Warm light flickers, then bursts into a bright orange glow. The room animates to this sudden change, shadows stretching, painting abstract shapes on the walls, the floor. Briefly, it mesmerizes Battat to see so much life fill in what has since become a rather dormant space. Light dances on the floor, such sporadic footwork that speaks of an occupant that is simply happy to be alive for this fleeting moment; wavering and twirling, tapping feet to imagined beats—or maybe even tapping impatiently, waiting for someone to come and join the fun already. It's only when those shiny yellow shoes stop reflecting off the tile and the world is black once more that Battat realizes that he has again wasted another match. He sighs, flicking the burnt stick away, and listens to it distantly tap a few times before it loses momentum. Not a new record by a long shot, could have probably flicked it further if he didn't have gloves on...

A fabric wall meets the back of Battat's head upon his body slackening, exasperation weighing shoulders down, weakening his back as effort feels all the more pointless, his sight swallowed by this perpetual stagnation; shapeless, unfeeling and cold. Keeping his eyes drawn up, he paws for his matchbook, determined to not let himself get lost to unrealities that can't even conjure the telltale squeaks of rubber on tile—of heels clicking in brisk successions to an energetic stride, chants of they're home, they're home! Set the stage, hurry! acting as the chorus for that once regularly scheduled song and dance. It takes only a single swipe this time to light the next match, and with it silhouettes onto the ceiling two bobbles peeking over the shadow of the couch he sits against. His chest squeezes, and he quickly tears his gaze away, putting all focus into cupping the flame close this time.

It's those little pangs that keep making him come back, though. A swell that suffocated him and left him coughing and dry heaving on his hands and knees the first time he did. Panting, tears burning his eyes and memories coating his tongue, Battat told himself that would be the only time—a quick in and out visit... a mere commemoration—but the bitter aftertaste stuck through the rest of the day, never leaving his mind. Before he knew it, once became twice. Then three times, then more and more, until he was having to pointedly ignore Ramb's cocked brow in his pass. He craves it constantly now, those dull spikes that teeter a fine line between fondness and grief, make him suck in a long, sharp breath through heart palpitations pulsating a pleasurable sort of anxiety under his skin.

He tosses the spent match away to then grip the fabric of his slacks, and shutters through the drowning stages of the rising flood in his lungs; letting it fester until it tingles like static on his throat, his tongue, his lips, and takes him back. Familiar scents and tastes wring surging emotions out, making his exhale shaky. A cloud leaves his mouth in a small stream that fattens briefly to the rhythm of his stuttered breath, trickling up passed the limp antennae above him, and disappearing into the abyssal ceiling. He shifts in his spot so he's slumped in a more relaxed position, propping an elbow on the mask set beside him, and resting his opposite hand on the knee he drew up. From there smoke continues to trickle up from the cigarette between his fingers, barely visible, as he watches it drift away through the all the ranging sensations swimming in his head, and he idly licks his lips.

Of course, sitting here in the dark and putting himself through some sort of euphoric torment isn't the only thing Battat does in here.

"Hey, Boss."

He also talks.

"Not much happenin' around TV World..."

About nothing. For nothing.

"...If it can still be called that." His brows furrow. "I guess it can. Studio's still here, you're still here. For some reason." The last part is muttered against his hand as he takes another drag, and he lets it seep in again before sighing it out. "No new clues on what this is all about. Shuttah hasn't seen anything out of the ordinary."

According to Shuttah, nothing has changed. On weekdays, Toriel and Kris eat breakfast and then go to school, are gone the majority of the day, then when they come home, Kris beelines to their room, and Toriel reads a book, or goes through school papers until dinner. Weekends are hardly different too—the house remains as quiet and uneventful as it began to be that day Asriel never came home, and no matter how much Battat pries, Shuttah insists nothing seemed awry the night Kris unplugged Tenna. Nobody was with them, Toriel didn't tell them to do it, Kris just casually entered the living room in the middle of the night while on their phone, pulled the plug, made themself a glass of chocolate milk, then retreated back to their room—and Battat can't begin to wrap his head around why if they didn't even plan on getting rid of him.

It makes as little sense as Mike's presence—or noticeable lack thereof since Tenna's shutdown, that is, and if Battat were a little more insane, he'd be making two and two equal five with this equation. Thankfully, he's not Jongler-logic levels of desperate for answers just yet, no matter how bored he's getting running around a dark labyrinth devoid of those anomalies that sparked such rabid curiosity out of him all those years ago. Kris and Mike? In cahoots? How would Kris even know Mike? Maybe Kris is Mike. Maybe—

"Everyone's handling the blackout the best they can," he continues before his brain starts spiraling into wacky crackpot theories, "the shadowguys are livening the stage up with music shows, while the pippins have become less discreet about their—ah—habits." Wincing, he forces out a chuckle. "You'd absolutely hate what they've done to the Green Room."

The Green Room is a mess, to put bluntly. Furniture has been rearranged to form sloppy circles for the pippins' games, and if Ramb relied on money, his business would be booming, if the absolute mess of bottles and ashtrays scattered about are any indication. Battat thought he would be seeing Chance as the ringleader of this chaos, this is hardly any different from the atmosphere of the old Yahtzee club, but oddly enough, he hasn't seen any sign of Chance since that night with Tenna. He dreaded the idea that they possibly left the studio to dare to brave those desolate wastelands—some did, and neither he nor the Weather Duo could stop them, unfortunately—but stumbling upon Que and Pop on the way to one of his trips to Tenna gave him more insight.

"He's avoiding you." Que had told him, rather bluntly even. More straight-faced than Battat had ever seen them before as they sat next to Pop at the bar. Their legs dangled limp from their seat, like even they couldn't work the strength it takes to kick up some whimsy under the weight of this worldwide confusion and uncertainty. Those blue eyes settled down to his bow tie, blinked rapidly, and then darted back up to meet his again as pink dusted their cheeks and they hastily added, "H-he's avoiding almost everyone, actually. Only talks to me 'n Pop, but even then, he hardly says much. Just been real jumpy since—um—that thing between you two and Mr. Tenna happened." Whether intentional or not, their gaze ended up falling back down to his tie while they idly fiddled with their own, the color on their cheeks gradually darkening. "When Miss Toriel vacuumed the other day, he downright lost his mind—"

Pop chose that moment to chime in, a mischievous leer glinting in its eyes as it leaned to Que and attempted to pop some of its input, only for Que to drown out whatever it was trying to say; shouting with their head held high, a nervous grin, and not a lick of white to be found on their cubic head anymore, "BATTY DOESN'T NEED TA KNOW THAT PART, POP!"

Battat shakes his head, not wanting to dwell too much on what entails from what he could pick up from Pop's vernacular. He flicks ashes off to the side, it's too dark to care about aiming for an ash tray—Battat huffs at that thought, he really hasn't been behaving any better than his fellow pippins. "I've seen some mizzles floating about, they like to tease the zappers. It really is a different level of chaos without you here, Elnina and Lanino don't seem to know how to say 'no.' I think they prefer following over leading, for the most part... I caught them crying rivers for you last night. They miss you.

"...And they're not the only ones." The tip of his cigarette glows red one last time, and then he snuffs it out on the tile, promptly ignoring the other discarded butts his knuckles brush; he'll clean that... when it feels worth it to.

He puts his mask back on, despite the lack of necessity. These nightly visits are so ingrained into his system, coming into this room without his costume makes him feel naked. Standing, brushing himself off and hoping he's not covered in ash again, Battat rounds the corner. His fingers trail behind him against the couch in his feigned blind feel-through to his destination, dropping down after the second bump into an antenna. Up close, he can barely make out Tenna lying on the couch—on his back, hands rested on his stomach—looking like he's merely taking a nap. Not many dignified places to put an essentially comatose, giant darkner around here—Battat had to call in Pluey, Jongler, and a couple extra zappers for help that night when Tenna finally slumped over and didn't get back up; it would have felt wrong to just leave him like that. No amount of careful positioning can lift the feeling like he's standing at a casket, though.

Static crackles against his sleeve as he continues the routine, swiping a fresh layer of dust off the black screen. Still handsome as ever, even obscured in the dark he stands out, big and imposing and dead to the world, he just has to go and keep being the prettiest damn thing in the room. Through his glove, Battat can feel a faint thrum when he slides his hand along the cold, plastic casing—the only sign that there's still something buzzing around inside, and he can't help but wonder about Tenna's level of awareness in this state. If he can feel Battat's fingers bump against each little button on the side of his head, until he reaches that power button. He wonders if its empty click is louder on the inside than the outside, and if the inner turmoil matches Battat's disappointed sigh, harsh through a smoke-dried throat.

