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When things go wrong
When ‘ya get upset
And life just won’t go your way
The mindscape trembles with each croon of his mother’s lullaby, each fraying pulse from the radio’s speakers hammering splintering shards into his skull.
—sing “why, why, why”
Of course, TKO groans as another wave of pain smashes into his brain, he just had to find my secret box.
The sandbox hadn’t been the most creative hiding spot, sure, but hey, he’d been working with what he had. The house had been strictly off limits—KO’s nosy self would’ve sniffed it out immediately with how much he liked to waltz through his home uninvited. And it wasn’t like there was anywhere better in the barren, never ending wasteland that was the mindscape, so the sandbox it was. He’d held onto the naive hope that while KO busied himself with harassing his every waking moment in the name of ‘friendship’, the innocuous little sandbox, and the secret buried within its white sands, would remain unnoticed.
But as that stupid song blasts in his ears, each beat in sync with the splitting headache that makes his vision sway dangerously and makes each step forward harder than the last, TKO curses himself for not just destroying the stupid tape recorder when he had the chance.
It’s gonna be alright
It’s gonna be alriiiight—
It plays over and over again in a never ending loop, steadily growing louder until it all but drowns out the chaos unfolding before him. The plaza parking lot is a flurry of movement, Lakewood denizens scrambling for cover, desperately trying to avoid the business end of his disempowerment ray.
Dark shadows stained on rough asphalt, still smoking, await them if they don’t.
At first, once the initial shock had worn off, KO’s little song had done nothing to deter his manic frenzy; if anything, the nuisance had only bolstered his advances, a mocking sneer plastered on gnashed teeth as that baby song fought to be heard in the cacophony of his onslaught.
But like a slow seeping poison, KO’s plan is actually working, and it is destroying him from the inside out.
More are getting away, he’s numbly aware as his vision cycles between burning clarity and distorted doubles, the persistent pounding in his head unrelenting. The tang of copper in his mouth, the sharp scent of ozone, the rancid stench of sulfur permeating from darkened shadows and that cob-awful headache—everything is beginning to overwhelm his senses. Everything is too loud, too strong, just too much…if not for the tooth-aching clench of his jaw, his nausea would be taking a much more physical form…namely in the form of half digested lightning nachos.
It’s only through sheer stubbornness that he’s able to stay on his feet, unsteady as he is, forcing himself to raise his shaking arm to fire the disempowerment ray again and again and again. It doesn’t matter that he is burning through the last of his reserves too quickly for his body to keep up, or that it feels as though molten fire is coursing through his veins, skin crawling as he fires up attack after attack. He grits through the pain even as his lightning begins to burn, arcing from his palms upward in searing, fractal patterns.
As far as final stands go, this is the finalest final he’s ever final’d, if he says so himself.
His time in the living world has been consistently short lived, with his longest stint up until the whole ‘you betrayed me after I betrayed you so I’ll betray you back’ situation being the first two days following his awakening. But the circumstances then are drastically different than now; while he’d also been careless with his power output back then, it had been done in isolated bursts of action with plenty of downtime in between.
Aside from taking names and kicking heenie, the brunt of that whole experience had been just him sleeping in a way too comfy bed with an obnoxious amount of pillows and stupidly soft blankets that he should’ve appreciated more and…okay, this is sounding way too much like a dying kid’s final regrets, no thank you.
The point is, he’s in more pain than he’s ever been in before, and he’s not sure that even if he makes it through today, no matter how it ends, if he’ll ever be able to recover even a fraction of his very vital reserves.
There is no tomorrow, TKO harshly reminds himself as he roughly wipes his nose, now bloody.
It’s gonna be alright
It’s gonna be alriiiight—
Within, he can feel KO’s vie for control become increasingly desperate with every grating line. If he wasn’t so busy trying to stay conscious, he would’ve laughed. The song, KO must finally be realizing in horror, isn’t having an immediate knockout effect on him. ‘If this is in TKO’s uber secret box, then it must be super important to him, so I can use it to defeat him!’—is probably what his good for nothing host thought before cranking the volume on blast in his brain. And while yes, he was painfully correct about the…ugh—feelings he holds toward that stupid little recorder, it wasn’t like he was going to keel over and surrender over some baby song, of all things. Who does KO think he is!
