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Water drips onto the floor as KO swishes his mop around in the bucket, humming quietly to himself. "Hey, KO," Enid says, shifting her gaze over to him as she rings up another customer at the counter. "Don't forget the pile of lightning sauce on the floor by the lightning nacho dispenser. Mr. Gar might get mad if he sees there's been another spill this week."
"On it!" He drags the mop across the floor behind him as he approaches the spill, letting out a quiet hup as he plops the mop down over it and cleans it with ease. "Man, people sure do love being messy..."
"Eh, it doesn't surprise me." She gives a weak shrug. "One time, before you worked here, there was a giant pile that Rad had to clean," she says, snickering quietly at the hilarity of the memory. "It was super funny; the pile was so tall and heavy that he couldn't even use his finger beam and we had to call in someone else to clean it up."
"What?!" His mouth drops wide open in horror. "Who would do such a thing?!"
"People who think it's okay to throw their trash around in a store. Kinda sucks."
"That's mean!"
"I know it is, buddy. Unfortunately , people like that are always gonna exist. They're not gonna listen to you. Or anybody, for that matter. They're jerks."
"I guess so," he sighs. He picks up the mop off the floor and brings it back over to the bucket to clean it up. The conversation from moments before lingers in the back of his mind, and he suddenly shoots up at a horrid realization. "OH MY COB!"
Enid quickly jerks into alertness at the sudden yell. "KO?! What's wrong??"
"I forgot to take out the trash!!! Aahhhh, hold on! I'll be right back!!" He drops the mop onto the ground and darts into the breakroom, quickly, and almost frantically, picking up the bag from the trashcan and tying it up. "Phew," he says, wiping his forehead with one hand as he puts it over his shoulder with the other. "That was a close call. I better take you out back before I do anything else! Don't wanna leave my trash laying around, no siree!"
Giving a quick glance at the clock, he opens the door and slides out back into the store, giving a quick wave at Enid as he heads to the front. "Classic KO," she says to herself, returning the wave as he heads outside.
KO continues humming to himself as he heads to the dumpster out back, stepping up onto the conveniently-placed stool in front of it as he tosses the bag inside. "There we go!" He clasps his hands together as he turns around, ready to hop off, when a voice grabs his attention.
"Hey."
He perks up and looks in its direction. A person cautiously approaches him from the direction of the forest, shaking, and visibly nervous.
"Oh! Hello!"
"N... Not now!" There's a brief pause as they look around the area, breathing shakily. "Y... Your friends are.. uh... in danger! Somewhere...!"
"What? But I just saw them!"
The person's breathing picks up pace as they take a step back, glancing to both sides of themself as they continue. "Those were uuhhhh... clones!" They look down and swallow, before taking a deep, shaky breath. "Um... yeah! They're... clones."
"Huh? Clones?" He tilts his head in confusion, unsure of what exactly was going on. His friends were in danger? There were clones? What were they talking about?
"Y.. Yeah...! Your... um... your real friends got... um.. captured. By a bad guy. Uh... just now...!"
"What??" Okay, now he's really confused...
"Uhh... Yeah! When you, um... came out here.. they were.. kidnapped... and swapped with clones!"
He freezes, a few pieces being put together in his mind, but, unfortunately, not enough to figure out what exactly was going on. Slowly, he looks in the direction of the plaza. "B.. But... they don't act like clones..."
The person sucks in a sudden breath, and they look down at the ground. "Right...! That's what... they want you to think!" They look back up at KO as he tilts his head even more, listening, but still a bit confused. "They're... uh... very realistic!"
"B.. But... wh... where are my non-cloned friends...??"
"They're uhhh...." A brief pause follows before they continue with, "in... the forest! Yeah..."
"The forest...?" He looks in its direction, a subtle feeling of dread starting to wash over him. "Why???"
"The bad guy... took them there.. to... um... st.. steal their POW Cards! And.. u... um... hurt them..."
His expression twists from confusion and concern to one of pure, raw horror . What kind of monster would steal someone's POW Cards??? Fear fills every ounce of his being, and he lets out a horrified yell, bringing his hands up to the sides of his head and clenching a fistful of hair. "Oh no!!! What do we do???"
"I saw them earlier, but... I.. um.. I c.. couldn't do anything... cause the bad guy was there," they say, going quiet and nervously biting their lip. "B.. But they asked me to.. um... come find you! Because the bad guy.. uh.. trapped them in... uh... a box... where they... can't... use their powers..."
"A box?" Something in his head clicks, and he shoots up, finally putting the pieces together. "Boxman!"
"Uhhh... Yeah! B... Boxman..." They look to the side. Their tone sounds confused, but KO doesn't question it and instead takes it as them being unsure of who Boxman actually is .
"Why would he do something so mean??" He hops off the stool and brushes himself off, quickly pointing one finger in the air as he shouts, "don't you worry, guys! I'm commiiinnnnnngggggggggg!!!"
He puts his finger down and frantically rushes over to the person, determined to save his friends and their POW Cards. "So where do we go??"
The person stands there blankly for a moment, before seeming to process that he was talking to them. "Oh...! Uhh... they were.. um... this way!" They point to a random spot in the forest and nervously look around before heading in that direction. KO immediately follows behind them, giving a huffed glance back at the plaza as the two head into the forest.