Battat isn't sure which potential outcome is harder to take in, that Tenna will eventually be gone when Toriel finally decides to be rid of him, or that he's going to be sitting here forever. He had expected Tenna to disappear immediately. He expected the studio to crumble, or pop out of existence, and they would all have to make do at the cliffs, or even the Cold Place (albeit his igloo-making skills are probably rusty at this point). It would have been like ripping off a bandaid: excruciating, but quick at least, to be forced to move on. Everything remains as-is, however, to the point where it's as if time itself has stopped. Dust sits in the air like the still frame of a snowy scene. His habitual trip to the stage the morning after the unplugging welcomed him with hollow footsteps on hardwood, having no energetic show host to stamp down the blaring reverberous void with his overcompensation; no more acts to pretend there's been anything here worth shouting to, no more masking fabricated productivity over desperate pleas for scraps.

"I gotta stop comin' here..." he rasps under his breath, and makes no move to leave, only holding tighter to the bottom corners of Tenna's frame. The CRT head rests heavy in his hands now, unconsciously maneuvered in his wallowing to tilt and face him fully, so Battat can stare directly into that black hole of a screen, darker than his surroundings could ever dream to be. He may be a darkner, but light has always been prominent in his life. In Holiday Haven, the sky twinkled warmly, playing as a cursive weight for the eyes; a faint moody glow that draped over the world so serene and unassuming in it presence. In TV World, light painted thickly over every inch of every surface, layer on top of layer. Bright and noisy—searing, unavoidable, dense, painful to look at for too long, in-your-face, whiny, needy, lonely, sickeningly cute, and smiled back—its absence left him with spots in his vision to ensure he can never go a moment again without thinking back.

"Last time," said for the nth time, and like all the other times, he's serious. "This'll be the last time. So... I should probably stop holding back, and tell ya now." His hold wavers, the weight of Tenna's head bearing its load down on one hand now as the other slides along the bottom of the frame until he reaches its middle, where he cups those angles, so his thumb can gently press under where Tenna's mouth would have been.

"That pippins got your message, he has one for you, too." Leaning in, he chuckles, breathy, "If you don't mind the method of deliverance bein' like last time, that is."

Though it's not as if Tenna can argue. That string of preachy objections is there to try to strangle his conscience into submission with that knowledge (something, something, floodgates and temptations), but he's in too deep to give much of a damn. He's so close that he's getting vertigo looking so deeply into that glass cavern—he's so close that the familiar ambient hum of fluorescent lights just barely tickles the back of his mind enough to make him pull away to look up.

And even then, dumbly staring directly into the lit bulbs above beaming brighter than anything he's seen in weeks, Battat can't fucking believe it.

Next to him, stiff plastic creaks, loud and croaky like a dry throat in the morning. Its abruptness makes Battat gasp and jump away, his back hitting the corner of the coffee table, but the pain hardly registers when he's too busy gaping at Tenna's lolled head stirring. With his screen off, his movements are practically zombie-like, using clumsy limbs to hoist himself up—Battat instinctively backs further away from the hulking form, Tenna's sluggish maneuvering unstable and spiking anxiety in the smaller man, he'd call for someone to come and help if he wasn't so damn dumbstruck right now. Tenna's shoulders slouch low, and his head bows lower once he's fully sat up, and after that, absolutely nothing happens.

It had to have been a near minute, maybe two, of Battat gawking, mouth opening to say something, anything, only to click shut when words kept failing him, before confusion slowly replaced his shock as Tenna continues to just sit there. Warily, he tries once more, and finally manages to utter out a very small, "...Ten—?"

"Okay."

Immediately, Battat shuts up, sucking in a sharp breath. Just that single utterance—tentative and wispy through the filters of his speakers as it was—is enough to feel a bombardment of several different waves of something wash over him; hots and colds varying in degree, a muddled mess where his reaction should feel more cut and dry. Relief instead, is stamped down by his cursed attention to detail, the room's eerie stillness keeping him on edge and choking him with dread the longer Tenna's pause goes on.

"Okay."

Again the meek word pitters out, yet it's like a whipcrack in Battat's ears, and he can't help but flinch. It continues a few more times, a pattern of loaded silence followed by single-word affirmations, Tenna's stance never veering from its—... Battat can't find any word to describe the position other than submissive. His body is scrunched and hands are limply rested at either of his sides, clenching slightly over the edge of the cushion he sits on every time he speaks, it's the only movement Battat has been able to spot from the man. At least until his head tilts to the smallest degree and he says, "...Do you promise?"

If alarm bells weren't ringing in Battat's head before, they definitely are now. The wrongness in the air is too overbearing to indulge in anymore of this morbid fascination, he has to snap Tenna out of—whatever this is. Swallowing, taking a step closer and reaching a hand out in hopes that doesn't startle the man, he gently urges, "Hey..."

At first, Battat thinks he might have gotten through to him when Tenna's screen suddenly turns on—his face popping into view, bright as he remembers it being—but there's a catatonic energy to his neutral expression, and it becomes all the more clear when the next thing he says comes out mumbled and flat and not even acknowledging Battat's presence.

"Okay, Kris, I can do that."

He stands, then—fluidly, like he wasn't struggling to so much as straighten his back just now—and starts brushing the dust off his clothes all casual-like while stepping out to the center of the room. There, with his back to Battat, he puts his hands on his hips and scopes his peripheral out, before letting out a deep sigh and calling out, "Mike...!"

"Yes, Boss." It comes to him so naturally, as if that gap of nothingness never happened and he's here on the dot to do their usual routine.

Tenna, however, keeps his back to him, and even seems to sort of wince to his voice; shoulders twitching and hands flexing on his hips. Fingers thrum over the fabric of his dusty suit, his foot taps a few times, and then he's cupping his hands around his mouth and calling again, "Mike!"

"I'm—I'm right here, sir!" Battat weaves around the coffee table, closer to Tenna, and pats insistently at himself. Tenna does another one of those weird reactions, and he still doesn't turn to face him right away. It's another small stretch of silence—Battat waiting with bated breath, completely lost as to what the hell is going on here—until Tenna's head turns, his screen peaking over his shoulder, down at him.

"Oh~! Mike~!" Mr. (Ant) 'Tonal Whiplash' Tenna whirls around and bounds down to his level, hands clasped together, and loudly singing his glee into Battat's face. His head tilts up and down, giving him a once over, and his smile pinches. "You look—ah..." Standing to full height again, he says warily, "A bit of a mess."

Battat looks down at his suit to find it to be more ash gray than sleek black. Smudges riddle the fabric, his bow is lopsided, there's a tiny hole burnt through his pant leg, and his shoes (god no, his shoes) are scuffed to shit. Self-consciously, he peers back to the spot he'd been claiming as his therapy lounge. The mess of cigarette butts, ash footprints, and a few empty cider bottles from the more solemn moments now show their ugliness with gusto on that shiny tile. Shame heats his cheeks, drops to his chest, as he tears his gaze away and clears his throat; its hoarseness becoming all the more apparent to him. "It's... been rough. Without you."

Something shifts in Tenna's expression, lightning fast, but Battat doesn't miss the pitied look—how his hand almost goes up to his mouth in that way it does when he would talk about how lonely Toriel looked some days. It's cut off from an abrupt head shake, Tenna back to beaming a little too brightly to feel normal.

"Well fear not, Mike! Doctor Tennaville is back to cure your ailing heart!" He squats down, whispering close, "(I missed you too~♡)" Pulling away, Tenna's smile feels just a bit warmer, or maybe that's Battat's body heating up more with embarrassment, who knows. "We can't waste any time! A day! I have less than a day to get everything ready!"

He cocks a brow. "Ready for wh—"

Tenna continues to do what he does best and cuts Battat off for the umpteenth time in the history that they've known each other, raising his hands up high in the air and proudly proclaiming to the ceiling, "Our SPECIAL GUEST! Yes!! We're about to air the show of a lifetime, Mike! Come!" Battat isn't given a moment to breathe, to take in any of what's going on, when Tenna is scooping him up and beelining for the exit, stride fast and showing no signs of calming the hype down. "We have contract renewals to print! Thingymabobs to set up! Scripts to write! A game to plan! I'll need all hands on deck for tomorrow night!"

