Enid was slightly shaken awake. The young ninja felt the worst headache of her life as she regained consciousness.
"Are you alright, Enid?" Dendy's voice chimed up. She had found them like this upon coming to the bodega to execute her own personal plan, things seemed to already be immensely derailed sadly.
"Yeah… Boxmore just upped their game this attack," Enid held her sore skull, thankful the kappa had woke her back up, though it was obvious the battle had been long over. She saw a sore Radicles leaned against a wall nearby, already partially treated by Dendy.
"Where is K.O.?" Dendy asked. Enid took one glance around. No sign of anybody but themselves being there, whether or not she should be worried defaulted to yes quite fast.
"He must have gone after them…!" Enid tried to force herself to stand up again. She fumbled a bit and just wound up on one knee. Her sore head had exhausted her.
"I actually came to inform you of something about K.O. I discovered… and his girlfriend," the young kappa averted the two's attention to her. She presumed they had known about him being in a relationship already.
"What about her?" Rad asked, getting up. The beating he had gotten from the robots was nowhere near as bad as he and Enid expected, but it was enough to knock him out cold long enough.
"I discovered her identity and… well, I caught them on recording by accident," Dendy tried to brush it off as a mere set of coincidence, playing innocent enough. She took her phone out, and after a moment, began playing the recording for them to hear.
Enid and Rad listened with wide eyes. They heard K.O. and Shannon's conversation the other night, about breaking hearts and hurting those inadvertently to long degrees. Enid couldn't process this. Rad just stared with his eyes, having connected things pretty quickly. He knew who K.O. was talking to.
"Wait… You're telling me… K.O.'s girlfriend is Shannon?" Enid could not really believe that words that passed her lips.
"Affirmative," the young kappa nodded and put her phone away. The purple haired cashier guessed that both of the young couple had been keeping it secret. They thus understood the odd rage behind the assault today by Raymond and Darrell.
"No way…! This has to be a sick joke. Boxmore must be up to something. We gotta go save K.O.!" Enid immediately wanted to launch a counterattack, though became a little puzzled when she saw her co-worker pause. "Rad, come on! We're just wasting time!"
"R-right! Let's do this!" Radicles declared, thinking they would have to suffer through the pain to save their friend. Dendy watched as they left with a satisfied grin on her face.
"It seems my luck has improved drastically. Now all I have to do is wait for the right opportunity to strike," the kappa hummed, as she began to walk merrily away. She could hardly wait to get the next stage of her plan to steal K.O.'s heart underway.
After the meeting with their father, Darrell and Raymond had rounded up Shannon in their room for a sort of family meeting. Their sister felt nothing short of fear. They did not even have to say a word to know what had happened this time. It made her anxiety and fear grow paramount.
Raymond was seated nearby on a chair. Darrell was standing by the door to make sure no one came in. Shannon was on the edge of her bed staring down at the floor that all too familiar feeling of depression having sank in well beforehand.
"This morning, we attacked the bodega. We won that time," Raymond started.
"T-that's good… Why didn't you tell me you were going to attack though?" Shannon voiced the question, though already knew the answer. She had to play along with where this conversation was going. Playing dumb would most likely dig her grave deeper.
"To kidnap your boyfriend," Darrell answered straightforwardly. The female Boxmore bot let out a sorrowful whimper.
"How did you wind up with K.O. of all people? I understand why you wanted to keep him secret from us, but this was something you simply had to know we'd find out eventually!" Raymond declared. He showed anger, confusion, disappointment, and hurt towards her, at the same time. Though he could not deny, he was frustrated with himself for insisting she keep at it when he had no clue of who her boyfriend was.
"I wasn't trying to keep it secret! We were trying to figure out a way to break the news. He even took me to dinner with his family, and they were okay with us being together," Shannon explained. She couldn't hold back to truth, but it'd take a long time to find the best way to tell the rest of her family about the relationship without this level of drama happening.
"It'll just end badly," Darrell stated, "A hero and a villain can never last in a relationship. How do you not know this?"
"Being a hero or a villain doesn't matter when a relationship starts!" argued Shannon. She remembered Carol's words well. "You two don't even care about how happy he's made me? He's shown more care for me in our two weeks of dating than you two have shown me in our whole lives!"
"That's not true!" Darrell shot back, though paused, "I-is it?!"
"It is! Say what you will about K.O., but he really has a heart of gold!… I don't even know if I'm good at being a villain," Shannon added solemnly. That thought had been bothering her forever, but she always just brushed it off as a minor doubt that any person, organic or inorganic, could have about their alignment to good or evil.
Her siblings paused for a moment. They both seemed to feel guilty for what they planned to do next.
"We'll make sure you feel better once we're done with you. We're doing this for you, Shannon," Raymond spoke.
Shannon could feel her anger boiling. She stood up, fully intent on tearing them apart. She tried to get her buzzsaws to appear. Yet nothing happened.
"What? Why aren't my weapon systems working?!" Shannon gasped. She couldn't transform either. It was like something malfunctioned.
"Sorry. We turned on your emergency staller during our meeting with daddy," Darrell explained. Each Boxmore bot brand model had stallers installed within them. In the event that something were to go horribly wrong, these devices could disable their weapons, or at worse occasions, shut them down fully.
"You won't remember a thing once we finish wiping your memory. We promise," said Raymond as he grabbed her, and so did Darrell.
K.O. lay in the dark room that he had been left in, worried about Shannon. He had faith in Jethro and this supposed plan of his, but tried to ignore the reality of how bad the situation was for them.
"I told you it'd all go wrong," T.K.O. chimed up in his head, at least without causing a purposeful sting of pain.
"I knew relationships hit rough patches, but I didn't know they got this rough…!" K.O. responded, trying to struggle free of his bindings. "We need to make sure Shannon's alright! Help me out here, T.K.O.!" the Level 3 hero pleaded. They had a lot special abilities when their powers were combined. Even just their different styles of fighting helped in rough situations.
"Why? She's not my girlfriend," T.K.O. questioned, seeing not a need to lift a finger.
"But she is my girlfriend!" K.O. countered as he struggled against the bindings again.
"And your point is?" sneered T.K.O.
K.O. wound up falling onto his back after another failed struggling attempt. "You know what the most important part of any relationship is?"
"Is this gonna be some cheesy stuff?" yawned his practical dark counterpart.
"It's about accepting the good and bad of each other," K.O. sounded exhausted from the constant struggling, "You are my bad side, right? So if she loves me, that means she cares about you just as much. She knew about you from start to finish. Don't you care about that, T.K.O.?"
There was a long silence from his bad side as T.K.O. processed this, like both a nerve and his emotions had been struck at the same time. "I was expecting something cheesier, but… yeah, I guess…" he disconcertingly murmured.
"I hate to say this, but for the first time in my life, I want to go on a rampage. That's more your thing, though. I'll gladly let you do it as long as you make sure she's alright," K.O. offered. He considered combining into their other form. This whole issue needed him to go for a more destructive approach, since that was the route the Boxmore baddies were going.
"…Fine. I'll take over," T.K.O. reluctantly agreed.
K.O. felt a weight off his chest just from hearing him accept and took a deep breath. His bad side soon took control. His hair became wildly messy, and his red wristbands became purple and spiky.
With one roar, he snapped out of the ropes. Clenching his dark purple aura knuckles, he stretched, grinning his sharp teeth, ready to let out all of their anger.
"You want a rampage? I'll give ya one then."