"One little nail. One nail changed everything. Kaio didn't win. So now I have to."
The Alternate TKO Series is a series of fanfics about TKO from OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes, but there's a twist. Kaio gave up his host status to his alter, so now TKO is in charge. It was created by Vampire_Tails
on Archive Of Our Own November 2020 and currently has eight works, seven completed, and is still going.
It can be read here.
The Alternate TKO Series provides examples of:
- Adaptational Heroism: Terbio, once TKO, the star of the series.
- Alternate Continuity: The series starts at the episode T.K.O. and diverges from there, starting from when Kaio locks himself in the cage when TKO was meant to take that spot.
- Anti-Hero: Terbio possibly counts as this. But he genuinely wants to be a good person and a good hero too.
- Foxtail is definitely this though.
- Arc Words: "Don't Do Anything I Wouldn't Do."
- Ax-Crazy: Unfortunately, in Lakewood's Dark Hours, Terbio unwillingly ends up like this. Thanks to Foxtail infusing him with a bunch of POINT brand glorbs, he basically becomes a force of destruction only tempered by Foxtail herself, and Elodie.
- Big Damn Heroes: Terbio pulls this near the end of And Terbio Was His Name, against a giant Darrel and a giant Shannon whom Enid and Rad couldn't take on on their own.
- Brainwashing for the Greater Good: Inverted. Foxtail does this to Terbio, for the greater good, but it comes at a price.
- Broken Pedestal: Terbio used to look up to Foxtail, Chip Damage and Laserblast. Unfortunately, they weren't what he thought they were.
- Calling the Old Man Out: Terbio does this twice to Venomous:In The Choice: Terbio continued to chuckle, before he frowned, hunched over, and growled, “What a lousy turn of events.” He pointed at Venomous. “You’re pathetic. Leaving mom instead of confronting her and showing her she wasn’t right. Deciding you were useless to the team without your powers. Greyman lost his, yet he still was a valuable asset.”In The Fatherly Pest: "You're six to eleven years too late, old man," the boy looked up at the man, a deadly expression on his face. Boxman could only watch worriedly. In fact, every villain on the yacht was watching. "You've made your choices already. Moved on even. Mom suffered without you for a while. She grieved for a death that never happened." Terbio approached a step, only for Venomous to back away a step. "She lost sleep. She raised Kaio and then me all by her lonesome." His deadly expression became even more deadly and his tone darkened. "And where were you, huh? swimmin' in boatloads of money, livin' the good, villainous life. A life I want no part of."
- Dark Is Not Evil: Despite being "made" of turbo energy and wearing a black shirt and overall dark clothing, Terbio's the good guy.
- Dead Person Impersonation: In "Pretend", Terbio decides to, well, pretend to be Kaio. Why? to make his family and friends happy again. It's more benign and shortlived than other examples though. It's also Deconstructed, as Terbio experiences great discomfort and unease pretending to be someone he's not.
- Do Not Call Me "Paul": In And Terbio Was His Name, Terbio corrects Rad and Enid when they call him TKO. He also corrects Professor Venomous, Billiam William, and a few others over the course of the series, like Foxtail in Lakewood's Dark Hours.
- Before this, in Alternate T.K.O., he also corrects people who call him KO, insisting that it's TKO.
- Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: The Experiment has Terbio tell Dendy that he doesn't care about her anymore. And Dendy, in the process of explaining that he does always care for his friends, realized that she hadn't cared for him and hadn't been the best of friends to him.
- Forgiven, but Not Forgotten: Downplayed and Justified in The Experiment. Near the end of that story, Terbio doesn't seem to harbor much angry resentment towards Dendy for pushing him. However, he doesn't trust her as much as he had before.
- Genius Bruiser: Terbio is both smart and strong, as narrated in The Experiment. In POINT To The Truth, he even scores equal in Strength and Wisdom while halving Charisma.
- Hates Their Parent: Terbio absolutely despises Professor Venomous, his father. Averted with Carol, his mom.
- Heroic BSoD: Terbio briefly undergoes this in The Experiment, complete with Broken Tears and Tears of Remorse, to the point of not going to class the next two days. Thankfully, he manages to decompress (thanks, Carol) and somewhat bounce back.
- Luke, I Am Your Father: Like Kaio finds out in the canon series, Terbio finds this out in The Choice from Professor Venomous. He doesn't take it well. See Unpleasant Parent Reveal.
- Meaningful Rename: In And Terbio Was His Name, TKO renames himself Terbio, as the name "TKO" had too many similarities to "Kaio/KO".
- Moment of Weakness: Terbio gets pushed so hard in Chapter Three of The Experiment that he explodes with rage and wrecks Dendy's lab. He regrets it. See My God, What Have I Done?.
- My God, What Have I Done?: When Terbio finally comes to his senses from his rage in The Experiment, he breaks down in broken and remorseful tears and runs off to his home.
- In turn, Dendy also experiences this when she finally realizes that she'd been treating Kaio and then Terbio like an experiment for her own ends.
- Sadistic Choice: Fortunately, it was only a simulation Dendy ran in The Experiment, but unfortunately Terbio doesn't take it well as she reveals then that he's only the test subject.
- Split-Personality Takeover: This series has a willing example, of Kaio giving up his host status to TKO.
- Unpleasant Parent Reveal: In The Choice, Professor Venomous reveals that he was Laserblast, aka Terbio's father. Terbio doesn't like this one bit and starts resenting him even more, now for leaving his mom and leading her to raise Kaio and then Terbio by herself.
- Unwitting Test Subject: A more benign version exists in The Experiment, but Terbio was still experimented on without his permission.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Terbio calls out Foxtail numerous times in Lakewood's Dark Hours. It doesn't do much.
- "You!" Exclamation: Less an exclamation and more an angry mutter, but this happens at one point in Lakewood's Dark Hours.