His arm, suddenly moving against his will, jerkily redirects a lethal blast harmlessly into the sky, where it shreds through the sunset sky with a deafening screech. The phantom pressure encapsulates the limb briefly, and TKO strains to stamp out the intruding presence with barbed contempt, only releasing a haggard breath of relief when he feels the pressure recede after a short back and forth.
It’s taking every ounce of his control to maintain his hold over the main body, slight flickers beginning to lapse into bodily glitches. He’s starting to fall apart at the seams, and it’s only a matter of time until KO is able to regain control and…and…
What happens then?
That ghostly pressure returns momentarily, and TKO has to think fast to avoid being hit by a (scarily strong) punch thrown by his own right fist.
Nothing good for me, that is.
Hah. TKO, losing himself to the absolute absurdity of the situation, stares at his fist as it trembles, smoke curling against bloodied, charred fingertips that burn. KO’s body is falling apart before his very eyes, and so is he, the weight of his wounds bearing down on him, carving him out. He feels detached, heavy and slow in a way that reminds him of his tar-like form, back when he was dumb and blind to the world.
A vessel.
The thought of going back to that shakes him to his core, shattering something within his very being. And it’s that momentary lapse that costs him; he gasps as his legs suddenly give out beneath him, causing him to crash bonelessly onto the pavement with a thud.
He’s winning, he acknowledges with a thudding heart, straining for enough control to right himself before his weakness is exploited.
But he stays on the pavement, helpless as the prickling sensation works its way from his legs up to his torso, his arms, and crawls up his face. His vision flickers, the dark mindscape bleeding into reality as KO begins to tear his mind, his consciousness, his soul out of the main body. Vertigo seizes him, blood gushing from his nose and his breathing quickening as hot smoke fills his mouth. He feels his eyes begin to roll back into his head, the beginnings of unconsciousness clawing at him.
When things go wrong
When ‘ya get upset
And life just won’t go your way
He knows what’s coming. He’s the bad guy here. He’s the problem that’s plagued KO since the beginning. He knows this is the end for him, but he’s not giving up so easily.
A ragged scream escapes his throat as he fights against KO’s influence, using his remaining willpower to wrench himself from the hero with the ferocity of a wild animal. He can sense his host’s surprise at the sudden viciousness in which he attacks the blue chains trying to drag him below the surface. More chains manifest, shooting out to stop his consciousness from completely re-surfacing. Trapped between the halfway point of awareness, he feels their cold bite as they wrap around his forearms, straining against his forward momentum, sharp flashes of his host’s anxiety, frustration, nervousness, determination bursting through his veins like a live wire.
And that, in turn, is what costs KO this moment of victory. Feverishly he grabs at those twisted emotions, relishing in their familiarity before willing them to encase the chains in barbed, electric forks of light. He pulls, once, then twice, feeling as KO desperately tries to close the link feeding his reserves, and grins at the white-cold fear that floods him right as the chains snap.
TKO lurches back onto the ground, gasping as his consciousness violently slots back into reality, his hands no longer puppetted as they tremble against his weight. Salty tears frame blown out pupils, intermixing with blood as they spill onto the pavement below.
That was way too close. The next time, he knows won’t be so lucky.
Every fiber of his being threatens to falter as he forces himself upright, his bowed head preventing him from seeing anything more than his unruly, curtained locks. Unseeing, he forces himself to trudge forward on lead-leaden legs, heaving at the sheer exertion. He’s back in the real world, but time moves slowly around him, muffled behind a wall of cotton honeyed in molasses.
And then, breaking through the shroud, a sharp, grating cry catches his attention.
Still entrapped, his head slowly turns towards the source, shifting until his sea of hair parts to reveal a single purple iris.
There.
Even in a haze of pained lucidity, his focus sharpens as it locks in on a very familiar set of characters.
Enid. Rad. Mr. Gar.
Mom.
Immediately, KO’s onslaught resumes, and he grabs at his head as that stupid, stupid song crescendos to a screech, melodic beats now unrecognizable distortions.
This would be it, you know. The moment where he turns back, looking into his mother’s eyes, and decides he has gone too far. That the pain is too much, too real and far beyond what he had ever wanted.
And it really, truly has.
But he doesn’t. And yet, he doesn’t laugh or sneer or give some half baked quip as he raises his hand, feeling the cool sensation of his power answer his call for the last time. He meets his mother’s gaze with quiet resolve.
If this is really it, then he’s taking everyone with him.
—