Work Text:
The last hours had been a blur, a mess, a rush. Tenna had been plugged back in, first time in what, years? Forever? Was time even real? Real or not, it was never enough when there was work to be done. Tenna wanted everything at ready for the oh-so-awaited comeback of his beloved Lightner audience. Mike, build the sets! Mike, make the game boards! Prep all the outfits, the guns for the cowboys, the fires for the kitchen! They had to be ready for any kind of show the Lightners could want! Every employee was rushing around to get some job done, even the ones who were usually slackers. Maybe even them longed for the Lightners' attention after all. Or maybe it was just the extra points Tenna had promised them.
As for Mike, Tenna's favorite, his most trusted, most requested? Well, never before had he been so glad to be three people. They were running ragged making the show run smoothly. The Shadowguy was in and out of every challenge, keeping an eye on any problems while acting with his fellows. The Zapper carried last minute props here and there for the sets as Tenna continued to improvise new rounds and challenges to keep the Lightners entertained. And he, Motormouth Mike, the real Mike, handled the tech issues from Mike's room. The lights, the sounds, the whatzits, you name it.
At times like that, they all worked out of costume. For the other two, because they had to blend in with the rest of the staff, can't have two Mikes running around at the same time. As for him, it was way easier to handle all the controls without the big gloves getting in the way, even if it made him antsy, fearing Tenna could walk in at any moment and uncover his farce. It had never happened though. Tenna never visited Mike during shows, preferring to transmit his orders directly from the set. Besides, would he even care to see anyone else there? He never noticed that they had replaced Mike. He never called out that Mike had three different appearances. Like it didn't matter who Mike was, like anyone could do it.
And that was good! It was how this whole farce worked out this long! Appeasing Tenna was the whole point, he should be happy that it wasn't as hard as it could be! Why wasn't he satisfied? Why did he linger so often on that fact?
He spent so much effort trying to understand Mike, to create the parts of Mike he couldn't find out. If none of that mattered, then...
What a stupid thing to care for, huh.
How lucky of him then, that he wouldn't have the time to dwell on it. Something far worse got his attention.
At once, the many screens of Mike's room, usually transmitting from different cameras all across TV World, all flashed the same technical difficulties screen.
"What." He hissed. He hadn't done anything or even heard of problems, so this must have been Tenna himself. And there was no reason to stop the feed on every camera, it had to be one of his tantrums.
"He can do that all by himself!? What's even the point of having a crew then!?" It was far from the first time he realized most tasks Tenna asked were things he could very much do himself, but it never failed to tick him off. Why be such a pain in everyone's ass then? Why let people fumble his orders and then get mad about it? Did he enjoy bossing people around that much? Had to be it.
..What would happen if he ever got tired of it?
The thought made Mike shiver from a very cold fear inside him.
He was snapped out of it by the screens returning to normal. The center one showed Tenna back at the game show set with the Lightners, who looked just as surprised as Mike, because the Bonus Round was not ready to start yet! The audience wasn't there, most actors hadn't returned to backstage yet, the hell was Tenna thinking?
Of sending it all to hell, fire included, if the next minutes were anything to go by.
He chuckled nervously. He didn't realize he'd be facing his fear that soon. There was Tenna, running the whole show on his own, like no one else existed in the world. Even the Lightners were trapped and ignored, no word or action from them reaching the man.
Mike's stupid nervous chuckles turned into coughs. He shivered again, hugging himself for warmth, and pretending not to see any loss of saturation in his arms.
In the middle of all that, being spooked out of his mind by the doors of the room flying open was a welcome distraction, not that it stopped him from jumping and yelping and shouting at the other Mike from scaring him. The Shadowguy was unusually agitated, but still stopped and lowered its head in apology, blushing. The Zapper Mike came after it, not in as much of a rush, but still looking more serious than usual.
(He felt weird that he could tell. Zappers didn't even have faces. But they had been working together for a long time already...)