"Ah, B-Boss, wait!" Feet having no leverage, they kick the air as he clings to Tenna's hooked arm for dear life, panic setting in when memory strikes him the moment Tenna opens his door, but they're already halfway down the hall when Battat manages to split focus and stop sputtering. "I don't think you wanna go in there right—"

"What the fuck did you little freaks do TO MY GREEN ROOM?!"

---

Can't stop.

Forward only. One foot in front of the other, quick and purposeful. Forward only. No time to mingle or fool around, no room for mistakes. For every halt in his course there's a leash yanking him insistently, warning as it tightens around his neck, that this is not the time to choke. For every step taken backwards, his back grows colder, and the tip of that blade glides along it, lightly but eagerly spelling out his doom. He can go forward only.

There will be no more do-overs after this.

Tenna had felt it, even before he gained a pulse again. In the howling emptiness, something trickled at the edges of his awareness, then layered over it, a viscous darkness that somehow surpassed his disconnect from reality. Thickly it covered him, until he thought he'd be submerged into another realm of nonexistence, but he was sparked alight just in time, his screen no longer obscured in total black, to see the living room.

And Kris—pale and weak in their stance, but unmistakably his Kris—was his shining beacon, as nothing encircled his peripheral, slid its chilled, hollow hand up the side of his frame to rest atop his head, and idly tapped familiar beats that made lyrics dance distantly in his head. Ones that he knows by heart, except where those words brought him company in the dark—kept him placid with its soothing nomenclature, strummed like a lullaby—here it scratched against his casing, imposed on his psyche to be, not a blanket to shield him, but a knife to his throat; threatening to swallow him back up into the void—and Tenna, did not want to be nothing.

Beyond its faint harrowed hissing slowly carving a hole into his core was Kris's mumbled voice, grounding him, and he listened; let it fill him back up to wholeness so no thoughts but those of them could invade his senses. From their red eyes, piercing through his screen into his very being—to their apple scent, shrouded in warm butterscotch and cinnamon. Together, they lit the weightless shadows closing in at the corners of his vision, and muted a bitter smell akin to charred gingerbread—and never before did Tenna feel so loved, and so, so scared.

He won't disappoint them.

"Oh," his voice cracks like glass, lodging shards too painful to swallow down, as he pulls a small baggie out of one of the few large storage chests tucked away with the Christmas tree, "Azzy's first winter coat."

Filled to the brim with white, the bag is plush to squeeze. No better feeling than baby goat fuzz—or so he's heard, Tenna never dared to open it himself. Too precious for his clumsy hands, but too reminiscent of halcyon days to just put it back, so it goes with the rest of the trinkets surrounding his knees cushioned by a snow devoid of that crisp, cool bite. Its placement only accentuates that fact more, the fur practically glowing compared to the off-white, almost gray fluff it now rests on. Frozen in time this place is, it's easier to pretend it's meant to be like this, but now more than ever the windless chill in the air is ever-prominent, and so all Tenna can bring himself to believe is that none of this stuff belongs out here...

Keep moving, the leash tugs him back into that chest. Right, dwelling will be a thing of the past soon enough! As long as this all goes without a hitch, he won't have to worry about meeting a worse fate than being thoughtlessly stored away, never to be watched again; he can think of very few places less appealing to spend his limited time in than the Cold Place, but he'll take it over nothing.

For them, he's doing this for them of course, but one can't be too prepared, hence the rummaging. He needs prizes, after all, and what better ones to get than the gift of memories? Memories to help jog Kris's little noggin back to those times when they had so much fun, make them question why it stopped. Make them come back... All of them.

"Oh, wow!" Pulling out the grandest of finds, Tenna holds it high above to marvel at the nostalgia trip of a lifetime. The little van looks exactly as he remembered, no nicks or scratches on the grinning dog-ice-thing printed at the back to be found. "What the heck is this doing in here?! Kris absolutely loved this toy!"

"...Y'know, Kris is a teenager now, they're not going to want to play with old baby toys."

Never allowed a moment's peace when it comes to the subject of Kris, Ramb has to go and remind Tenna of his presence at that very moment to sour his mood. All casual-like, as if he hadn't been eagerly jumping between Tenna's heels and asking endless questions in his trek to the Cold Place after his big announcement, Ramb strolls over to the array of doodads gathered around him and gives it all an amused once-over, before settling on Asriel's talk-back toy that drove Toriel so insane, Tenna was pleasantly surprised to find that she kept it. He presses the record button—it takes using his entire little paw to do so, the thing being bigger than him—and speaks into it while keeping his gaze up to him with that infuriating smirk, "Sorry t'burst your bubble, luv."

The button's click back into place snaps Tenna out of his annoyed glowering, embarrassment flooding his screen in its wake, making him sputter, "Well, o-obviously, I don't expect Kris to pop in a binky and start playing with their choo-choos!" He tentatively inspects the toy in his hands, self-consciousness taking hold the longer he looks into those soulless commercial-grade painted eyes, and tempting him to put it back in its cozy little spot between the old Halloween costumes and tiny juice-stained church clothes.

One incredibly genius thought strikes him in that moment, though, and he grins. He tosses the van high in the air, snaps his fingers, and like a cool action movie hero, he adamantly does not watch it increase in size; instead choosing to smugly leer down at Ramb as the van violently crash lands a mere few feet away from them, making them both bounce off the ground and ornaments on the Christmas tree jingle and sway from the force. Unmarred somehow, the toy van now sits large and proud as a full-blown vehicle fit for a family (of ICE-E employees).

Tenna flourishes his arms to his wondrous creation, feeling very satisfied with himself. "There! Nothing a little movie magic can't fix~"

Toddlers like playing cars, teenagers like driving them. Beat that, plug.

Ramb chuckles, but he has the face of a man pleasantly surprised (win?) "Ever the resourceful one, you are... It's still a preschool franchise, though." He then clicks the talk-back toy's play button, and an almost alien-like, staticy noise greets him in return; the toy failing to repeat his words. The longer the pathetic noise drags, the lower Ramb's eyelids droop while that pompous smirk grows, and he wordlessly gestures to the speaker with a limp open palm (...lose).

Groaning, Tenna throws his hands up in exasperation before settling them onto his hips and glaring down at the plugboy. "Are you out here to help, Ramb, or are you just here to be a fork in a socket? 'Cause you're killing me here!"

"Here for one more question, actually, and then I'll get out of your hair—ahem, so to speak." Ramb side-eyes him with that stupid face he does when he thinks he's being funny, Tenna doesn't dignify it with anything but a deadpanned look. Slowly, his expression takes a more serious shape, and he finally asks, "Did..." he pauses briefly, gaze flicking up to the tree behind Tenna, "it give you anything?"

"Aha..." Tenna tries with all his might to be nonchalant, busying himself by closing and shoving the chest away to pull a new one in front of him. Its creaky lid only temporarily drowns out the incessant, phantom tapping against his casing, and he parries the oncoming jab at his back with a point of his own to make, "Did what give me anything?"

Being the antagonistic little shit he is, Ramb doesn't grace him with taking his hints with anything but a grain of salt, and very blandly pries, "Coy. Pretending you're the only one in the living room."

His sigh gusts up the dust coating an absurd amount of empty gacha balls that fill the chest. Why Toriel chose to keep them is beyond him, but something about seeing the abundance of disposable junk get the luxury of not having to worry about being curbed smarts him something fierce. The end result to that revelation is wood groaning under his iron grip, and an ugly feeling hooking the corner of his mouth down—combined with Ramb's persistence, his tone comes out much more snide than he means to.

"No?" He half-turns to Ramb, giving him the best shrug he can muster, hand slapping against his side and all. "Was it supposed to?"

Tenna ends up finding himself in the midst of a stare-off after that, Ramb not saying anything for a good few seconds; his empty eyes boring into Tenna's screen, scrutinizing him with an intensity that turns his usual irritation for the plugboy into unease, until he simply says, "...If it didn't, then no."

"Boss! Hey, I—woah..." Here to conveniently stop Tenna from starting his own interrogation comes Mike, slowing a bit in his stroll toward them to gape at the van while giving it a wide berth. "Uh..."

"Well, that's all I needed t'know. Don't get lost in you're li'l trip down memory lane now, y'hear?" Ramb's stone-faced demeanor is gone in an instant, his lax smile returning as he offers Tenna his most patronizing wink, and curtly takes his leave.

