Despite not leaving the Plaza area, K.O. was showing signs of restlessness, making subtle but twitchy hand movements and occasionally sweating a drop or two, although he wore a never fading smile as he sat in front of the Bodega and looked down on his companions.

It was getting pretty evident to Carol, Enid and Rad that the gigantic kid wanted to leave and explore what lies beyond the little stretch of road. This fact made the trio a bit uneasy as well. Carol, in particular, paced left and right, worried for her son and what might happen next.

"Come on, think, think!" she muttered to herself. "I used to be in P.O.I.N.T.! I've always been able to think up a solution… or was it Rippy Roo? Okay, don't get off track, Carol. Oh, i've got to figure out something fast, or who knows what would happen- what if he grows mad with power? What if he becomes capable of destroying towns with one step? What if he ends up stepping on me? What if he…"

Enid took notice of Carol's jittery behavior and stopped her. "Hey, stop it. Walking around and rambling won't help anything. And besides that, it makes you look like an insane person."

Just then, the sound of an approaching car was heard, and before anyone knew it, a bright yellow yet stylish taxi made a hard right-hand drift into the Plaza parking lot. The group stared as the left rear door opened to reveal none other than K.O.'s best friend outside of work and resident genius, Dendy. She was so smart and helpful, in fact, that every time her presence was made known, a group of young children could be heard cheering.

"Dendy!" the entire group exclaimed, even K.O. Dendy got out of the taxi, leaving her father Pavel, who sat in the seat next to her, behind. "Hello, friends, i-" Dendy stopped when she looked up at her giant companion. "Oh my! K.O., what happened to you!?"

"Uh… hehe, well, i guess puberty came early for me!" K.O. said sheepishly.

Carol noticed Pavel still sitting in the car and decided to greet him, since the two of them had become friends thanks to their own children's relationship. "Hi, Pavel! How are things?" she said while waving to him.

The kappa dad waved back to Carol. "We're great, Ms. Kincaid! Dendy just aced her writing test last week! Although Miss Quantum told me she went 'a little overboard'... wrote an entire 6-page essay while the other students only had to write a paragraph." Pavel said.

"Well," Carol chuckled. "you know what they all say, they grow up so fast…" she looked behind her, at K.O., then back to Pavel. "sometimes literally."

Pavel laughed at his friend's little quip. "Hey, you still up for coffee next week?"

"Yes, certainly!" Carol responded. "See ya later!"

"Bye, Carol! Bye, Dendy!" Pavel said, then closed the taxi door.

The driver's seat window of the car suddenly rolled down, revealing the stone-faced, shades-wearing, dark-skinned driver. "So, y'all paying or wha-" he stopped looking around when his eyes met K.O.'s. "My Cob! H-he's massive!"

"Thank you!" K.O. responded happily.

"You know what?" the driver said. "No need to pay, it's on the house!"

K.O. looked at the cab curiously and began to extend his hand towards it, in a grasping position. "Wow, looks just like a scale model! Fascinating…" the curious giant said. This innocent action struck fear in the usually-chill taxi driver, who said "Oh nah, i'm getting out of here!" and sped right off before K.O.'s fingers came in contact with his ride.

"Aw crap… i hate it when people show fear…" K.O. said.

Dendy walked closer to the boy. "So this was the big predicament you talked about, Ms. Kincaid…" she said. "I thought it was supposed to be a figure of speech. Anyway, i think i've got something in my pack that could help me figure out the cause." The genius girl took off her bright blue backpack, which housed a super-advanced computer. "Good timing, too. I just installed an x-ray/microscopic program on my computer that allows me to look inside anyone's- and anything's- bodies on an atomic scale. Now, let me take a second to find it…" Dendy shifted through the overload of applications, programs and other doodads on her holographic screens until she reached the one she was looking for, a tool she nicknamed "Scanford" (patent pending).

After booting Scanford up, Dendy guided it to K.O. 's body, and in almost a millisecond, a live recording of his insides filled the genius' screen, right down to his cells roaming in their usual path. She zoomed into the boy's right arm, enough to watch his blood cells live. Dendy looked closely for any irregularities, but nothing popped up so far.

"Hmm… everything seems normal…" she said as Carol, Enid and Rad looked at the screen alongside her. A few seconds went by in silence until Dendy's eyes popped. "Wait a minute!" she exclaimed as she zoomed Scanford in a bit closer.

She focused the x-ray at a few cells that had caught her attention. This, combined with the expanded view, helped her notice some subtle yet out-of-the-ordinary sparkles protruding from the cells. She moved the scanner a few more times and noticed the effect on all the cells the group saw.

"Well, it seems we may have found a clue to K.O. 's predicament. Cells never usually show a shine of any kind, so i believe some sort of magical element is responsible. But i wouldn't automatically jump to conclusions; there also could be a scientific explanation." Dendy then moved up the arm, noticing one small yet kind of important detail.

"Hmm… the closer i get to his chest area, the shinier these cells get. This is probably a hunch, but…" she trailed off as her focus was locked on K.O.'s insides. She moved about for half a minute until she reached the intended area: his heart.

Said heart, as Dendy suspected, looked slightly yet significantly different. It was still in its typical shape, but instead of the usual red color, K.O.'s main organ was… quite colorful. From the scanner screen, the heart gave off a combination of purple, black and a tinge of gold, slowly moving all around the heart's surface. It was like the Northern Lights were going on inside him. The unusual sight made everybody's (except for K.O., of course) eyes widen.

"Whaaaaa…" Enid said.

"Well, that's pretty weird." Rad said.

"Oh, no, really?" Enid said sarcastically.