"Sorry, we didn't mean to scare ya. Just hopin’ you'd know what to do about, um, all that," they gestured vaguely at the screen, the Shadowguy flapping its arms wildly to highlight the panic of the situation.
"Do I know what to do?" Giggling nervously again. "Do I know how to stop the man from freaking out live worse that he's ever done in therapy? In front of his most important audience!? The ONLY audience he ever wanted!? Those are LIGHTNERS! That's a DREEMURR!! He was supposed to be happy, they were all happy just a moment ago, weren't them!? Why did they mention Toriel now, no one's seen Toriel! He didn't ask us for anything about Toriel! Doesn't even Mike get to know what's going on here? And, and," don't stop talking it's better than hearing the man's breakdown through the speakers, "weren't those Lightners supposed to be all peaceful and nice, anyway? Why are they picking a fight now?"
Tenna had thankfully stopped talking for once (though the sounds of nothing but fire in the kitchen set couldn't be good), so he threw the question at the Shadowguy, who simply shrugged with a big frown on its face. It had been the only one of the three to meet the Lightners directly, right from the the first fight on the first board, to deliver Tenna's requested outfits for their thrilling and inoffensive shooting action. The guy came back totally jazzed out from the fun, and so did pretty much all other actors who faced them, some even talking about a recruitment of sorts, an opportunity to live by another Dark Fountain. Which was, wow, really convenient! Just raised a few little questions, like "Why", "How" and "What". Why was this fountain not okay but another was? Why bother just moving them, why couldn't they stay with this one? Was Tenna gonna be discarded or not, did they have a fountain in the garbage dump? How did they have another fountain, where did that goat kid come from?? What was life going to be in another world, were they even going to fit in??
Was he the only one with questions or was everyone else just better at moving past them?
The Shadowguy's hat suddenly jumped in surprise at the screen. Mike turned around to see Tenna and... some other Shadowguy? Must have been one of the few ones in backstage. Yet another one-sided fight against the trapped Lightners, except they managed to turn the Sharpshoot act on him.
" :-D "
"I get the feeling, but never react like that to your boss getting shot in front of anyone else."
To stress his point, the Shadowguy on set was immediately fired by an even angrier Tenna.
" :-( "
The three fell into silence for a moment, Tenna's rampage continuing in front of them. He could feel the other two looking at him quizzically, because of course they were, Motormouth Mike sure wasn't talking much right now, was he? They expected him to know what to do.
"Stop looking at me like that," because he didn't know what to do, "we can't do anything for now," even though they should, because they were Mike, this is why he had started being Mike, but he didn't know what to do, "you wanna get fired like that other guy? We gotta wait until Tenna gets this out of his stupid system first, and then we can try picking up the pieces," he couldn't imagine ever knowing how to fix this, "he's gonna be all sad when he realize he's making them sad with this, he always is after a freakout, maybe if the Lightners are real nice they'd manage to talk it out, or we can swoop in, say his therapy appointment got moved up, cause man does he NEED it right now, huh? For now, just, keep an eye on everyone else, make sure no one makes it worse out there."
The two headed out with a "you got it, boss" and a salute, and it only made him feel bad. He didn't believe in anything he had said. Tenna had screwed up with the people who already wanted to toss him away. No matter how nice they were, they would never trust him to be in charge again. Move everyone to a new Dark World if they want it, but with no more contracts with Tenna, there's no TV World. With no Tenna in charge, there's no Mike.
He didn't know how much they cared. He didn't want to find out. He'd just keep giving them tasks if they asked.
Maybe then he could keep that cold, numb feeling to himself a little longer.
As it turned out, the end of the world was incredibly boring. At least when you refuse to leave your room, incapable of figuring out how to fix anything.
The Lightners freed themselves on their own. A Zapper's off button obviously couldn't stop Tenna for long (wouldn't that make life easier), but it did loosen his grip on his powers just enough to set everyone off. The staff was dropping like flies, rebelling in front of Tenna and behind his back. So many Pippinses running wild with stolen points. Usually they at least try avoiding the cameras. But the cameras were glitching with static more and more, so maybe they were right to not care.
