Chapter Text
Things had started simply enough.
Their mother had left them home alone, and had trusted them to be good and take care of themselves for a couple hours.
KO had trusted TKO, and had let him take control of their body while their mother was out of the house. He'd been on good terms with his turbonic side as of late, and was curious as to what TKO would do if he had the chance.
The answer was unfortunate.
Ultimately, TKO couldn't control himself. He couldn't stand following any rules but his own, and when confronted with the rules their mother had set, something had snapped. He systematically broke every rule he could, because he could. And because he couldn't stop. The chaos was fun, and he had reveled in it, but on some level, he knew he shouldn't have.
He really shouldn't have.
When KO saw what TKO had been doing, he panicked immediately. Stopped his counterpart, who had somehow stolen a jackhammer from a nearby construction crew and was using it to wreck everything he could. Lectured him on why those rules were important. Then left the mindscape to attend to some real-world problems.
KO was trying to clean up the mess TKO had left everywhere. All that vandalism definitely needed to be undone. And fast.
What would their mother say if she saw all this? KO wasn't keen on finding out.
And ultimately, the mess was his fault. Letting TKO be in control for the day was his choice. KO's hands were the ones that had drawn on the walls and wrecked everything, regardless of who was using them at the time. He had allowed this to happen.
And he was going to fix it.
He couldn't fix everything, but was going to do what he could. Starting with finding a mop. TKO had left a mess of the floor, just like absolutely every other surface and oh hey did it actually say 'gullible' on the ceiling? Of course. Of course it did, just like in that one joke but real this time. It was almost funny, but really, nothing about this was able to be truly funny.
His mother had trusted him. Maybe she shouldn't have.
He had trusted TKO. He probably shouldn't have.
KO frantically searched the entire house top to bottom several times. He swore he had seen a mop in that one spot in the hall recently but he wasn't finding it. He had to find it soon. Cleaning everything up looked like it would take a while and he didn't have much time.
The mop was in that one spot in the hall he had already checked repeatedly. Of course.
Carol arrived home to discover that said home was completely spotless, and her son was cleaning the dining table with an old rag.
“Well, well... can't believe you'd clean even more on your time off, kiddo!”
He tuned towards her, and she saw that he had tears streaming down his face. “Mommy... I ate... every cookie...” he said, sniffling.
That was definitely not what she'd been expecting. “What?!” She shouted, running over to him.
“I-I thought that if I cleaned everything, I could make up for breaking your rule,” he paused, sniffing loudly. He'd never looked more guilty in his life. “But the truth is... I just wish I could have a second cookie sometimes. 'Cause you know, I'm getting older, and I'm going on all these missions now and stuff and...” he sighed. “I don't know...”
As shocked as she was by his confession (especially given that he usually followed every instruction he was given almost religiously), she was far less concerned about the cookies than she was about just how terrible he obviously felt.
“KO... y'know, if I'm being honest... out of all my rules, that one's completely arbitrary!”
The boy looked shocked. Inside his mind, KO heard a frustrated shout of “ugh, I told you!” which he pointedly ignored.
“Thank you for being honest with me, KO. Next time, if you want more...” she pulled a cookie out of her hair, “just ask!”
She handed him the cookie, to his obvious delight. He stared at the treat in his hands for several seconds, joy slowly fading into a blank look, as though he was losing track of what he was looking at.
Eventually, she walked away; he barely noticed when she left.
He was relieved that he wasn't in trouble, but someone else certainly was. Although TKO had been right that they had the right to eat more than one cookie, the other rules TKO had broken had been very important.
A clean house and a cookie weren't enough to fix this, regardless of whether his mom was angry about the part he'd admitted to or not. As soon as he was alone again, KO sat down on the floor and returned to the mindscape.
Carol wasn't angry, but she was shocked and concerned. KO wasn't one to break rules. Plus, when she came home he'd been completely miserable.
