dangle. It hadn't even been that long, but he wanted nothing more than to be in his house playing his videosgame again.
K.O. put his finger to his chin in a thinking pose for a moment, before curling it into a fist and smacking his palm. "Oh I know!" He exclaimed. "We can go to the junk heap out back. It's got all sorts of random metal. Mostly robot parts, but it should still work! It wouldn't take long."
T.K.O. sighed and grumbled, but still remained plugged in. K.O. smiled at that.
P.K.O. travelled back out the way he came and hopped back up to the alley with the dumpster, which still gave him flashbacks which made him shiver a little, then went right to the busted robot parts and trash alley.
It was later in the day now. The sun wasn't gone, but was starting to set. The alley was completely cast in shadow. Robot pieces, bits of scrap, and bags of assorted trash littered the alley, most in large piles resembling pyramids if you squint hard enough. No one really went back there, it was mostly just used when the dumpsters were full.
With no specific idea in mind of what to look for, P.K.O. chose a random pile and dug through it, with most of the trash being useless, but some pieces chucked to the side. They could be useful to patch up the small holes.
He repeated the process with a couple more piles, sometimes finding some really good pieces. which he kept under his arm, when suddenly he had the urge to stop.
P.K.O. stood still for a few moments. He wasn't even exactly sure why, he just had a weird feeling.
But there was nothing and no one around. He was pretty sure. He was certain. No one comes over here. He reassured himself. Especially this late in the day. There's no reason to.
He kept digging, continuing with his method of chucking or keeping a hold of stuff he wanted to use, but now the way in which he selects which will be thrown and which will be secured seemed completely random. He started getting into a bit of a rhythm of it, until-
Somewhere behind him he heard something move, and he could just tell it wasn't some misplaced trash or a random animal. it was quite small, but he still heard it. He kept on searching through the scrap as if it didn't happen, but then he heard a movement again, louder now, behind him to the right-!
P.K.O. sent out a powerfist in that direction, which pulsated a bright gold, with flecks of blue and purple. It wasn't visible for long however as it crashed into a tower of rubbish, causing it to crumble and reveal a familiar kappa behind it.
After seeing who it was, P.K.O. drew his hand back, and froze. Dendy remained in the same position, but squinted at P.K.O. like he was a puzzle she needed to solve. There was an uncomfortable amount of time of stillness and silence before Dendy finally opened her mouth.
"Who are you?"
P.K.O. groaned and rolled his eyes, then shifted back into work mode turning around and shuffling though the heaps again. "I can't deal with this right now Dendy. I've got stuff to do." He picked up a considerably large piece, eyed it, then chucked it to the side, making a mental note not to use that one.
Dendy jogged over to P.K.O.'s side, a bit too close for comfort for the moment, and asked "What is happening?"
Ugh, again with the questions.
P.K.O. continued to keep his head down as he searched. "I'm collecting stuff. For, uh, a thing." He said, keeping it as brief and unsuspecting as possible.
"You misunderstand me." Dendy stated. "Please let me repeat. I mean to say what is happening with you?" She pulls out her holo-screen, fingers itching to type. P.K.O. just groaned again and headed off to another pile.
"I'm not in the mood to be one of your experiments again." P.K.O. said, some elements of anger and hurt clearly evident in his voice.
"And I do not intend you to be." Dendy states as P.K.O. continues to walk further from the kappa. "I just want to know-
"Are you okay?"
With that sentence P.K.O. stopped dead in his tracks. His whole body shuddered like a chill has washed over him.
Then he collapsed.
In the headspace, T.K.O. was sitting on the floor, having yanked out his wire.
"Hey, what are you doing?!" K.O. was shocked as he walked over to him.
"You deal with her." T.K.O. responded.
"Huh?"
"She's your friend. Not mine." T.K.O. said, crossing his arms. "It's obvious science baby doesn't like me very much."
K.O. knew what T.K.O. was referring to. Dendy had seen T.K.O. a couple times, trying to claw himself into being in control with the experiments behind the Plaza that they did for a short while, and when T.K.O. fought Boxman Jr.. But their biggest interaction was the first, with the attempted science fair project that got out of control. K.O. remembered how physically and mentally drained he was that day, and T.K.O. could obviously feel it too. And the interactions T.K.O. and Dendy shared weren't friendly.
K.O. kept his upbeat tone and replied to T.K.O.. "So you got off on the wrong foot, that's fine! She feels really bad about what happened." T.K.O looked up at K.O. from his position on the floor, irritance, anger, and maybe the smallest hint of sadness of his face.
"But has she apologized? To me?"
"Have you given her the chance?"
"When would I have been able to?" T.K.O. burst out, before retreating his arms and legs into a huddle. K.O. watches him a moment, then joins him on the ground.
They sat in silence for a while, before K.O. spoke up again."It's okay to be scared."
That seemed to shake T.K.O. off at least a little of whatever kind of funk he was in. His head shot up with a baffled expression. "What!? No, I'm not! I could beat her in a fight easy. I could beat ANYONE in the plaza easy. Nothing scares me. You're the fraidy cat."
"So what's the problem then?"
T.K.O. growled, but picked himself and the cable back up again. "Fine." He grumbled. "Let's get this over with. I don't want to still owe you after this anyway."
K.O. was grateful. He then went around to help secure the cable back in again. The screen in front of them both fizzled as the picture started becoming clear again.