And oh is he lucky Tenna can't spare a detour at the moment. Cyber World folk sure do love being enigmatic and providing non-answers—the reminder puts pressure in his jaw, and he grumbles, ready to be done with thinking about it, "Yeah, yeah. Warm up the console for me when you get back." He jolts then, and cranes his body away from the chest to point an accusing finger at Ramb's retreating back and shout, "A-and don't touch anything else in there! I don't wanna so much as smell your influence on my work! Ya hear me, Ramb?!"

"Always do." If Tenna didn't know better, he'd think it sounded like Ramb said that through his teeth with how almost mumbled it was, but in his pass by Mike, he gets one last look at his face. Still sporting that lopsided smile it is, when he glances at the man and gives him a friendly nod; the corner of his eye twinkling. "Mike."

A sourness like bad apples coats Tenna's tongue, he turns away from the sight. Busies himself with the gacha balls, picking one up and popping it open—it's quite sturdy, actually. Made of thick plastic that only opens if squeezed the right way, he still isn't sure what he could do with these, there's so many...

"Boss?" Mike's voice is small behind him, gaining a more confident tone when Tenna gives him an acknowledging hum in return. "The, er, the Weather Duo is rehearsing the script ya gave 'em—"

"Good." No one to thank there but his lucky stars that he's so good at improv. It was a blind haze for the most part, what Tenna ended up scrawling on those papers; just jotting down everything and anything that came to him on a whim, he hardly remembers what he wrote. Too set in hurrying to the next task, he slapped that messy stack onto one of the two's hands, barely able to string a coherent sentence in his rush to get a move on, so it gives him some peace of mind that his second-in-commands are so attuned with him—

"—though you might wanna check in with them sometime. Some of their line delivery seems kinda... off," Mike finishes the thought off. Great. "Majority of the workers have been reinstated," he continues, like he didn't just shatter the rose-tinted glasses Tenna dared to wear in an instant, "but the printer can only work so fast, there's still some shadowguys left..."

Tenna takes in the report like a subliminal message by that point, only partially listening to Mike as he digs around further into the chest to see if there's anything else that can prove helpful for some of the ideas still only half-baked in his head, but most of what's in here are pieces of other things, many of which are so obscure Tenna can hardly pinpoint what they originally belonged to. The only thing he can deduce is this stuff was for Asgore's various craft projects—maybe the gacha balls were going to be mini terrariums... Poor man left it all behind, Toriel would throw it all away if she realized this was still here.

"—and the Green Room is back to the way ya left it before!" Mike's concluding words ring out louder than all previous tallies, a note of pride in his voice. "Now that all the pippins are done cleaning their mess, I've moved 'em on to helping with stage prep, so everything's coming along smoothly... for the most part."

"Good. That's good. Thank you." Tenna keeps his gaze on one of the balls he's cupped close, staring at his reflection on the clear surface. He can see it: Asgore making moss terrariums, happily showing them off to the kids. Pinched between a huge, padded finger and thumb, he'd hold it delicately like the gentle giant he is, and use the tip of his claw to point at all the tiny details before having to keep it away from Kris, who would be more interested in eating it than anything. He'd probably call them something overly simple like moss balls. They really are cute little containers...

God, he misses Asgore. So much.

"Sir...?"

A cautious voice next to him breaks the spell, pulling Tenna back to reality—this world. The vivid imagery of white paws and being surrounded by his beloveds on the carpet popping away to have his frayed gloves greet him, and dry knees on snow that doesn't melt, sitting here with... with...

Mike. Creeping into his peripheral the best he can, considering all that's placed around Tenna, he says, "You... could probably afford a break. Even a little one. Really seems like ya need it."

A leash and a blade, held by whole and holed hands. Humbled he is to have been addressed by such hallowed presence, pulled and pushed by them, guided to guaranteed salvation. 'I promise, but only if you keep up. If you can't keep up, you will be left behind, and I can't help you if you get left behind.'

"I can't, Mike." He drops the ball and watches it bounce and settle between its clones in the chest. Internally, he thanks Mike for waking him up. Keep up. He needs to keep up, so he can live closer to those fantasies once more. There's nothing left to see in this box, so he pushes it away to pull another in its place; his words coming out strained, against his better effort, shoulders aching from disuse and misuse alike, "As nice as that sounds, I can't."

"...You've been running back and forth nonstop for hours now. Right after being out of it for so long... this can't be good for you." Movement beside him, when he's done dragging the next chest over, catches the corner of his vision. A small hand brushes over his thigh. "Ten—"

Barriers. Tenna has always kept imaginary barriers around himself up when it came to his employees. Hands on shoulders and the like he can handle, but anything below the belt leads to trouble. It's a blaring reminder in the form of a loud, bit-crushed [You've got mail!] in his head of everything lost for daring to pull strings. He's dealt with employees trying to get something out of him every once in a while after that heartbreak, and every time has resulted in him slapping a too-bold hand away—that green pippins being no different, in the grand scheme of things. Sweet and genuine as he seemed, Tenna knew nothing could ever meaningfully come up between them without that festering doubt and fear there to corrupt it. Without alcohol and fleeting hope in the mix to muddy his behavior, it's instinctual to reject such advances in a more indisputable way.

...That is all to say: this has nothing to do with that, of course! Mike, being the special case that he is, merely surprised Tenna—and maybe somewhat offended him considering the circumstances. Now is simply not a good time!

"Mike," he grits out after snatching his hand back, getting a glimpse of his watch and oh god it's already well into morning, "isn't it about that time you're supposed to turn into a cat?"

His own afflicted hand clutched to his chest, Mike wordlessly gawks up at him, mouth opening to half-form meaningless noise. A face of bafflement that would be comical any other day, if the underlying entitlement didn't infuriate him so, but deep past that rightly justified swell the display brings is a pit of regret, slowly growing heavier the longer he looks at the smaller man. At his unkempt clothes, messy hair, and the sound of those cracks in his voice that weren't there before his shutdown.

"Sorry. I-I'm sorry," he ends up blurting out, guilt winning over in the end. Turning to face him fully, Tenna reaches down to Mike's bow, pinching the smaller loop. "Listen," he says softly while tugging the bow into better symmetry, "can you do one more thing for me before you lose your voice?"

He hears Mike swallow. Hands having dropped to his sides to let Tenna work, they noticeably twitch to each sweep he makes over ashen smudges. "Sure I can, but," Mike grunts to Tenna's spit-soaked thumb pressing onto the top of his windscreen head until he's met with a hard resistance, swiping the hair down to be rid of the bedhead look—Tenna had witnessed Toriel do it to Asriel countless times, "I-I didn't realize you... paid attention to that—"

"Of course I do," he lies, kind of. Mike looks relatively better after a bit of sprucing, Tenna notes as he straightens back up, brushing his dirtied hand on his coat—his glove smells like cigarettes now, and by god does he need one himself. When he's all done, he puts his hands on his hips and asks, "Now, do you remember where my vault is?"

Haven't needed to use that space all that much since his prime, back when revenue was bustling. Has hardly been touched in years. Many, many years... not since before—

"Uh," Mike stammers, his body stiffening, "obv—obviously! Why wouldn't I? It's uh—"

"'Down the red carpet halls, its entrance sticks out like a sore thumb if you're paying attention'—that's right!" Tenna finishes his sentence, putting a hand on his shoulder and beaming, big and bright. "I need you to rally up some zappers to take all this stuff over there, 'kay?"

"Alright..." the response comes somewhat dazed, before Mike shakes his head suddenly, squaring his shoulders and puffing his chest out. "I mean—on it, Boss!"

...Cute.

Tenna watches him march to the studio with purpose, not moving an inch until those double doors click shut. It's only then that he lets himself slouch bodily against the large chest, a dramatic groan dragging out from his throat; long and anguished. The back of his head thumps against the wood, and then he lifts it to thump it again for good measure.

"Stupid," he mutters, bringing his hands up to knead them into his screen, and ending up getting a nice whiff of spent cigarettes as a result. A frustrated whine rings out of him, and he takes it out on his antennae, yanking them down harshly and letting them spring up, shivering at the brief reprieve from stress it gives. What he wouldn't give to be able to turn his brain off for a bit and let Mike work his magic, and maybe have a smoke after...

But no, it's gotten weird now. A good cry and nursing something strong sounds more realistic at this point, just as long as it isn't that damn cider.

Leash and blade, he knows. Time to get a move on. He hoists himself back on his knees—though his back protests. A sharp twinge between the shoulder blades that makes him wince and try to reach back there, but not quite making it, while he uses his free hand to open the last chest.