"If i wasn't seeing this from a computer screen, i would probably go blind!" Carol said. "Do you have an explanation for this, Dendy?"

The genius gal squinted her eyes at Scanford's screen. "Hmm…" Then she turned her head slightly. "Hmmmmm…" Dendy turned her head to the other side. "Hmmmmmmmmm-"

"Dendy! We don't have time for you to repeat that annoying humming! At least give us an hypothesis!" Rad exclaimed, which made Enid surprised that he even knew what the word "hypothesis" was.

Fortunately, Dendy listened to Rad's plea and came up with an answer. "Knowing me, you'll probably not like this." she started. "But i'm not… extremely sure what this is. It seems so familiar to me, but i can't for the life of me remember what it is!" She sighed. "Why is my incredibly smart mind not working for me here?"

Carol put her hand on Dendy's shoulder, attempting to comfort her. "Hey, hey, it's okay. We all forget sometimes. Maybe it'll come back to you. In the meantime, we can be happy knowing we found a clue to whatever's going on."

Knowing Ms. Kincaid was right, Dendy took a screenshot of her friend's glowing heart and closed Scanford. She then typed a note in another application- "Clue #1: Irregularity in K.O. 's vital organ"- before shutting down her backpack's computer. "Well, there's the first step. Now we've got to formulate a plan…"

"It'll most likely be tricky, as we've only got one lead so far, but we cannot give up. This is for our friend! Maybe we could start with interrogating and investigating the villains we already know, like Box-" Enid said before her little speech was interrupted by K.O.

"Actually, you don't have to worry about me."

Enid, Rad, Carol and Dendy all looked up at the gigantic kid, who was now standing straight, looming and looking down at them with a small smile. "Huh?" Carol said.

"Guys, i don't think there's any need to 'formutalate a plan' or whatever, because i'm fine! Sure, i'm a little bigger than usual- no wait, i'm definitely bigger- but i'm still the same happy, courageous, and marketble K.O. you've always known! In fact… i'm way better…"

"Okay, we get it, bro," Rad exclaimed. "you feel dominant because you're taller than all of us combined! Can you stop with this… charade you're giving yourself?"

"Oh come on, Rad!" K.O. chuckled. "That's not what i meant! I don't know how to describe it, but there's this feeling… this rising, rushing… sensation? I think that's the word? Well, anyways, it's like it's telling me to stop feeling so trapped! What am i even doing here standing around when the whole world awaits me, ready to witness my power? I love you guys, especially you, Mommy, and i'm not gonna abandon you…"

As K.O. was speaking, Dendy noticed that the boy's height was increasing again, albeit more subtly. Yet it was just as powerful as the last, reaching approximately 5 more feet in the span of seconds.

"...but i've gotta go. And besides, at my size, how can you guys stop me?" he finished as he began to take a step over his friends and mother, being careful of course not to hurt them (because he would never want to do that no matter what). Once K.O.'s massive foot made contact with the pavement, the impact created a small yet mighty tremor that knocked the four normal-sized peeps off their feet. Then he took another step, and started to walk away from the group that was just recovering from the previous footfall.

The foursome watched as their not-so-little buddy took a stroll to their right. Carol gave off a worried expression, almost like she knew where he was heading to.

"Wait, K.O! Stop!" the concerned mother said.

"Yeah, please come back! We can fix this! You don't need to go… um… K.O-zilla on us?" Enid said. That latter part made the other three look at the purple-haired winja with half-closed eyes and unamused frowns. "What? It's hard to come up with good material in situations like this."

"Forget it, Enid." Rad told her. "Right now we've gotta get to the bottom of this. Since the lil' dude is refusing to cooperate, we need to take action ourselves. And fast- i already have to cancel two appointments on my schedule because of this whole mess!"

"And by 'appointments' do you mean spending time in the mirror admiring yourself?" Enid retorted. Rad just rolled his eyes.

"So let's recap- a new bad guy showed up to the Plaza, those growth candies resurfaced, somehow, K.O. may or may not be corrupted by something we don't know, we only have one major sign, and Rad's more vain than i thought. Did i get that right?" Carol said. That last statement peeved Rad a tiny bit.

"Wha- i'm not vain! I'm one of the humblest people to ever grace this Plaza!" the blue extraterrestrial then flexed his arms upward, moving in a matter where they seemed to be talking to him (this is something he's done on occasion). "Yeah, Radicles!" he said, pitching his voice higher to make it sound like it was coming from his "admirer". "You're the most down-to-earth guy i know!" He turned to his other arm, and changed up the pitch a little lower so the other arm could be given a more "distinct" voice. "I agree! You'd gladly give to the needy anytime! World hunger ain't got nothing on you!" Enid could only sigh at her co-worker's display of hypocrisy.

"We can figure out who is or who is not the better person later." Dendy told the group. "Right now, though it might not seem like it, K.O. needs our help! So please settle your differences and let's go!"

"Judging by the direction he's headed, i have a strong hunch about where he's going." Carol said as they started running after him.

And off they went, chasing after their runaway not-so-little buddy, which given his size would sound easy. Yet the day was barely even over and it already became chaotic- even for their standards- so they didn't know what to expect. However, the group was also determined to get to the bottom of what was going on: they obviously already knew how K.O. grew, but the mystery lied in how he was continuing to grow, and how to fix it before things got worse.

So, armed with nothing but one piece of evidence (which could be explained by a multitude of things), they followed K.O., practically praying all this would be over quickly.

Meanwhile, one particular witness to these events, a well-meaning but strange old man they call Crinkly Wrinkly, had something to say as he walked up to the spot near the Bodega the group were just settling in minutes ago.

"That was pretty weird! Well, time to go back to appearing in random places for no discernible reason…"