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No one had worried when KO failed to return for an hour.
He frequently wandered, being the easily distracted child he was, and his co-workers were faithful in his ability to defend himself.
The second hour went by, and Enid began to worry, protective instincts kicking in as she glared almost spitefully at the clock.
“Where is he?” she murmured. “The little guy’s usually back by now.”
Rad gave her a lax, blank stare, seemingly unconcerned, but after years of putting up with the blue alien’s facade, the ninja could read the slight worry in his eyes.
“I’m sure he’s fine,” he shrugged. He went to prepare himself some nachos, absentmindedly watching the lightning sauce drip into the bowl. “Probably just off with Dendy or somethin’,”
With that, the ninja’s co-worker seemed to have cleared his mind, leaning against a shelf tiredly as he shoveled blue, cheesy nachos into his mouth. A couple of drops of the electric sauce plopped to the floor, and both bodega workers eyed each other nervously, gritting their teeth.
Rad was the first to speak, his voice mousy. “I-I’m not getting that.”
“But someone has to!”
“Hurry up and clean it before Mr. Gar gets back!” He gestured to the rest of the area, nearly hysterical over nothing. “He’s gonna flip if he sees this mess!”
The two glanced around the store, flinching as they noticed the immense piles of discarded paper, crumbs, and fallen goods. The broom that KO normally used was propped up, abandoned, against the far wall, in the exact spot where the boy had left it when he’d hurriedly ran off hours ago. Enid looked to rad, frowning as she thoughtfully scratched at her ponytail, adjusting the hairdo.
“You know… KO’s been gone for almost three hours now.”
It was amazing how dirty the store could get in that time; without KO to eagerly sweep each and every crumb up, the dirt piled quickly. With all the filth, the lack of KO was beginning to get to the workers, who nervously glanced around for him, checking the windows and entrances every few minutes for a sign of him.
“It’ll be fine, Enid,” Rad drawled, tapping nervously on the counter.
Even so, his nachos sat, forgotten, a few feet away, and his gaze was trained on the front door, his eyes hopeful.
Three and a half more hours went by without any sign of KO.
Unsettled, Enid drummed her fingers on the countertop, her head propped up on one arm as she carelessly rang up customers’ purchases. She was sure that she’d undercharged or overcharged at least a few people, but she couldn’t bring herself to care, her heart racing in anticipation for KO to rush through the doors, whimpering apologies. From across the store, Rad looked up from his task of restocking a shelf of fire gloves, his expression tense.
“You think it’s a TKO thing again?” he suggested, and Enid glanced at him just as the last customer left. “Those two have been getting closer and closer lately.”
“Nah… he usually doesn’t take that long, and we’d see some purple light flashes.” She unceremoniously tossed a change tip into a jar. “No sign of those.”
Both went silent, looking at the ground. It was nearly time for the store to close, and each agonizing minute sent chills down their spine and jolts through their hearts. The ninja and the alien barely looked up as the entrance doors slid open suddenly, frantic footsteps sounding.
“Enid? Rad? You there?”
The two perked up at the sound of KO’s mother, hopeful.
“Carol?” Enid turned quickly, hoping to see KO cradled in his mom’s arms, sleeping.
Much to her horror, there was no KO to be seen, and the former superhero looked even more frazzled than them. She rushed up to them quickly, and the short frame of a familiar kappa became visible when she moved, following briskly with short, purposeful steps.
“Please tell me you’ve seen Peanut.” It almost hurt to hear Carol using the endearing nickname in such panic, yet all Enid and Rad could do in response was shake their heads in bleary response, fear filling them.
“I can’t find him anywhere,” Carol breathed.
True panic overtook her as she paced around, muttering to herself.
“Do you think TKO did something?” Rad supplied, only to be dismissed by a quick mumble of, “No, they’re on good terms now, last I checked,” by the worried mother.
Dendy approached, raising a finger. Knowing well of the kappa’s abilities, everyone silenced, looking at her expectantly.
“Perhaps I can be of assistance,” she offered, and Carol whirled on her heels, grabbing the kappa girl by the shoulders with a desperate expression painting her features.
“What can you do, Dendy?”
The kappa wriggled from the mother’s grasp, then pressed a button on her Hackpack. Everyone watched, entranced, before a high-pitched hum began to sound throughout the bodega. After a moment, a light blue screen appeared from thin air, the techy kappa’s fingers hovering lightly over the holographic keys.
“Alright…” She tapped some unknown commands into the screen, smiling warily. “That should do it.”
