K.O. just arrived home after a long time spent walking, lost deep in thought all the way. He could not believe the outcome of tonight. His heart felt ready to burst in joy.
"Mom, I'm home!" K.O. entered the house, closing the door behind him, though he heard nothing back in reply. All he found was Carol sleeping on the couch with the TV on. It was obvious that she had fallen asleep while waiting for her brave boy to get home, out of worry for how the date might go.
"Guess I should get ready for bed," the Level 3 hero shrugged, heading for his room knowing he had to get ready for work tomorrow.
K.O. got out of the tuxedo top and got into his pajamas. As he stood in front of the small mirror in the bathroom to brush his teeth, he heard a familiar voice ring out in his head.
"You're seriously going to date Shannon?" a rougher voice chimed up.
"Oh hey, T.K.O. …and yeah, why?" K.O. responded to his other half, an internal evil twin in his head that he shared powers with.
"I just can't believe you're going for a villain, out of everyone you know," T.K.O. retorted. K.O raised an eyebrow.
"Why're you so upset about that?" K.O. asked. T.K.O. rarely gave any emotion about romance beyond boredom. "I mean… as long as you're with me, I'm half villain too, right?" he tried to joke, but heard an irritated grumble in response from his other half.
"What about Dendy?" T.K.O. suddenly blurted out from nowhere, catching his good side off guard as he brushed his teeth.
"What about her?" K.O. gargled, not really paying much attention to his more anger prone half. Random rants about his decisions were not unusual. T.K.O. was like a devil on his shoulder.
"Oh nothing, other than how she likes us a lot," T.K.O. argued, "A lot more than just friends."
"You mean like siblings?" K.O. innocently chirped back. He finished brushing his teeth at this point. He left the bathroom, ready for bed. He returned to his room.
T.K.O. was peeved. Was the hero just oblivious to their kappa friend's feelings, or was he pretending to be? "She loves you! And you didn't even think about her at all during this?" T.K.O. demanded. Ever since the suggestion of Shannon liking the hero was brought up a couple of days ago, it bugged him. He had been hoping it would be ignored. Alas, K.O. just had to return Shannon's feelings. K.O could feel the anger on his dark half over all of this.
"Are you sure Dendy loves me? 'Cause I don't think so… I'm just a really interesting person to study," K.O. countered. Not that he disliked Dendy at all, but he knew she was extremely fascinated in his capabilities, and his incredibly fast growth in strength, much like any budding scientist. "And besides, I thought you hated Dendy…" K.O. had a sudden conclusion coming to mind. "Wait… does that mean… you actually like her?"
T.K.O. went completely silent.
"Hello? T.K.O.?" the Level 3 hero chirped lightly, knocking on his own skull. When he received no response, he shrugged before lying on his bed, resting his head on his pillow. His mind was clouded quickly with thoughts of tonight. K.O. simply closed his eyes, gaining a smile on his face as he started relishing the memories.
Shannon was back in her room, cleaning herself up after the hunting party disaster. She looked down at her corsage for confirmation. She couldn't believe it was all real. She did not want to take the item off either.
Shannon got snapped out of her thoughts when she heard the door knock, scaring her a little. "C-come in!" she hoped it wasn't her father. She had already returned the disguise-o-matic to its proper holding place in the inventions cabinet where everything still undergoing testing went.
"Thank you, Shannon," Raymond's voice relieved his sister. He entered into the room closing the door behind him. "So, how did your date go?" Raymond went up to her, looking eager to hear the details.
Shannon was unsure if she should tell him everything. She was nervous about what would happen if he knew. She might not remember her time with Rad, but if she did, she would be more than aware of how much of a disaster that was last time. "It… It went fine… but I'm no longer friends with Percer now," Shannon tried to put it simply. She was still so gloomy about losing a friend.
"I didn't think you were that close with them anymore… Sorry for that though," Raymond replied, "Everything went according to plan?"
His sister took a seat on her bed. "No," she rested her head in her hands, "everything went the opposite…"
It took a moment for her little brother to process that. "So they're even more interested in you now?"
His sister nodded as she tried to gather her confidence for what she was going to say next.