He still managed to hear bits and pieces of conversations between those who had faced the Lightners. They were really going to be taken to live somewhere else, "Castle Town", that was the name. Didn't sound like a name for a garbage dump, so that was nice. Everyone sounded excited to leave, to escape the total disaster the place had become, to have a kinder ruler. That part sure sounded neat! Would be awesome to skip this excruciatingly long fall and land straight at the happy ending!
Skip to the part where he doesn't have to wonder how much of his life he gets to keep.
He was a Pippins. Being a Pippins wasn't bad. Taking chances, rolling big, chasing excitement, ain't that all a blast! Becoming Mike had been in line with that, a risky gamble that more than one Pippins had joked about at the time. He was just the one that took it seriously.
Researching Mike. Speculating on the gaps. Making costumes, rehearsing lines, putting up an act, a whole new self! Learning the new jobs, all of Tenna's preferences, running himself ragged to keep up with the demands, teaming up with the two idiots who'd put up with sharing the load. Bossing them around to avoid their stupid mistakes, being saved from his own mistakes once in a while, chatting the work hours away. Making up new attack patterns for the fun of it, playing those cat minigames from some old thing they found in storage, making fun of their stupid names, losing his mind when the other two decided they were good nicknames to pick up, you already mess up your names as Mike enough! That was the only name they needed, the one that made them important.
The life they'd built for themselves, starting from a little gamble, grown into something beyond a single die in the pocket of a Lightner. A life that could only come to be on TV World.
How much of it would come with them to a new fountain? The room, the games, their work? He could ask. Any moment now, he could step out of the room and meet the Lightners, like any other Pippins. Except, that was the point, wasn't it? Everyone had already done it, anyone could do it. Whatever the Lightners planned wasn't gonna be changed by him alone, the answers would come anyway once it all ended.
Perhaps he had grown too used to always being behind the scenes, doing only the things no one could. The things Tenna only asked Mike for.
And where the hell were those anyway?
Tenna hadn't called him once since leaving the stage.
Was he mad, that Mike didn't (couldn't, had no clue how to) help? All this work, only to fail miserably when it really mattered? Or was Mike never that important to begin with, not trusted with whatever happened to Toriel, and all the odd things happening that night. Just a stupid little guy, playing conspirator while the real plots happened far away from his cameras.
And still unable to let go, of the room and name and world that gave him purpose. Stuck between wanting to be above the others, and just wanting to receive orders again. Frozen in place as the screens he knew filled with a blizzard of static.
And he did think, oh that's it, of course! That's the cue for the oh-so-awaited petrification, the fitting end of a loser who didn't know how to exist in the world anymore! But no, that stupid fountain had zero sense of dramatic timing! Dragging this thing out as much as it could, just the constant shivering, the annoying weak coughs, and never the climax, a garbage episode padding to fill the runtime. Simply bad TV. And trust him, he knows TV. More than most people ever get to. Not that it did him any good.
What was it waiting for? For him to feel even more hopeless? To watch his world crumble down to the last second? What kept him there when he couldn't find it in himself do a single thing? What was it waiting for? What was he waiting for? Maybe he was just cursed to overthink things forever and never get a single answer.
The doors to the room opened behind him. It took him a while to process that, like he forgot they could do that. He turned around.
Obviously the ones entering were his two partners. There was no one else it could be. Actually, it was weird that they took this long to come back, but then again things were chaotic out there. They could had turned to stone for all he knew, not that he believed it would happen to them.
(He still should've checked. Should have gone after them. Should've done anything that wasn't wallowing over his own incompetence for who knows how long, longing for the orders of someone falling apart even more than himself.)
He turned his head back for a moment, not knowing what to say (alien behavior from someone known as Motormouth). It felt like an illusion had been shattered, the illusion that he was the only one left in the world. He felt teary-eyed even. Weird. Was that shock? Fear? Relief?
"Um, boss? You's alright?" Zapper Mike asked, still right by the door.
