K.O. set the table in the kitchen, and Carol, eager to be meeting her son's girlfriend, worked on dinner. She had been worried that something might have gone wrong.
"Anything I should know about this Sherry girl?" Carol asked for the details, wanting to know if there were any sore subjects to not dig up.
"She's acts aggressive, but is really sweet once you get past that," K.O. stated, not thinking of much beyond that. He was anxious for how dinner would go. He just hoped that it would be smooth and simple with nothing beyond occasional questions and idle dinner talk.
The doorbell soon rang. K.O. felt his anxiety increase dramatically, aware how badly Shannon wanted to keep the relationship partially secret. "I-I guess that's her! I'll go get it!" he instantly darted off and opened the door. What he saw though shocked him.
"Shannon?" K.O. chirped. She seemed to have gotten an upgrade to her disguise from the other day. The light pink hair covering her head that no longer had the mushroom shape to the top of it. A white shirt and orange jeans completed the disguise.
"Tonight its Sherry, remember?" Shannon giggled and planted a quick kiss on his cheek. K.O. knew she was going to disguise herself, but he did not expect her to go through that much effort. He had texted her all the information with the lies he had told about her to his family and friends, and she memorized them well.
"Are you sure you'll be alright? Moms cooked regular food…" K.O. asked, not wanting her to hurt herself.
"Don't worry. Daddy made sure we're able to convert any material into fuel. Metals just the easiest to process for us," Shannon reassured. She was not used to having people care about her like this. The Level 3 hero nodded, taking his hand into hers before and leading her into his house.
"Is this the lucky girl peanut?" Carol asked her son. K.O. gave a bright smile, but he was not doing a good job at hiding his nervousness at all.
"Ye-yeah, mom, this is Sherry," the Level 3 hero introduced them. Shannon was unsure why, she should be nervous to the core, but right now the former point member made her feel nothing but reassured.
"It's nice to meet you," Shannon tried to be polite with her modified voice, though the handshake they exchanged she swore nearly crushed her hand. She was now feeling nervous unable to tell if her boyfriend's mother was irritated or simply overly enthusiastic.
"Nice to meet ya too! I'm Carol," Carol gladly introduced herself in trade as the handshake ended. The high level hero sure didn't get the vibe of her being a bully at all, but guessed that the relationship had possibly changed that for good. "Come on, dinner's ready. I bet you're starving from the trip."
Shannon happily nodded, following K.O. and his mother into the dining room. The female Boxmore bot could see the nervous look on her boyfriend's face. This was the first time she had ever seen him like this, and she understood why.
Things did seem to be off to a good start. They talked back and forth about the first lies the young girl could fabricate, about her family, and about her and K.O.'s meeting. Though she did slip out of her tongue that the hunting party going awry was how they hooked up.
"Excuse me for a second," K.O. hopped off to go to the bathroom. He just hoped they would be fine while he was away for the few minutes. The quiet atmosphere became awkwardly tense for Shannon, who had already finished her food. She did her best to stay calm.
"So, Shannon… How'd you wind up with my boy?" asked Carol. Shannon felt her circuits nearly explode from the shock of this sudden query.
"Wh-what? Who's Shan-Shannon?" Shannon tried to play it off to the best of her ability, though now she was plain terrified. How did she get found out so easily?
"You're Shannon, right?" the dojo owner's face hosted an expression of bemused content, wondering if the villain was going to try and play it off this badly, when the panic alone was a dead enough giveaway.
"Ho…How'd you know?" Shannon gave in, not wanting to make things worse than they already were. She pulled out the Disguise-o-matic, wondering if it had malfunctioned.
"I figured it out from how you move," Carol simply answered.
"How I move…?" Shannon parroted, further confused. The shock and worry overwhelming her was partially disabling her speech abilities.
"You move lightly, each step with forced grace. Looks a lot better when ya fight though," Carol chuckled, remembering those movements from all their battles made identifying her a lot easier.