She couldn't help but wonder if there was more going on than just a desire for cookies. Especially since she had passed several potholes on the way home which hadn't been there when she'd left; something had clearly happened besides KO eating the cookies and cleaning the house, but it was unclear whether he'd been involved in whatever incident caused that destruction. Maybe there had been a fight? Those certainly weren't unusual.
Whether there was more to it or not, Carol couldn't stop thinking about how miserable he'd looked mere moments ago. She really, really wanted to give her boy a hug.
She turned around. KO appeared to be meditating on the floor, eyes closed and face serene.
Confused, she walked towards him. “Hey, you okay?”
Silence.
“Anyone home?” she asked, waving a hand in front of her son's face. Although he couldn't see it since his eyes were still shut, he could still tell when things moved in his vicinity. In theory.
He didn't respond, or even seem to notice. So much for that hug, then.
She sighed, shrugged, and walked away. Behind her, his face tensed as though he had just thought of something terrible.
"Welcome home, TKO." KO told his counterpart coldly.
The words rang in TKO's ears. He couldn't breathe. He was frozen in place, like in one of those nightmares where something horrible happens while you're inexplicably helpless. It felt like a nightmare. It should have been a nightmare.
He watched in stunned horror as a cookie was tossed in his direction. Identical to the ones he's eaten which helped get him into this mess. He felt slightly ill, and not just because he'd had too many.
He continued to stare as the elevator's doors slowly closed. Inevitably, it ascended without him, his counterpart abandoning him in their shared subconscious.
TKO was alone. And it looked like he might stay that way for a very long time; there was no real way of knowing, but he was suspicious. Suspicious... and shocked that his supposedly nice counterpart had actually gone through with this. Even with how much trouble they had getting along at times, this was too much.
More than everything else though, he was angry. He'd been so close to freedom, only for it to be ripped away again. Possibly permanently. He screamed at the darkness above in frustration.
He wasn't sure what, exactly, was the worst part of it all: his situation, the betrayal, or the fact that he'd more-or-less brought it on himself. He'd known that what he was doing was wrong, but he couldn't stop. He had, before that incident, been legitimately trying to be better... and in the end, he failed spectacularly. He was indeed out of control and not to be trusted - that had been the proof, and these were the consequences. He couldn't even trust himself. He wasn't sure why he was like this.
Regardless of why he had done it, the truth remained that he had, and was now trapped. And it was his fault. All because he couldn't control himself.
All he wanted was an ounce of control. He didn't have enough, and now, he had none at all.
KO wasn't sure he'd done the right thing.
On the one hand, TKO had broken his promise! He'd been doing bad things again! ...But on the other...
On the other... trapping him alone somewhere sounded like something a villain would do.
But protecting people sounded like something a hero would do. And that was what KO was trying to do.
It was impossible to tell how much time had passed. Minutes? Hours? Being completely cut off from the outside world was as disorienting as it was boring.
After the initial shock had worn off, TKO had begun to try and find a way out of his predicament. He wasn't sure if he expected to find one.
He ventured through the darkness in a random direction, with a scowl on his face and absolutely no idea what he was looking for. He assumed that if he found anything, it would be obvious, given that he was currently surrounded by... nothing. There was nothing besides the floor tiles, some odd floating scribbles in various colors, the cookie in his hand, and himself.
He hated this. So much.
He was sick of being trapped inside KO's head. This was even worse than the cage; moving around freely didn't mean much when he wasn't exactly "free". And at least when he had been in the cage, he could watch what his counterpart was doing. He could see the outside world then. But now there was no KO Vision, just emptiness.
He walked through said emptiness for what seemed like hours, or perhaps days, and found nothing.
With nothing else to do, he grit his teeth and reeled back a fist, then threw a punch that connected with nothing, releasing a purple energy blast towards the ground in front of himself.
The energy left a few unsatisfying scorch marks. That could hardly be considered progress.
He growled in frustration.