KO isn't sure how long they've been walking, but the fact the sun is beginning to set gives him an uneasy feeling that maybe they were too late. What if his friends got out on their own? What if Boxman stole their cards and they were laying somewhere in the middle of the forest, alone, without anyone to help them get them back? The more they traveled, the more his mind wandered, and the more unsure he was about all of this. Maybe they took a wrong turn somewhere and got lost?
He looks around the forest. Trees tower over the two as far as the eye can see, stretching seemingly endlessly in every which direction. Vibrant oranges and pinks and faint purples stretch across the sky as the sun sets in the distance, its rays peeking through the small gaps between each of the trees. Stabby — that's their name — comes to a sudden stop in front of him, and he stops as well.
A moment of silence follows between the two, and he looks up at them. "Hey, uh, Mx. Stabby?" He sways from side to side, looking down at the ground nervously. "I'm not sure if they're here... Do you think we might've missed them?"
They don't respond, instead, staring at the ground below, their breathing heavy. KO gives them a concerned frown and steps towards them, gently poking their leg. "Mx.? Are you okay?"
They slowly turn their head to look at him, a shadow casting over their face as they teleport a knife into their hand. He doesn't have time to react, only managing a single horrified glance before they step forward and quickly plunge the knife into his chest, twist it, and yank it back out. A choked sob tears out of his throat as he clenches his chest, looking down at the wound with shaky, ragged breathing.
Stabby towers over him, bloody knife still in-hand, as he slowly looks up at them, expression hurt, horrified, and pained. "Wh—... Why did yo u . . . '' His throat goes dry and his voice breaks, the pain from the stab wound slowly starting to set in.
They don't respond, instead looking back and forth between him and the knife, breathing heavily. Adrenaline rushes through their body, and they quickly stab him a second time in a panic, and immediately go for a third. KO makes a strangled sound as he quickly grabs their hand in his own adrenaline rush, his other hand lighting up with a bright blue powerfist as he tries to punch them away.
The powerfist hits them, and they let out a yell as they teleport their hand out of his grasp and stab him in it, before teleporting to his other side not a moment later. Tears spill out of his eyes and stream down his cheeks as he clenches it in pain, wheezing out breaths and trying to process what was going on and defend himself at the same time.
Stabby inches closer and raises the knife above their head, their breathing ragged and heavy as they once again prepare to bring it down. KO frantically looks all around him through the tears clouding his vision, his ears ringing and his heart pounding and he couldn't f ind them cob where were th e y . . .
His mind blanks as a rush of pain surges through his side and he chokes on a sob, throwing a punch in the direction of where he assumed Stabby stood. They quickly step out of the way with a startled yelp and stab KO again, which causes him to stumble back and clutch his fist in pain. "St o p —" he gets cut off by yet another stab followed by another and another and a nother and they weren't stopping why weren't they stopping it hurts so much ple a s e —
Stab.
Stab.
Stab.
KO can't fight back as they continuously plunge the knife in and out, over and over into his chest without pause. He tries to punch them, push them to the ground, do literally anything he can to get them to stop , but with each attempt comes another wound that's followed by them teleporting out of his way.
Stab.
They keep going.
Stab.
It hurts so much...
Stab.
Why—
Darkness creeps into the edges of his blurred vision as he falls onto his stomach, wheezing out shallow breaths with what little air he can manage. Stabby takes a step back, their breathing erratic as they tighten the grip on the knife. They inch closer, towering over KO menacingly as he cries out for his friends— for his mom— for he l p—
A stab directly into his back cuts his pleas short, and he lets out a pained gasp alongside a choked whine. Everything hurts; it's like a million tiny needles pricking deep through his skin in every which direction; like his entire wound-covered body is being dumped into a giant bucket of salt. His vision grows blurrier with each and every passing second, and it becomes harder and harder for him to focus on the world around him as everything blurs into a single massive blob of light and color. He tries to crawl away, but he barely manages half a foot before he gets stabbed again.
"Ple a s e . . ."
His entire body grows tingly and numb as he continues to lay there, unmoving, body trembling, and tears streaming down his face as he whimpers and whines under his slowly weakening breaths. Vision growing darker at the corners and ringing beginning to fill his ears, he faceplants into the grass with a cough.
This is what dying feels like, doesn't it? He's going to die here, alone, scared, and hurt, and nobody's going to know what happened to him. They'll be looking for him, and they'll never, ever be able to find him, because he isn't going to be here anymore. He'll be in the big cornfield in the sky instead of down on earth with his friends and family, and they're going to be asking where he is every single day for the rest of their lives, all because he listened to and followed a stranger that told him his friends were in danger.
His breaths grow shallow. He continues laying down, faceplanted into the grass, as his thoughts begin to merge into an incoherent mess of incomprehensible words and images. Feelings of self-blame and worries about his friends and family all rush through him at once, and all he can mutter out is a weak, "I'm s o r r y . . ." as his life flashes before his eyes. Every memory he's ever had, every feeling he's ever felt, every text message, sleepover, fight, and hero mission… They all play at once with no regard for the concept of time; it feels like an instant, yet hours and minutes and years at the same time; like his life was being drawn out with every single tiny detail explained in a fifty-word school paper while simultaneously being skimmed over with little to no thought.
An odd sense of peacefulness washes over him as he reaches his final moments, and the ringing in his ears dies down into a faint fuzz as darkness completely overtakes his vision. All the struggle, fighting, and pain from just mere moments before becomes meaningless as he succumbs to the nothingness overtaking him, and he stops moving… thinking… feeling… breathing.
There's nothing.
Then, suddenly, there's weightlessness.