OK K.O.: The Fight

Chapter 6

K.O. then walked back towards the principal's office. There were three chairs sitting outside of it, and Dendy occupied one of them.

"Oh, Dendy!" K.O. said, as he started to jog towards her. "You're still here!"

"Of course, K.O.," she responded. "The principal is talking to Ms. Quantum. He said for you to wait out here."

"Ok, cool," he said as he sat himself on one of the chairs. "You can leave if need be. I don't want to keep you from anything important."

"It seems you have forgotten that I am spending the afternoon at your house, K.O."

"Oh yeah! Today's my day off! We planned this out last week! I even made a schedule of everything we were going to do, since I know you like organization." He then pulled out his frog-cased phone and pulled up the calendar app and showed it to Dendy.

"Wow K.O., that's very thoughtful of you. And your organization is quite admirable."

"Hehehe, thanks Dendy," K.O. said blushing and rubbing the back of his head. "We're supposed to be on our way to the Bodega with my mom to get snacks and supplies for tonight. Wait, if we're not out there to get picked up, then what is mommy doing without us showing up?"

"Don't worry about that K.O., I got a call from the school," said Carol as she appeared, standing in front of them. "Care to tell me what happened?"

"There was no escaping it. It turns out he was a dragon, and he had the power to trap us in a fire ring! He kept trying to attack me, and when he attacked Dendy, I figured he had gone too far," K.O. said.

"It should be said that K.O. did not throw a punch throughout most of the sequence of events," Dendy chimed in. "His iron spirit was like a shield that protected him from damage. He only threw a power fist to prevent any harm from happening to me, or any more potential harm falling upon our fellow students."

"Then I guess that's the lesson for today K.O.," Carol said as she knelt in front of K.O. and put a hand on his shoulder. "Sometimes when you're a hero, you'll have no choice to fight. Sometimes you won't want to, but a hero sometimes must make tough decisions. You did what you felt you had to do to protect someone you love. I know it wasn't an easy decision, but it was the one you felt was right. The principal said you did quite a bit of damage, but I guess it was necessary. Anyways, I'm proud of you for trying to act mature, and I'm proud of you for standing up for yourself K.O."

"Thanks mommy," K.O. said, smiling.

The principal then opened the door. "Ah, Ms. Carol. Would you step in here please?"

She walked inside, and the principal shut the door. K.O. and Dendy were alone once again.

"Hey Dendy, it says here on my schedule we should currently be trading Pow Cards," K.O. said looking at his phone. "That's something we can do while we sit here."

"That will be good to pass the time," Dendy responded as she placed down her hackpack and opened her Pow Card slot.

"You might need to hook me up with one of those compartments someday Dendy," K.O. said. "I'm running out of room in my binder."

"Perhaps that could be arranged. But it would require a lot of engineering and modifying of your backpack."

The two sat and traded, while chatting about their favorite heroes. While they were doing so, the bully came walking up, holding an ice pack on his eye. He took the chair next to K.O. and scooted it several feet away before sitting in it.

He sat there while K.O. and Dendy stared at him. They stared back at each other, then back to the bully.

K.O. would be the one to break the silence. "Hey, uh… are you ok?"

The bully sighed. "I'll be fine. Back hurts, black eye. Nothing broken."

"Oh, well that's good to know," K.O. said before chuckling nervously.

"Yeah…" the bully said before trailing off. Silence filled the hallway once again.

"Look, I… I'm sorry…" said the bully.

K.O. looked over at the bully, eyes with intrigue.

"I just wanted things to be different here," the bully said.

"What do you mean?" asked K.O.

There was a pause. "This is the second time I've had to move to a new school. The last school I was in was Neo Riot City Public," the bully said. "I already had to move away from friends the first time. And when I got there, I got the snot beaten out of me repeatedly. Every day, the same routine of going to class, and getting beat up straight after."

"That's horrible," K.O. said. "Having to live in Neo Riot City and get bullied daily. Is that why you became the bully here?"

"Pretty much," the bully said. "I figured people wouldn't be as tough here. I thought maybe if I became the bully, people would leave me alone. I guess I messed with the wrong guy."

"You should've just been yourself," K.O. said. "And try to make new friends like you did at your first school."

"I tried doing that at Neo," the bully said. "But over there it's all about who's the toughest. No one really cared about friendships there."

"Well Lakewood is different," K.O. said, standing up on his chair. Dendy pulled up a triumphant music track to play as background noise. "At Lakewood, sure, we have our rotten people, but most everyone is kind hearted and friendly. If you try, then you're bound to make all kinds of friends. And sure, sometimes we may fight one another, but that's usual out of a sense of fun and sport. Don't try to be something you're not. Neo Riot city is a dangerous place. The fact you survived is cool! But give Lakewood a chance! Don't be the bully Neo wanted you to be, be the YOU that YOU want to be!"

Dendy stopped the music and started clapping. She also played an audio file of a crowd clapping and cheering.

The bully sat and stared at K.O. with amazement. "No one's ever told me to be just me before, well except for my dad," the bully said. "I guess you're right. I honestly don't want to bully people. I just thought it was how I'd get by." He paused. "Hey, are you guys trading Pow Cards? I have a collection!" He then pulled a small deck out of his bag.

K.O. and Dendy looked at each other and smiled. "Well we would be glad to have you join us."

"Wow really? Awesome!" the bully scooted his chair back over to them. "Oh, I never actually introduced myself. I'm Max!"

"Nice to meetcha'!" K.O. said. The three then spent some time trading their Pow Cards. Max had an interest in heroes such as Sparko and Elodie. He also had some retro Pow Cards of some older P.O.I.N.T. members.

"I think the only older P.O.I.N.T. member I'm missing is a retro silver spark," Max said.

"I have one, but it's framed and sitting at home. It's holographic too!" K.O. said.

"Wow, there were only around 200 of those printed. Do you know silver spark personally or something?"

"Yeah, she's my mom!"

"Seriously!?"

Just then, Carol came out of the office. "Hey kids, the principal and Ms. Quantum want to see you." She looked down and saw they were all trading together. "Ha, well would you look at that. You guys became friends."

The three put up their decks and they all walked into the office, sitting in chairs in front of the principal's desk.