"Alrighty, let's see what's behind Door Number Three—... He-lloooo~" Old man ailments effectively dissipate as soon as he lifts that lid, his vision graced with an instrument that just shaved a decade off his age, making him feel like a giddy little boy on Christmas morning. In two pieces it is, but that's quickly remedied when Tenna reconnects the neck to the body, clicking it all back into place, and he's able to appreciate the plastic guitar in its full glory. "What in the world are you doing here, beautiful~?"

He tests worn buttons, thumb clicking down the strum bar—a bit clunky but nothing a few test runs can't smooth out. His fingers trace the faded punk-rock band stickers haphazardly slapped about and in a flash, he can see those painted hooves, that choppy haircut, striking dye job, and buck teeth poking out of that ever-present ferocious grin. Rebellious and awe-inspiring, the coolest kid on the block had come to show off her new rhythm game, wow the kids with how she could S-rank all the hardest songs, and turn those sleepovers into all-nighters as they took turns playing; loud, wild, fun.

Kris... Kris will absolutely love this.

"Hey, HEY! That's Dess's—woah, WOAH—!"

The shout echoes about this cavern of a place, but it's the snap of a branch that has Tenna's head jerking up, panic contorting his childish grin into a gasp upon seeing something white plummeting towards him. He scrambles, abandoning the guitar in a split-second decision to catch the small mass of flailing limbs before it leaves a distinctly-shaped hole in the snow. In his outstretched palms, it lands in a crumpled heap, and in the midst of breathing a sigh of relief and asking the poor thing if they're okay, his glow lands on a familiar knit red-nosed reindeer on a black poncho, and two red eyes, big and practically bulging out, staring back at him over their shoulder. His words morph into a girlish screech then, hands flapping the pippins away like he just touched an icky bug, and the pippins in turn squawks as they're flung to the ground, landing on their back, but they recover fast, sitting up and baring their teeth at Tenna with wide, bloodshot eyes.

"Don—don't touch me, man!" They scoot away, making snow gather in a pile behind them, and point an accusatory finger at him. "Keep your freaky magic away from me, ya hear!"

In the middle of performing similar actions, Tenna's back hits the trunk of the Christmas tree, and he holds the guitar up defensively. "Th-that's my line! You stay away from me, you little menace! You—you..."

As the frenzied scrambling and the belligerent barking dies off, the memories of that night, his confrontation with this pippins, and what entailed (or, what should have entailed) clear up a little bit more, with confusion starting to settle in; the longer he stares at the pippins's red trembling pointed finger and rapidly rising and falling chest, the less the logic is adding up to Tenna. Slowly, he maneuvers out of his spot, pushing a branch out of the way when he stands at full height, the plastic pines crunching roughly under the back of his hand.

"You..." he mindlessly repeats, barely registering the branch stiffly whipping back into position behind him when he steps out into the open and glares down at the pippins. "How... I thought I fired you. How in the world are you still up and about?!"

The pippins eyes him up and down, and takes their sweet time to respond, their face still etched in a glare, teeth bared in a snarl, but Tenna doesn't give them the courtesy of making himself appear any less imposing, keeping his arms crossed, nose turned up and body as big as he let it become the moment he stepped outside the studio. No way he's going to let himself crumble in this person's presence again.

"Yeah, well," they gulp air between words, standing up and patting the dust off their poncho, "Mike wasn't all that discriminatory in his contract handouts. Barely looked up while he was passing 'em around, babblin' out orders in that stupid, stupid, way he does."

Bafflement is an understatement for how he feels, but Tenna's vocabulary is only as expansive as his channel range, so it will have to do. One thing is for certain, though: he does not trust this pippins, one bit. "...You willingly signed yourself back over to me? Why."

"Oh, I certainly wrote a name of sorts on that paper..." they mutter quickly, then give him a deadpanned look. "Let's be honest now, you're asking me why I didn't wanna choose between purgatory, and purgatory lite." Their arms span out, gesturing to the expanse of snow and black sky before dropping them with a scoff. "Who the hell would wanna live out their days here?"

Tenna's head follows the pippins's hands, letting his screen settle to the endless horizon, nearly monochrome if it weren't for the distant golden door he doesn't dare to go near again. It wasn't always this cold here, this empty, but that's what happens when lightner love is lost; things become a husk of their former selves.

"...Yeah," is all he can bring himself to say to that, blunt and—admittedly—slightly bitter, before it hits him just who he's getting cozy and casual with and he shakes his head, hackles raising as he sputters, "That—that doesn't explain why you're out here, though! Just what were you doing up—" He sucks in a breath then. Fists balling at his sides, his tone raises a pitch, "Were you spying on me?!"

"I was gathering intel, thank you." They put a hand to their chest in mock offense, but instantly drop the act and shrug like the revelation is no big deal. "So yeah, spying. With the way you've been acting? Why shouldn't I? You think I believe your little shtick about Kris coming here? There's gotta be more to it, I want answers."

Tenna huffs indignantly. "It's rather cut and dry, actually, if you understand how dark fountains work. I've been completely transparent to you all about it." Oh, that lie was too easy to the point of uncomfortable. He has to avoid those red eyes to continue speaking, "So I really don't know what else you could possibly want to know—"

"Is Noelle coming?"

The almost shaky timbre of the pippins's voice catches him off guard. His head jerks back to find the deep scowl having softened, brows furrowed tightly and red hands wringing their threadbare poncho until the reindeer and snowflakes are indiscernible from one another—and Tenna... absolutely hates that he wants them to stop ruining the knitting.

"I don't know. I don't think so. I'm sorry," he can't help answering quickly, but gently; lowering himself to sit on one knee, and closer to the pippins to show that his regret is genuine. They swear under their breath, kicking up snow and dragging out a frustrated noise. Beyond Tenna's pity there's a realization that this pippins doesn't have any sort of motivation to behave themself now, being truthful about Noelle is a missed opportunity to keep them in line, and now he'll have to hope his honesty is returned.

"Now it's my turn," he starts, hooking a finger under the pippins's chin to coax them to look at him again, and internally grateful they don't flinch away, "I recall you being a consistent nuisance throughout your time working for me, and now more than ever I can't afford to have your antics screw things up. So, are you going to be a problem?"

At first, the pippins's face continues to keep that haggard, disappointed expression as they stare back at Tenna's screen, but the longer the silence stretches, slowly those red eyes become sharper, that corner of their mouth curls down, and they're back to glowering at him like never before.

"That depends," they growl out, brushing his hand away with the entirety of their arm. "Are you?"

...Well, he got the honest truth, but it doesn't make it any less irritating.

"I don't get you. I really, really don't." Tenna throws his arms up, exasperated. "Why Mike loves you enough to wager his job for you is beyond me, when all you seem to do time and time again is make life difficult for the people around you. Do not take me as some sort of tyrant who takes pleasure in axing anyone who so much as sneezes around me. Believe it or not, I don't want to fire you! I didn't like doing it before, and I would much rather avoid so now, but—" he plants a hand next to the pippins, lowering himself further into their space and baring threatening teeth, "if you insist on getting between me and my lightners: I will do it again."

"...Mike loves me."

It wasn't the takeaway he was expecting, that's for certain, but even less so in how they absorb that flub. Dull in the manner they repeated his words—brow raised and eyelids heavy in that way they do when it's obvious they want to call him stupid, typical in itself—but the subsequent, sudden shift in their expression exposes a raw truth that Tenna was in no way prepared to meet.

It's the face of realization—it's an ‘oh shit, you know’ face.

And in the recesses of his mind, he can logically conclude: of course, they of all people would be in on it, and he can brush Ramb off as an outlier because it's fucking Ramb, but unfortunately there's that incessant leash pulling at him, pulling at him and pulling at him, until he's choking to hands he once trusted. It rears a paranoia to the forefront that he truly does not know the extent of this, nor does he want to know—but frankly, enough time has been wasted, so now he needs to remedy a plan to keep this pippins both busy and committed so as to not stir more trouble than he can possibly handle.

"'CHANCE,' was it?" The sound of his hands clasping together booms hard enough to rattle Christmas ornaments. The pippins jolts, backing away a few steps and takes a defensive stance, but Tenna only offers them his biggest negotiator's smile. "Let's make a deal, Chance! You wanna go home? You still can!"

Chance eyes him warily, skepticism practically radiating off of them, but Tenna is nothing if not quick on the draw, always bursting with ideas at a moment's notice to ensure he keeps the attention held on him.