Shannon buried her face into her hands. "I was so focused on appearances that I didn't even pay attention to my behavior…" she groaned. Her own subconscious movements had blown her undercover identity. "Wh…What are you going to do…?" she barely looked up from her hands. She was expecting to be bashed out through the ceiling any second now.
"Let me ask… How do you feel about K.O.?" asked Carol, not showing any hostility so far.
"K.O. is…" Shannon paused briefly, trying to calm herself, letting her barely gathering thoughts about him spring up, "He's the sweetest person I've ever met. Nobody has treated me like he has. I was more miserable than ever until we went on that date… He's so brave, and so determined, it's almost like he can make any bad situation a good one… A-are you going to beat me up…?"
"What for?" Carol smirked as she slid her empty plate aside. She enjoyed that sheepish behavior.
"I'm one of Boxman's children. A robot… a villain… always sent to fight K.O. For whatever dumb reason my dad can think up," Shannon rambled on for a bit. She had been worried that whoever found her out, if they did, would assume this was some evil scheme to ruin the young hero emotionally.
"So? I've seen weirder… When you've worked for point, you kinda learn that social statuses and tags are nearly meaningless," Carol responded. Good and evil were the last things on her mind. "That and I would see somebody having bad intentions with my baby a mile away, and go out of my way to give them what for… Really though, I see you have none."
Shannon's eyes welled with joy. "So… you're fine with me dating K.O.?"
"My baby's old enough to manage his own love life. I'll let him handle it," Carol got up, intending to start cleaning the dishes, but before she could, she felt both of Shannon's arms tightly wrap around her, catching her off guard.
"Thank you…" Shannon sobbed happily. Carol patted her back. She hated to imagine how starved for affection Shannon was before she met her son, it at least made her feel all the more confident in leaving K.O. to her.
"Is everything alright?" K.O. chirped up. He had just returned to see Shannon so emotional.
"Yeah, peanut. Just having a bit of a talk," Carol grinned, letting Shannon return to her seat. K.O. wanted to question what exactly they talked about, but he decided it would best be left untouched for now.
The Boxmore Headquarters factory had been running at full force today with little rest. Nothing unusual for when sales were up. Raymond had taken the chance to take a break after he nearly had a limb ripped off by some of the machinery by accident, again. Nothing unusual. As he lounged around in the empty break room. Raymond soon heard the door open. He winced, expecting to hear his father shouting at him to prepare an attack or to get back to work. He was relieved to instead see Darrell.
"Oh hey, Darrell. You on break too?" asked Raymond. Darrell nodded. He had been searching for his little brother a good while now.
"Yeah, but…" Darrell paused. He looked worried. "I also wanted to talk to you about Shannon."
"What's wrong?" Raymond returned to his seat, though he had a bad feeling that he already knew what this conversation was about.
"It's Shannon…" Darrell sat down, "The other day, I caught her talking on the phone to someone, and it turned out to be her boyfriend," he paused, letting that first piece of news sink in, "When I asked if her emotional circuit was alright, she blew up on me and threatened to tear me apart. I have no clue what to do."
"I already knew that," Raymond was not shocked one bit, "Her mysterious boyfriend just cured her depression and gave her the motivation she needed to do better in combat."
"Ah…" Darrell sighed, guessing he should not be surprised that Raymond already knew. "What do we do?" he asked. He was in inner turmoil about telling their father about this or not, especially given the incident with Rad a while back.
"Nothing. As long as she's happy, I'm happy," Raymond stated, simple as that, trying not to remember the threat that Shannon also made to him.
"But you aren't curious to know who it is?" Darrell asked, looking annoyed at their lack of options here.
"I am Jethro," they heard suddenly, seeing the familiar blue short robot there.
"What do you mean you know who it is?" Darrell gawked, wondering why Jethro of all people knew but not them.
"Please tell us," Raymond requested without hesitation.
Jethro took a while to consider letting the two know, and he nodded to it. "I am Jethro," he booped.