A day had passed since that encounter between the hero and villain. Shannon spent the last day pondering to herself. Everything it was far too much to take in at once.
"Oh, boy… How hard is it to tell someone you don't care about them?" Shannon wondered to herself what to do. As circuit warming as it was to believe that K.O. was interested in her as more than just a simple enemy, something about it made her ashamed and wondering how this happened. Did this really happen because of Boxman commanding her to focus on battling him? She really could not believe things were that simple. Sadly, it seemed to be just that.
"Shannon? You okay?" a whinier voice chimed up, startling Shannon, until she realized it was just her brother Darrell standing there.
"Not really…" Shannon frowned, turning her gaze away from him. She was still bitter that he got to be upgraded, while she was left with nothing.
"Aw, come on. It's not like we asked Dad for the upgrades ourselves," Darrell presumed this was his sister simply being upset over that. Some days she would be fine, other days her emotional circuit would be malfunctioning.
"Oh, shut up! You already had plenty of different editions, and Raymond was already strong enough without them," Shannon turned around to leave the room, but her brother stopped her.
"I'm sorry again. How about we go beat up those Lakewood losers? That'll cheer you up," Darrell suggested, though all he got in response was a sharp buzzsaw piercing him from front to back.
"I'm not in the mood, now leave me alone!" Shannon kicked him back, causing the busted bot to collapse into the floor, bleeding oil. Shannon stormed off shortly after.
"Aw, man… I just finished polishing too," Darrell whined, knowing he had to get another body again.
Shannon just wandered through Boxmore HQ. It was both the Boxmore family's home and factory at once. The orange bot did not have many ideas on what to do with K.O.
"Why is it I'm only now having problems screaming something at someone?" Shannon asked herself, finding it strange. She made her way to the break room that normally housed many bots during lunch breaks, but at this time, she knew only one person would be in there. Shannon opened the door to see a familiar sports machine in front of the open refrigerator. "Raymond!" she called to that person in question.
Raymond, the youngest and prettiest as well as the most egotistical of the Boxmore family, snapped his head towards her. "This isn't what it looks like!" he naturally assumed she was mad at him for stealing food again. It was a bad habit he had gotten after tasting the delicious food of one of their simple janitor bots.
"Yeah, yeah, I don't care about your food. I need to talk to you. I… I need your advice," Shannon forced the words past her lips, despite how much she hated to confess them. Her younger brother was the only one who ever had been in a situation like this.
"Oh… Sure! Anything for you, Shannon," Raymond hummed, almost egotistically when hearing her announce her request. He took his seat at one of the few tables in the room.
Shannon sat across from him. "You've dated humans, right?"
Her brother shrugged. "I've spent some time with a lot of my admirers, but never a real relationship. Why'd you ask?" Raymond responded, confuse. His charm had an effect on people. He had indulged some of his fans, but so far nothing serious to a degree.
"I…" the orange Boxmore bot felt her confidence in her voice fade. Her brother's upgraded armor reminded of her self perceived worthlessness. It unnerved her.
"Come on, I can't help you if you don't tell me what's wrong," Raymond reminded her, not wanting to have her pent up her emotions and worries. She was awful at dealing with them by herself, everybody knew that about her.
"I know, I know. I just… Still can't believe it's real," Shannon shook her head before resting her face in the palms of her hands, as if hoping to wake up from a dream. She looked up to her younger brother after a moment. "I think a human's in love with me," she said it as straight forward as she put it. Raymond stared at her, unsure what to really say in response to that. He knew Shannon had no memory of her relationship with Rad, but still it worried him to have a similar situation emerge.
"In love? Like they've said it to you and everything?" the sports loving robot requested clarification. He certainly understood why she was upset about this. It was her first time with this problem after all.
"No, they haven't, exactly… said it, but they've been acting all weird around me and asked if I was interested in them," Shannon explained. That seemed to be enough to her brother to agree and nod at the claim of assumed love.
"So, what'll you do?" Raymond inquired, holding his chin.
"I was hoping you could tell me how to handle this," Shannon said. Her brother chuckled.
"Sorry. I've had many humans in love with me before, but I've never had any with courage to attempt much with me," he responded. He could tell that his older sister did have feelings for this person, just by how she behaved when discussing them. "Either tell them you have no feelings for them or indulge them a little and see how it goes. Just make sure dad doesn't find out," Raymond insisted to Shannon. After he said that, he heard a loud ring. It was break time. "I'll check on you later," Raymond left on that note. It wouldn't be long until the break room got full of their worker bots.
"Indulge them…?" Shannon held her head, shaking it slightly at the suggestion. Yet, for some reason, part of her was telling her to do it.
Activity at the plaza had been rather slow today. Not that it did much to dampen K.O.'s upbeat mindset. Enid was sleeping behind the front counter, while Rad was restocking the healing potions.
"Wonder why people have been buying so many of those lately," K.O. mentally pondered, guessing it was just something in his imagination.
Suddenly they heard the sound of an alarm blaring. Their attention was grabbed instantly.
"Boxmore took a lot longer to attack today," Rad stood up.