"I'm sure Kris wouldn't mind digging you out of the couch and taking you to Noelle's if I put a good word in, you know~" he says wryly, reveling in those brows shooting up with interest, and he picks up the momentum, holding up a finger to signal his catch, "BUT—that can't happen if anything goes wrong with tonight's show! Anything at all!" His raised hand swoops down to Chance, open and waiting, welcoming to seal a truce. "Cooperate with me, and I'll make sure you never spend another day in this world again. Do we have a deal?"

The pippins stares long and hard at his hand, their own flexing from where it's barely visible at their side, peeking out under the poncho. Tenna externally remains patient, but internally he's insistently opening and closing that palm, and even deeper within he's tapping his watch, and another layer further he probably would have been dead on the floor holding a sad rose to his chest because this person is taking so long to make their decision he might as well welcome the knife with open arms—but it thankfully doesn't get to that point. They reach over, then pause at the last second to say, "You act up at all, I'll riot."

Tenna takes their hand.

"That's my line," he warns once more, but grins wide and lightly squeezes the tiny limb. "And I won't need to 'act up,' because everything is going to go without a hitch, riiight?"

Unhesitantly, Chance nods, and victoriously, Tenna raises his arms high above; shouting his approval to the dark heavens when he speaks again.

"Good! Perfect! Now you, my friend..." He paws behind himself in search, having thought up a decent, harmless task that will keep them preoccupied for a good while—a good chunk of those gacha balls will have purpose soon enough. When he feels the roundness of the kids' little toy gumball machine, he hefts the clunky thing up to Chance, finishing his sentence off as he does, "Will be in charge of this."

---

At surface level, everything started out relatively normal.

As normal as an event like this can be, that is. Battat can't say lightners coming into a dark world is some common occurrence—hell, he'd brush off the concept of dark fountains as a myth if skepticism were more in his nature, having seventeen Santas in his old world makes him more prone to believing such things though—but all things considered, their presence didn't make production feel any different, other than that the studio bustled harder than Battat had ever seen in all the years he's lived here.

He took Pluey and Jongler's help to make sure every order Mike was given was fulfilled promptly with no hiccups. A first for them to work in unison, but Tenna was so preoccupied with the kids he didn't seem to notice his Mike count tripled. So with some of the workload lifted off of him, Battat was able to absorb much of the show, and pick up rather early on that something was very, very off.

It was the end of the first round that confirmed he was right to feel suspicions. He wanted to mark Tenna's jittery demeanor anytime the lightners weren't looking at him as caffeine shakes, or nerves that any darkner would have for being given a near-improbable opportunity to face their lightner on equal footing, because for the majority of the show, Tenna radiated with an unmatched glee. A genuine joy that softened the sharply bright edges of his screen and made the way he looks at family photos seem like a mockery in comparison—when looking at the girl, especially. Behind the scenes, however, his attitude flipped like a switch.

"What do you—what do you mean it isn't here yet?!" Backstage, while credits rolled and Battat was just about to close the curtains over the kids in the midst of their smiling and waving to the audience, Tenna's disbelieving shout halted him from pulling that rope. Antennae parallel, they stood ramrod straight while Tenna paced anxiously with a finger pressed to his frame. "I was told it would take an episode's length at most for them to arrive! Is the door blocked or something?!" His nervous footwork stopped, head tilted slightly like he was listening to someone talk—it was then that Battat realized he was on the radio with someone. Someone who wasn’t Mike, but before he could dig into his mask and start flipping through channels on his own headset, Tenna had thrown his hands up in exasperation and said, "Okay. Fine. This is fine. Good, even! This is why I have a backup second act, after all. I mean—who doesn't love a double feature? Haha!" The forced lightheartedness dropped as quickly as it came. "Just keep her asleep! I've got this under control."

"Boss?" Battat tried to call out in his brisk pass by back to the stage, but all he got in return was a dismissive “Not now, Mike!” that was then proceeded with Tenna sliding onto stage, roundhouse kicking the scrolling credits away and demanding the show continue.

Which, to be fair, had Battat not witnessed Tenna’s backstage behavior, those actions would be put in the normal category. Tenna trying to do everything within his power to bend reality and keep a show going isn’t unheard of, so to everyone else, it became a matter of waiting until the kids got sick of it, and the workers would be left with the task of dragging a giant CRT by the ankles off the stage—or plucking a minuscule one and dropping him at the nearest Mike’s feet; it was always a coin toss.

Battat would have preferred that scenario over what actually happened.

For whatever reason, Tenna kept him in the dark from everything going on in the background. As the games continued, the way he acted raised more and more red flags, but Battat wasn’t given any opportunity to speak to him alone. Attempts to do so in between rounds were met with a door slammed into his face, and so Battat was forced to play along to whatever this event was covering up for, all the while helplessly watching in real time as Tenna masked his troubles. Any and all cracks got patched by smiles and laughter, pushback against keeping the show going were met with crocodile tears tinted with an edge of desperation, and then it all came to a head when Tenna abruptly rushed the airtime of the third round before the crew was done setting everything up—what they could make out from his last-minute chicken-scratched additions to the show, that is…

But nothing could have prepared anyone there for the most uncomfortable and terrifying meltdown that TV World has ever witnessed after the kids demanded an end to the games, and aired out on stage that Toriel was being held captive. Battat and his friends could only gape at the girl’s furious pounding against her gacha ball, the boy sadly facing away, and Kris standing stiffly through Tenna’s disassociative ramblings while he forced games nobody wanted to play and started battles nobody wanted to be a part of, until they escaped, and one-by-one, the workers left with them too.

And Battat tried, with all his might, to make sense of the chaos. Tenna’s state feeling so eerily reminiscent of his fight with Chance only told him that there’s something deeper going on, something scaring the man, but all efforts made in reasoning with his fellow co-workers were fruitless—as were Tenna’s; people quit to his face, walked away while he stomped and screamed and pleaded to not be abandoned.

“You guys…?” On the boardwalk, TV World darkners of every kind passed by the three of them with their heads hung low, and distantly, Tenna was in the middle of begging the Weather Duo not to leave, when Battat had to gawk between Pluey and Jongler in disbelief. “Not you too.”

Masks tucked under their arms, they both sheepishly avoided Battat’s gaze, and Jongler solemnly said, “Boss… We don’t wants to hurt da lightners.”

“We—we’re not hurting the lightners! Do you really think Tenna wants to hurt them?!” He waved his arms frantically at them, like he was trying to physically stop that thought process. “Can’t you tell something’s up?! This is beyond normal, and you both know that!”

“You should listen to your friends, Bats.”

“You—!” Immediately, he whirled around in a blind fury to find Chance brushing between retreating darkners to stand defiantly at him. He had caught glimpses of them throughout this ordeal, and it wasn’t hard to connect that they were influencing everyone to quit. “I should have known you’d be here make a bigger mess of things. How the hell did you figure out where his vault was—“

“Of all things, does that really matter right now?!” Chance took to charging up close and personal to him and poked his chest. “I’m helping people get outta here, stupid! And you should too! It would do you and everyone else here some good to remember why you became Mike in the first place.” Their expression softened unexpectedly, and even less expected came a pleading tone, “C’mon, Bats, he’s hurting people! He’s got a lightner hostage! Nobody wants to be a part of this anymore, don’tcha see that?! Whatever’s goin’ on isn’t worth endangering everyone else here for. We're getting out of the lightners' way whether you like it or not!”

“I…” he hesitated, and turned around to see Elnina and Lanino sadly backing away from a panicking Tenna. The sight was too sorry to look at for long, but turning back to find Pluey and Jongler standing behind Chance and looking at him guiltily gutted him harder than anything else—but still he weakly argued, “I-I can’t just—”

Chance was quick to stop him with a hand on his shoulder, their face serious. “If you’re not gonna do it for the kids, or your friends, then at least do it for him,” they said carefully, and squeezed him hard. “You know what’s best for him, right? Do ya think he needs someone enabling this right now? He’s inconsolable. Take it from me, man. Anything you say is just gonna make him do something you’ll both regret.”

A few quick glances at all the downtrodden faces, and Battat had his answer sooner than was comfortable. It was, unfortunately, not a decision he could sit and stew on, he knew, but it didn’t make relenting feel any less like a betrayal, or stop his taking the mask off from stinging like he up and tore away his own face.

“Alright. Yeah, no, you’re right,” he sighed, looked down at the mask, and swallowed. “I’m done.”