After a tap of a key, a semi-detailed topographic map of the area appeared, extra details drawn in for preciseness. A blinking light was displayed somewhere near the back lot of the bodega, which everyone assumed to be KO.
“Is that him?” Rad whispered.
Dendy hummed in thought, clicking the dot and causing a stream of code and quickly moving information to appear. It was too fast for the others to analyze, yet the kappa’s trained eyes widened behind her goggles, worry forming in the back of her mind.
“Perhaps… I will look for him myself.”
The back lot wasn’t particularly unsettling, at least on a normal day.
Dendy had been there many times before, not to mention when she was with KO, but the idea of him being missing here was an all new factor, a variable that had previously been unknown to the kappa. As she maneuvered around broken robot parts, the girl tried to ignore the feeling of being watched, the primal, childhood fear of being alone in the dark resurfacing. Her jumpsuit snagged on a metal hook of some sort, and she jumped, yelping slightly. She turned quickly, calming slightly as she noticed what her ‘captor’ was, smiling.
“Oh.” A nervous grin made its way onto her features, her goggles shining in the moonlight. “It was just a robotic claw.”
She held back the sinking feeling as she continued on her path, eventually reaching the back of the lot, eying the wire fence for any holes or imperfections. An optic icon floated away from her goggles as she inspected the fence, interested. No large creature could have wiggled through the spaces, yet she supposed that something that big could just climb of jump over the fence, taking KO with it.
“Where are you, KO?” she mumbled.
Dendy sighed, turning back around to research the rest of the lot, this time making a note to look under the metal frames for any clues. Much to her perplexment, she found nothing but a few scraps of brown fur, nothing significant to indicate KO’s appearance in the area. Nonetheless, the blip on her radar continued to blink steadily, practically directly over the area where she was currently searching. Eventually, she resorted to walking around aimlessly, holding the scanning screen over several robot corpses for good measure.
Beep… beep… beep-beep-beEP-BEEP!!
Out of nowhere, the radar went spastic, the light going solid to indicate that the kappa was almost as close as she could comfortably get to her target.
“Huh?” She glanced around in search of KO. “That’s odd… no KO to be found.”
As the shrill beeping continued, eventually Dendy began to hear a second, less precise interval of whining, which echoed from within a hollowed out piece of a Big Darrel. Frowning, the kappa girl fell to her knees and shoved the carcass out of the way, squinting. In the dim light of the full moon, she could make out the shape of something medium-sized and fluffy, which shuddered within the confines of its dark shelter, whimpering. Carefully, Dendy reached inside the frame, heart quickening. The furry shape was heavier than it looked, but Dendy managed, gently lifting a strangely familiar creature from the robot’s innards.
“A dog?” she muttered, confused. “But where’s-”
She nearly placed the animal back in its shelter, before the radar on her screens went completely insane, its pitch rising as it went from beeps to a solid, squeaky whir. Shocked awake, the puppy practically rolled out of her arms, his brown eyes widening as a yelp left him. Wanting to allow the startled dog some space, the kappa backed up in fear of the animal becoming aggressive, yet he merely groaned, (surprisingly humanly?!) struggling to right himself. Much to Dendy’s surprise, the dog didn’t stand back on four legs, his soft fur shining slightly in the moonlight as he stood upright, rubbing his eyes. Realization hit Dendy; this was a weredog, a weredog whose sleep had just been rudely disturbed.
“Oh.... I apologize,” she found herself muttering. “I thought you were a regular dog. I’m sorry.”
Despite her knowledge of most who frequented the plaza, Dendy couldn’t recognize the humanoid animal before her, her mind racing. He would have had to have been here often to feel safe sleeping so soundly in the midst of so many robot corpses, yet he wasn’t familiar to the kappa, at least in the sense of other wereanimals. The unfamiliar (yet familiar in a different way) werepup waved off her apology, smiling slightly.
“No…” he paused to yawn. “Problem.”
He sounded young (6-11?), and Dendy found herself analyzing his somewhat familiar features, looking past the fur and canine features. He was wearing an agonizingly familiar blue vest, a theme of heroic red carried by the slightly torn wristbands and the headband that tamed a tower of messy hair.
“Do I know you?” the kappa girl found herself blurting out, and the weredog turned to look at her for the first time, an eyebrow raised.
He looked upon her features a few times, almost incredulously, a nervous grin overtaking his previously neutral expression.
“What do you mean, Dendy? Of course…” He trailed off, almost visibly jolting as his eyes widened, the techy kappa’s eyes widening with his. “You didn’t know about this, huh?” There was a waver in his voice.
The kappa found the will to speak, her voice breathy with disbelief.
“KO?!”
“Surprise?”