"Was starting to think I'd get no exercise," Enid stretched. K.O. felt anxious. Shannon was very likely to be in the assault crate that had landed here. The Level 3 hero hoped this would be easy.
As they stepped outside, they saw the usual large Boxmore box in the parking lot that had cracked the area around where it landed. Shortly after, the box's sides popped off, revealing Raymond, Shannon and Darrell.
"Wow. You Lakewood losers showed up before we could even fire an attack this time," Darrell commented. He had a bad feeling about this fight, even with the upgrades him and his younger brother had.
"What can we say?" Enid cracked her knuckles, "We wanted to make sure you got home as fast as you got here."
K.O. and Shannon were both in a semi locked gaze. Their eyes refused to break the awkward lock they exchanged. "She wants to talk to me… But how can we do that in a battle?" the Level 3 hero pondered. It was obvious that Shannon was not here with the primary objective to fight.
"Let's begin, shall we?" Raymond made a baseball pop out of his palm and onto his hand. He threw it at them like a stone to a bird. The three bodega employees dodged swiftly, and the baseball exploded upon hitting the ground, leaving a small crater after it.
The Boxmore trio scattered at the same time to keep up with their personal targets that their father insisted they were best suited to fighting against.
"Hold still!" Darrell fired his blaster of green plasma. Rad ran like the wind, dodging the several shots, some of which hit the ground and took out chunks of concrete.
"Take this!" Radicles fired his telekinetic beams from both fingers. Darrell stood his ground when the beams hit him, and they bounced off harmlessly. "What the-?!" gawked the alien bodega worker.
"Impressed?" a sneer crept on Darrell's lips as he patted his shiny upgraded body plating,
"Daddy upgraded me and Raymond. Now I have psychic proof armor!" he then blasted Rad right in the chest while he was off guard taking in the surprise, knocking him off his feet and making him slide back a good distance across the pavement.
"Ohhh… I'll feel that one in the morning…" Rad coughed, holding his slightly burnt chest.
"Hang on Rad, I'll- Whoa!" Enid was about to try and help him, only for a hockey puck to zip past her at high speed that she barely avoided in time.
"You better focus up or else you'll lose something," Raymond laughed, firing another hockey puck from his hand and quickly smacking it with his stick.
Enid threw herself backwards onto the ground. Dodging the puck. Quickly rolling backwards to get onto her feet.
"Two can play the long-range game!" Enid lit both of her legs on fire with her powers. She hopped into the air and swung wide, shooting a curved bolt of fire at the sports bot. She threw out four more before landing.
"You'll have to do better than that!" Raymond spun the hockey stick like a tornado, catching each fireball and harmlessly dispersing it to the air, though as he took care of the last fiery projectile, he saw no sign of Enid. The Level 4 hero appeared overhead, dropping down with a flaming axe kick.
The collision made her opponent's metallic armor fold in partially. But other than that, barely a wound. Raymond grinned, grabbing her by the leg with both hands before slamming her on the ground. He then smacked her away with his hockey stick making her skid across the pavement.
Enid coughed as she held her now wounded side. Her opponent suddenly had the force and the speed of a truck. She glared at the sports bot as he stood there proudly. His armor went back to its normal shape from where she hit it.
"Do you like it? My armor was given a nice shock absorbent upgrade! It makes any impact weaken by a large amount," Raymond grinned with pride at his new armor upgrade. Boxman had outdone himself with these.
"Then I'll just have to hit you harder!" Enid got up, ready to keep battling.
While those two handled the others, K.O. was trying to dodge Shannon's razor sharp blades to the best of his ability. He was able to tell for himself that the robot girl was distracted. She was reluctant to fight.
"Shannon, can you at least not cut my hair this time? Please!" K.O. ducked under another high swing, and the opposite of his request, he threw a quick power fist, hitting her on the forehead.
"Grrr… that's it!" Shannon looked furious. She hopped up, and she retracted her feet. Out came two buzzsaws that she balanced on, just like ice skates. The whirled as fast as wheels from a motorcycle.
"Oh no!" K.O. had no time to react before he was tackled by her reckless attack. A cried out as he was smashed through the bodega door, the two going inside.
"K.O.!" Rad and Enid called out. They were about to go help their friend, but they were blocked by Darrell and Raymond.
"Ah, ah, ah… our sister's been a bit stressed out lately, so we'll let her have her fun," Raymond insisted. The four wound up glaring at each other intensely, waiting for one or the other to make the first move.
K.O. bounced off the metal shutter in the large stock room, at the very back of the bodega. There was fear in his eyes. "Are you angry about yesterday?" the Level 3 hero gulped, closing his eyes and expecting the worst.
"No…" Instead, she helped him back onto his feet. K.O. was confused. "I just needed a way to talk to you alone…" Shannon sighed, now that she had calmed down. She took the hit from him on purpose to appear to explode in a blind rage. They were away from the rest of the battle now.
"Uh… rea-really? About what?" K.O. was surprised, but nodded, glad to avoid fighting her further. Shannon was in that depressing slump deep enough.
"I wanted to ask you to…" Shannon struggled to say the words, but she forced them out of her mouth. "…to come with me to a party… as MY date." It was the advice that Raymond had given her that she was following here.