It was a little late into the morning, K.O. was riding in the passenger side seat of his mother's car while she drove. He was quite content after how last night went, while being often lost in his thoughts.
"You never told me how the date went last night honey," Carol broke the ice. The high-level hero was glad to see her son happy though. It gave her an idea on how things went last night, but she had been waiting for him to start that discussion since breakfast.
"Oh, they went alright. We went to a hunting party. We won, but the monster we got paired against was huge!" K.O. explained with a bright grin on his face. The immense pleasure he had gotten from fighting a tough opponent like that was obvious.
"Your first monster hunting party? I figured you'd wind up doing that with Rad and Enid one day," Carol joked. It might be unusual for a date night, let alone a first date, but she was happy to hear it went well for him. "But I wanted to know about the date part more than the party."
K.O. nodded, but he was a little nervous to confess to how everything exactly went. "We-well she really liked the corsage I got her… But I think because of me she lost her friend. She talked about how she wasn't used to having someone treat her so nicely," he still felt bad about Shannon's lost friend. Maybe their friendship had been quite fragile from the start. He was debating telling the most important part of the results to his mom, he was uncertain about announcing he had a girlfriend now.
"That's great, peanut! I was worried you'd be too nervous to do anything," Carol giggled. She had expected it to not end the best, she was relieved that everything was alright.
"So I gotta ask…" the high-level hero started.
"Are you going to go out with'em again?" Carol asked innocently enough. K.O. gave a bright smile and nodded.
"Yeah! I'm sure we will," the level 3 hero declared hearing that made his mother happy.
"One of these days, we need to get together with this girl's family sometime. I'd like to meet them," Carol stayed more focused on the road. K.O. tried not mentioning that they'd met over a hundred times by now with how often they had fought with Boxmore.
When they arrived at Lakewood Plaza, the mother and son bid each other bye-bye before they headed to their separate places of work. K.O. entered the bodega, and saw Enid relaxing behind the front counter.
"Enid! I'm glad you're back!" the level 3 hero ran up eagerly to the level 4 ninja with a bright smile, happy to see his friend back.
"Oh hey, K.O.! You look more upbeat than usual today," Enid greeted her short friend warmly. The day off restored her patience for customers.
"I had a great night! Your advice the other day really helped," K.O. exclaimed. His co-worker smirked.
"That's great K.O.! You talked with them?" Enid leaned over the counter to hear how things went.
"We went on a date at a hunting party! It was great," he declared. His close friend was surprised though. K.O. just went on a date with this person who had been bullying him for long.
"Wow… You really work quick," Enid murmured, not sure why she wished making friends out of enemies was this easy for her. "Well that's great, K.O.! Congrats on…" the alarm suddenly blared. The plaza was under attack already."…ugggh! Alright, let's get this Boxmore beat-down over with and then you can tell me all about it."
"Alright!" K.O. agreed. The two rushed outside to meet up with Radicles. They were starting to get a little irritated at these constant attacks so early in the day, but at least it meant getting them out of the way quickly.
When they got outside, they found Rad already there waiting for them. The familiar large box was there, and the sides fell off, revealing Shannon, Darrell and Raymond. However, only Darrell seemed eager to battle. The other two weren't.
"You guys are early today," Radicles stated. K.O. gave a light wave to Shannon. She sheepishly gave a small wave back. Neither side noticed their actions.
"Daddy's orders," Darrell simply retorted. Raymond and Shannon though just wanted to get this over with. The red bot was confused by this. The lack of spirit was killing the mood to him.
"Right we'll do it different than last time," Enid cracked her neck. Now that they knew how to deal with the Boxmore bot's upgrades, they would have no problems dealing with them. The level 4 hero hoped so.
"Here we go!" Rad wasted no time firing a beam from his finger at them, only for Darrell to block it aside with his psychic proof armor. The groups split up to fight their respective opponents in mere moments.
K.O. ended up dodging a bladed saw thrown at him by Shannon. He gulped. This was a lot more awkward than he thought it would be; having to fight the same person he was dating. Yet the orange robot didn't seem to have a scrap of trouble with bringing herself to attack him.
Shannon swung both of her saw blades downwards, whirling at high velocity. K.O. lit up two aura fists, catching both saw blades and keeping them in pace.
"Sorry! Just trying to make things look as normal as I can," Shannon apologized quietly. The young boy could not blame her for trying to do her best at least. Something was on her mind though, and he could tell.
"What's the matter?" the Level 3 hero requested her to share her woes with him. She had no trouble doing it last night during their date and afterwards. No real reason not to do so today, as long as the pretend struggle continued.
"Well…" the orange Boxmore bot paused momentarily. She hesitated, but she guessed her technical boyfriend was just the right person to go for help. "I need to talk to Rad… I-I have to apologize for something…" Shannon confessed. The brush haired boy did not really know what to think about that. He looked over to their friend while he was fighting Darrell. He soon had an idea.
"I know what to do! Call for help to get them to attack me," K.O. told the orange robot. She seemed quick to catch onto his idea. She hoped it would at least work.
"Darrell! Raymond! Need a little help here!" Shannon cried out suddenly, making it look like K.O. was about to break her robotic limbs off in an attempt to get her buzz saws away from him. Sure enough, that did get her brothers attentions all too easily.
"You got it, Shannon!" Darrell quickly fired a pair of plasma balls her way after avoiding a large rock swung at him by Rad.
"Gladly!" Raymond agreed, dodging another pair of flame kicks from Enid before firing an explosive baseball his palm. Both attacks darted right for the teenage hero.
"Whoa!" K.O. spun around. Both aura knuckles were ready. He whacked the pair of attacks away, and they went flying towards the oblivious Rad.
"Rad, watch out!" the Level 3 hero called out.
"Wha?! Oh, blorp!" the stockroom worker got hit by both plasma blasts and the explosive baseball. The combined attack caused him to blast off into the air, and to the back of the plaza.
"Rad!" Enid called out. Darrell and Raymond grinned at the sound of the alien's distant scream. During the distraction, Shannon snuck away, and no one but K.O. noticed.
"I sure hope Rad didn't do anything to make her mad," K.O. exhaled in relief at his plan working. With that done, he ran off to help Enid in the two versus two this battle had become.
Rad lay back first on a table where various workers were meant to go for lunch, having had quite the rough landing. The stockroom worker got up, holding his back in pain. "Jeez…! K.O. really has bad aim…" the Level 3 hero murmured, trying to get his bearings back so he could return to the battle.
"Hey, Rad…" he heard Shannon's sheepish voice chime up. he spun on his feet, getting ready to fight, assuming she had come after him after he got blasted away.
"Don't think just because I got unlucky that I'll be easy to beat!" Rad picked up a table with his telekinetic beam and threw it at the Boxmore bot. Shannon cut it in half with her blades, the parts harmlessly hitting the ground.
"Will you chill for one second?! I'm not trying to fight! I wanted to talk to you, alone… Sorry about the rough way of doing it. I asked K.O. for help while we were fighting," the orange robot explained. She felt genuinely bad about it, but she couldn't find any other option.
Rad raised an eyebrow. This was totally out of left field to him. And from Shannon, of all people? "What do you want to talk about?"
Shannon gulped. The nervousness of opening this old wound hit her. "I want to talk about… about when we were together."