"Not just him…" she fearfully squeaked out, gripping her corsage covered wrist gently for assurance. She decided to trust her brother with at least one slice of the truth. "We're now a pair."
Her brother raised an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"
"We've decided that from now on…" Shannon breathed in, anxious to say it, "We're going to be a… c-couple."
"You're what?!" Raymond gawked aloud.
"Please, Raymond," his older sister motioned him to calm down. Yet she expected it to be ineffective. She just knew he wouldn't take it well.
"You dating a human? That's preposterous, Shannon!" Raymond shouted, "That is no better than when you were with that alien!"
Shannon froze, she wanted to retort but then what he said processed in her mind. "When I was… what?"
Raymond realized his mistake. He had spoken about the past incident without realizing it. The female Boxmore bot stood up, feeling a circuit break. There was a large secret being kept from her, and knowing that for some reason angered her to no end. She grabbed Raymond and pinned him against the wall.
"Now you listen to me," she snarled, her sharp teeth showing, "The boy I'm dating is the sweetest and most caring person I've ever met in my entire life! He made me feel like I'm more than just a bad selling robot! He stood up for me and actually cared about how I felt! Do you know how long it's been since anyone has done that for me? Do you?!"
"Y-yeah, I mean no?!" Raymond stuttered while the emotionally driven Shannon towered over him. He'd never seen her enter this new level of rage, clearly it had been pent up for quite some time and this was the final straw that broke it all.
"Yes, I'm dating a human! So what?! I don't care that he is one! For the first time in months, I can say I'm happy without faking a smile!" Shannon deployed one of her many buzzsaws from her left hand, and slowly raised it to his head. "Now you're going to do two things for me, Raymond. First, you're going to keep this secret from everyone!" she hissed through her teeth.
Raymond paused for a moment, taking her words into account. He had not seen this sort of passion coming from his older sister for so long. "Yes, I will, I promise," he nodded frantically. He could see that she had a lot worse intentions than just simply forcing him to reload into another body. "A-and the second thing?" he asked, feeling the breeze of the saw whirring violently near his head.
"You'll tell me what you meant by 'when I was with that alien', or else I'll cut you apart one piece at a time, disconnect your auto reload feature, take your memory storage unit and find out for myself," Shannon snarled. She didn't need to say that she would only allow him to reload into another body afterwards, if and when she felt like it.
"Alright, alright, just please calm down! I'll tell you everything…!" Raymond implored, being extremely cautious. She retracted her buzzsaw before letting him go and crossing her arms, ready to hear it.
So came the long explanation about his sister and Radicles' relationship. Raymond wanted to leave out his and Darrell's involvement in that relationship ending. This though meant no proper explanation for how Shannon's love for Radicles just ended, and she would not take anything but the full story, inevitably it all got dragged out.
When it was all said and done, Shannon was standing there, holding her chest with a swollen feeling of confused emotions. She felt sorrow and guilt.
"Shannon, I'm sorry," Raymond spoke, "We just didn't want you to be in a fake love... Your emotional circuit was damaged. That's why we had to stop it."
"And you thought not telling me anything that happened at all was a good idea…?" Shannon glared. She was ready to destroy him twenty times for this.
"Because it wasn't you! It was just your malfunctioning emotional circuits!" the sports loving robot defended himself. However, just as Shannon was about to start tearing him limb from limb with her saws, they heard the door open suddenly without warning.
"I am Jethro," Jethro called out, standing there with their engine idling. The two other siblings paused. Jethro had come to tell them they were supposed to attack the plaza tomorrow, and were ordered to start preparing a plan tonight.
Shannon pouted, turning her back on Raymond and making beginning to leave her own room to get ready for tomorrow.
"Shannon," Raymond called to her. Shannon stopped in her tracks. She almost wished to just ignore what else he wanted to say, but she had the heart to at least listen. "Promise me that… you'll at least come to us if anything's wrong," Raymond pleaded, trying to just make his brotherly concern known.
Shannon said nothing and continued to walk away. Jethro simply turned around and rolled off to follow, leaving the sports bot alone, not inquiring further. Raymond could only process all that happened, hoping that his older sister wouldn't do anything too hasty.