No attempts were made by Chance to hide their relief, nor Pluey or Jongler—which had Battat feeling like the grand king of assholes, but he wasn't given any time to wallow in those thoughts when Chance grabbed his arm and urged that they should get a move on.

He wishes he could say he took his leave in stride, head held high and resolve unwavering; all those years working so tirelessly, pulling all-nighters (all-dayers, the whole range, really), quitting should have felt cathartic. The reality of it, though, is that saying no to Tenna has always been a feat in itself. From those beginnings where Tenna tested his patience, to the very end, where simply seeing him sad started to become too much to bear. So when he heard Tenna mutter his name in disbelief, he couldn't stop the knee-jerk reaction. His footing slowed, making him stumble to keep up with Chance's tugging, and he peaked over his shoulder just as the Weather Duo shuffled past them, to see Tenna under a spotlight he didn't cast, and weakly blubbering to nobody.

Against his better judgment, he dug his heels into the rickety boards, putting a halt to his and Chance's retreat. "Who—"

But Chance was having none of it, and yanked him back into gear. "Who cares?! Come on, Bats!"

And so, costume now discarded and having split ways with Chance to cover more ground, Battat is left with the duty of helping darkners locate somewhere safer until the lightners can figure out how to put a stop to whatever Tenna has going on. Tenna's defeated voice calling out for him—or not him, or both—either way it ricochets in his head all the same and makes focusing on the task at hand much more difficult. To the point where he didn't realize the zapper's arm he'd been pulling wasn't budging, his shoes sliding over the red carpet and getting nowhere in his effort to guide the darkner, until Pluey, Jongler and a random pippins snap him out of it with hands placed on his shoulders and back. He blinks, and turns to the zapper to ask what the holdup is—

"Oh shit!" Snatching his hand back like he'd burned it, he stumbles away, almost falling in his shock if it weren't for Jongler clinging to his side and staring sadly at the petrified zapper. "Why—how—" He does a double take, and then immediately starts pawing at Jongler, patting at them up and down and unable to hide the rising panic in his voice, "A-are you gonna too?! Do—do you feel...?"

Feel what? Cold, right? Like how Tenna described. Jongler only shrugs warily, Pluey and the pippins do the same, and Battat flounders at this new, uncertain territory he now has to tread. There's nothing that can be done for this zapper at the moment, but before he can try leading the pippins out of here, a piercing shatter rings out from behind the nearby double doors leading to the Green Room. He fears the worst when he's met with resistance upon trying to tug the pippins along with him to investigate, but glancing over proves they've simply latched to the zapper. With his friends ignorant of his sudden obstacle ahead of him now, and the threat of petrification in the air, urgency beckons, and he sighs at the pippins's stubborn refusal to let go.

"Look, I'm sorry about your friend, but—" his teeth clamp down on that thought process, clenching at the pippins's vigorous head shake and tightened hold on the stiff, gray body—not quite there, not quite not there, dark and cold and alone through it all... he can't do it. Gaze softening, he relents, "But nothing. You should be safe in here, just be there for him until the lightners get the situation under control, alright?"

They're still in the middle of nodding when Battat spins on his heel and sprints to catch up with his friends, bursting through the double doors to find the Green Room just as dark and desolate as the red carpet halls have become. He as no trouble catching up to the two approaching the bar, where fumbling and light swears can be heard behind the counter.

"Ramb?" Battat calls out and climbs onto a bar stool between Pluey and Jongler, who peer over the countertop with him. "You're still here?"

On the floor, he can see shards of glass littered about, and Ramb on his knees attempting to clean the mess, but he quickly gives up the moment he glances to Battat, and stands with some struggle, leaning his weight on a forearm rested on the bar; his other arm tucked behind his back.

"Ah. Mike, Mike," Ramb nods to Battat's friends at either side, acknowledging them both respectively before his gaze settles to him, his smirk grows, and he says with more emphasis, "Mike. Sorry 'bout the commotion. Got ah—" He breaks eye-contact, a hint of sorrow, almost unnoticeable, worries his brow, and slowly he puts his free hand into view. "...A bad case of butterfingers right now."

Cold dread washes over him at the sight of Ramb's gray, unmoving fingers, frozen in a semi-curled position. He opens his mouth to say something—what, I’m sorry? How many times will he have to say that to the next darkners they come across, how long until it hits them next? Never before has he felt so helpless, words fail him.

For what it’s worth, Ramb doesn’t seem to mind his lack of condolences. Letting his arm drop heavily at his side, he asks, “You three mind helping out a plug?” Glass crunches, and he grunts with effort as he limps backwards a few steps to reveal one of his legs has also started to turn. “Walking’s a bit tough now, and I’ve got somewhere I need t’be.”

Battat cocks a brow, but Ramb doesn't offer any further clarity. His empty sockets look like they're struggling to stay open, blinking lethargically, his breathing manual—battling that shutdown, siphoning as much time as he can get out—... denying him isn't an option for Battat. Midway through hopping the bar, he simply says, “Jongler.”

“Youse gots it.” They follow unquestioning, as well as Pluey, though the shards on the floor make him nervous, and so his attention becomes dedicated to tiptoeing around the hazards, while Jongler hoists Ramb over their shoulder with ease. “Where to?”

Ramb kind of just lets himself dangle and be toted around like a sack of potatoes—albeit he has no other choice, but that doesn't make the sight any less strangely comical. His arms hang limply, ears flopping in awkward angles from how he raises his head, and yet he handles it in stride, completely nonchalant—Battat has to wonder if this was how Kris carried him around back in the day for him to not feel the least bit undignified, with no comment to be made about it; focusing only on the subject at hand as he jerks his head and replies, “Through the back there. It’s at the backstage area past the dressing room—ahem—excuse me, the ‘S-rank room.’” He condescendingly corrects himself with incomplete air quotes.

“I know where he’s talking about, guys.” Battat makes his way to the back door and opens it for them, Pluey is quick to lead and be away from the sea of glass. When Jongler passes he lags behind a few paces, his eyes settling on the petrifying limb. It spread in that short amount of time to engulf the whole hand. His voice lightly echoes about the hallway when he asks, “Do you know why this is happening, Ramb?”

“Probably ‘cause I quit, and abandoned the plan,” he says with a lazy shrug. “...Long as Tenna’s in power, this world doesn’t take well to folks who go off-script." A breathless chuckle puffs out of him. "Though I guess that's not unique to here, in the end.”

Through the dressing room is a quick few steps from door, to door, to reach the backstage area, where they’re greeted with the large setup Tenna had for everyone to partake in his game—and Battat finds himself wondering if it's possible to feel nostalgic for something that happened only a couple hours ago. Directing the employees to do their part, blending his Mike work with his day work, and dealing with the weird bouncy spade kid that Tenna had the patience of a saint for—all while peeking in on the main cast occasionally, and seeing Tenna tentatively glance across the couch at Kris in what he had assumed was anticipation for them to have a good time with something he made... something Battat made, in part, with him.

It was fun, just about everyone was having fun. Knowing that this was all part of some sort of sinister plan in the background feels so out of the left field for Tenna, and even moreso that he had Ramb of all people involved and not him. He would have surely done a better job at being a dastardly sidekick than Ramb, he already does everything and anything for the man, so what the hell gives?!

...Great, he's jealous of Ramb. The box of smokes in his pocket never felt so enticing.

“But... we quit, and nothing’s happened," he says after shaking that mental spiral away. "We don’t feel any different—right?!” Battat quickly addresses his friends, tilting his body so he can glance between Jongler and Pluey for reassurance, and then lets out a relieved sigh when they nod.

“Then I guess Tenna just really doesn’t like me.” It's an unsatisfying answer in itself, and Battat doesn't hide that fact, which makes Ramb huff and bluntly add, “Look I’ve got lots of answers, but not all of ‘em, luv.” At the entrance to the game room, he pats Jongler's back. “Here’s good.”

While Jongler gently puts Ramb back on his feet, Battat eyes the door, and promptly ignores the more appropriate wave of nostalgia hitting him for being here. “Why here? What are you doing?”

“Just having a bit o' fun before the inevitable. I'm sure you understand, Mike.” Ramb winks at Battat, making his face heat up. He waves dismissively at the three of them then, shifting in his stance the best he can with a stone leg. “Thanks for the help. Won’t keep you from your duties anymore.”

Right. Suspicious as Ramb is being, Battat has his priorities in order (for once), and with Tenna's current location unknown, they're going to have to tread carefully. Most of the darkners they find after leaving Ramb are animate, but that doesn't quell the growing unease from coming across each one that isn't. It puts the slightest chill Battat feels on edge, and having him peeking under his sleeves and doting over his friends for any gray patches every few minutes.

It's at the secluded area of the Couch Cliffs with all the TV World denizens they'd managed to gather when Battat shivers for the nth time, and he has to put his chat with the Weather Duo on pause for another paranoia-induced pat-down, only to be interrupted by Shuttah popping up from the ground to announce that a fight has broken out—that specifically, Tenna is engaging in battle against the lightners. He wasn't sure what sort of news he'd been expecting when they sent Shuttah to scout the area, but it definitely wasn't that, and it was a good while of absorbing his own reaction and trying to calm down the rabble of betting pippins and saxophone jeers that news caused before Battat decided to bite the bullet and head over to the Cold Place himself. At first. Pluey and Jongler caught up with him not far into his trek. Internally, he was grateful for the company, but he did call them stupid for it.

Reaching Ramb's bar stirs an urge to head back there to check on him, but the expectation of finding exactly what he'd expect stops him—as well as that harrowing roar shaking the suspended wine glasses, freezing him on the spot from how deeply it rattles him to the core... that's also a factor. Yeah.

Hesitance overtakes the three of them, but in the end, the knowledge that Tenna and the kids are out there with whatever just made that noise makes them move again, and in his head, Battat feels the need to preemptively gloat at every individual that turned their nose up at him and his attempts to find reason because he was right. He was right, dammit! Take that TV World denizens, take that Chance. Hell, take that Pluey and Jongler, too! Some Mikes they are, when has he ever been wrong?! If people listened to him more, they probably would have solved the whole Mike thing already! If people listened to him more, their boss wouldn't be armless and dead in the snow—

Pluey's pitched trill puts a pin on his tangent that had apparently been running from his mouth out loud this whole time (whoops). Nonetheless, the despaired noise wakes him up, giving him more awareness to their surroundings. The gushing pillar of darkness drowns out all of their echoes where they would normally travel to the unreachable horizon. It shoots up from the snowy ground, and blends into the dark sky; massive and ominous and beautiful, but Battat can't bring himself to be awestruck by its presence when not far from it, near an odd field of glowing spears pierced into the ground, lies Tenna. On his side, unmoving and arms missing like Battat had so mindlessly noted—but not alone.

The girl, so big and hulking compared to many of the darkners here, is significantly dwarfed by Tenna's form, but it doesn't stop her from reaching up to pat at his plastic frame, hunch close to his black screen and shout his name. Even with her back to the three, the distance between them and the fountain's deep, aquatic ambiance, her voice rises above everything else, refusing to quit her jostling until a spark popping out of one of Tenna's exposed sockets makes her flinch away.

"Su—zzzz—" Tenna's head lifts, his back struggling to follow as he barely manages to garble a single syllable before his voice bugs out, and body fails him. Crashing back down into the snow, metal and plastic screeches and crunches under friction and force, the sound reminiscent of trash compacting in a truck, and it's enough to snap Battat out of his stupor.

"Wh..." he practically wheezes out. Breathless, unable to look away from what remains of a man he’s dedicated so much of himself to, bathed in the rainbow hues the dark fountain emits, he swallows, steps forward, and tries again, "What the hell happened?! How did..." Battat's eyes trail to the axe on the girl's back, his heart aches too much to think beyond what's in front of him, and so he reels. "Did you—"

The girl turns abruptly, her yellow eyes wide, boring into him, and sharp teeth bared—not in fury like he was expecting. She either didn’t hear the accusation or doesn’t let it bother her, her voice shakes with desperation when she shuffles through the snow closer to the three.

"Hey! Help! Have you seen his arms?!" Her body shadows Battat’s, outlined by the pulsating colors when she’s close enough; turning her into a hopeful beacon for his attention. Words lodge in his throat, his gaze darting between her and Tenna, shoulders tense, and when his friends don’t speak either as she frantically glances between them, her hackles raise, and her body language grows more frantic. Sweeping her arms out, she yells, "Come on! He's still alive, we can save him!" Not giving them a chance to speak up this time, she glances about the space surrounding them. "Any of you?! He's like your boss, right?! Don't just stand there, you've gotta help him!"

Battat follows her gaze until he has to turn around, and is greeted with a large array of darkners that have also come to see the condition of their boss. Mostly pippins and shadowguys, but Battat can see the Weather Duo in the crowd, a mixture of shock and sorrow on their faces, and Shuttah, respectfully refraining from taking any pictures of the awful sight. The girl continues to shout out to everyone, but there’s a blatant air of disinclination for what to do.

“Uh… manager? Hello!”

It’s like a haze of catatonic helplessness keeps sucking him in, because the source of that voice doesn’t register to him until he dazedly scans the front of the crowd and lands on Chance waving him down. Behind them stands Que, sniffling and teary-eyed, and Pop, who looks more like it wants to poke Tenna with a stick. Chance crosses their arms and tilts their head at him expectantly, making him blink owlishly back.

“Well?” they insist, cocking a wry brow. “Ya gonna manage us, or what?”

All eyes on him now, it’s what finally gets the cogs in his head turning again, and that wicked part of his brain still wants to rub it in all of their faces, but thankfully the girl’s imposing breathing down his neck keeps him in check.

“J… Jongler!” he snaps to them. They nod, silently awaiting direction. “Go find Tenna’s manual. The girl is gonna need it in the light world. Pluey?” As soon as Jongler leaves, with a couple darkners volunteering to help to ensure the zapper doesn’t get lost, he’s turning to the shadowguy. “His arms… they might be buried in the snow. Think you and your friends can—uh—sniff ‘em out?”

Pluey expresses more energy than the somber scene demands, saluting to Battat before beckoning his fellow shadowguys to follow his lead in his blared saxaphonic fashion, which receives an equally enthusiastic chorus. Nearly half the crowd singing an unsynchronized mess as they scatter about the span of the Cold Place and dig at the snow like a bunch of animals—and if the display wasn't already strange on its own, the girl decides to join in, shouting about how she can't believe Lancer is missing out. It begs the question as to where the hell her friends are, Kris especially, but the urgency of the matter keeps his curiosity at bay; he has the least cooperative darkners in TV World to attend to now, after all.

“Chance…” he starts, carefully on guard for that moment he has to argue protests, or defend his decisions, on the off-chance that they suddenly changed their mind about helping. They, as well as all of the other pippins with them, however, remain uncharacteristically attentive, much to his relief—and gratitude—and so his confidence grows, his voice becoming more firm, “we’re small enough for precision repairs. We can reattach Tenna's arms and see if we can put the wires back where they belong—granted, if it doesn't electrocute us..."

"Oh. Great. I get to stick my hands in the bossman's gaping wounds. Fun," comes Chance's immediate retaliation, but they walk shoulder-to-shoulder with him to their downed boss nonetheless; a blushing Que, morbidly intrigued Pop, and abundance of chattering pippins trailing along with the two. Distantly, the girl's purple head pops out of a snowy mound, exclaiming that one of the arms has been found. Battat lets her and the stronger darkners tote the huge limb their way while he puts one of his hands flat on Tenna's screen. Still warm... but completely unresponsive, aside from the crackle of static against his skin. Beside his darkly tinted reflection, Chance stares back at him, and then nudges his shoulder to ask, "You even know what you're doing?"

Battat snorts. "Absolutely not. I didn't spend all my time as Mike elbow-deep in the boss's parts, believe it—what? What's that look for?!" He brute forces the enveloping heat on his cheeks, not letting it water down his outrage at Chance's deep, disgusted frown, and gets in their face with a single bulging eye boring into them, daring them to say anything about dubious things that may-or-may-not have occurred between him and Tenna.

After a few seconds of no comment, he backs away, but makes sure to keep his gaze on them with narrowed eyes in warning until he can't any longer when he walks over to Tenna's chest. Darkners are climbing all over the man's body, hoisting the retrieved arm up to drape over his side and better align it with the open socket—thank heavens it's the correct arm, but turning him over is going to be a nightmare. Battat climbs, Tenna's suit bunching in his hands, and he distracts himself from the disappointment of how, of all ways, this is how he gets to climb on the man; calling out to Chance during his ascension.

"You should be proud! I'm 'embracing' my pippins roots here:" when he reaches the top—or, Tenna's side, that is—he kneels down and offers a hand, and makes sure the next thing he says is annoyingly laced with his Motormouth Mike flair, "Takin' a chance, and rollin' with it."