"I'm fine," he managed to answer, and then immediately got another coughing fit. Real convincing. "Just, uh," watching the world crumble and drowning in his own fears. Why say that out loud, these bozos didn't deserve to be dragged down with him. "What about you two anyway, how's it going out there? The cameras here are sucking, in case you can't tell, and Tenna won't tell me anything."
"Um, it ain't so good out there either. Nobody's wanna work anymore, dey either partying 'til the world ends, or... Some turned to stone in the Green Room. Dat little guy from the bar, and some Zapper. I dunno why some go before the others, but everyone kinda expects it now. We's just hopin' the Lightners know what dey doing."
Oh.
Everyone else was just as worried, weren't them? Why did he think he was special? It was everyone's world that was ending.
"So," are you two okay? How do you even notice a Zapper or Shadowguy is losing color anyway?? He wasn't ready to hear the answer. "you think things will really work out? Castle Town, the Lightners...?"
"We been investigatin' dem. Dey look like good kids," behind them, Shadowguy Mike gave a thumbs up in agreement, "I dunno what’s with the town though. You's always been the best at investigatin' stuff, we’s hopin' you help out when we get there."
"Yeah. I should've been there to help out today too, I'm sorry."
There was a time when he enjoyed wandering aimless around every corner of TV World, looking for any mystery or random happenstance to entertain himself. It was how he'd met his two friends, and probably other things that were fun to him then. Before the role of Mike took over his life, and gave him a direction, a bigger purpose. But being bigger also made the fall a lot more terrifying.
This had to be how Tenna felt, too.
"So," he turned back to the screen and the control panel under them. "I'm gonna try talking to Tenna. Not sure it will work, but maybe he calmed down, maybe we can avoid a total disaster, mediate things with the Lightners. I'm tired of doing nothing while it all goes under. If it doesn't work, and he gets really mad, then, it was great being Mike with you two this far."
He began switching channels on the center screen, trying to find some hint of Tenna's whereabouts through the horrible static. Every time the screen flickered black from a switch, he could see the reflection of his partners behind him, blushing a ridiculous shade of pink at his praise just then. Hard to believe they ate that sappy stuff so earnestly, but having felt how much it sucked to be left alone with nothing but his thoughts, all he could think was that he should say it a bit more often.
The image became slightly clearer as he got to a camera at the very edge of TV World. A good sign, Tenna should be near. He squinted at the screen, trying to make out the blobs of pale colors under the noise. Thankfully, Tenna was massive and bright red against the darkness of the purple cliffs, so he was easier to see, though Mike couldn't make out his expression. Below him was, something orange? And something white? But those two went away, and it was hard to make out Tenna's words through the bad signal. Was it bad both ways? Would Tenna even hear him like that? Then again, all the tech issues came from his loosing grip on the world. He just had to give a sign he was still there, Mike was still there, always there, never not there! He could give Tenna hope. At least a bit. It had to mean something to him.
Mike turned on a spotlight, the closest one he had to where Tenna should be.
The buzz from the speakers died at once, without even a final pop.
The screen image had never looked sharper, as if the depths of the world's edge were right in front of him. The sudden stillness sucked away his breath for a moment, leaving nothing but dread. Tenna too, was rigid, frozen in the middle of a familiar tantrum pose, head in hands, knees bent, but no sign of his booming voice, his overblown motions. Only his antenna twitched, as if picking up a signal no one else could hear.
He looked up to the spotlight directly, yet his face remained pitch-black, darker than the world beyond him, but not deeper. Dull and empty.
"M... Mike?" Finally, he broke the silence! "Mike, you... you're leaving, too!?"
Wait, what?
"MIKE!! NO!! ANYONE BUT YOU!! ANYONE!!"
As fast as his desperate screams began booming from the speakers, they ceased, every screen turning off. It was the room itself that seemed to be filling with static, specks of translucent white falling like snowflakes, far too gentle for what they meant, for the way the world had grown dim and dark, the way everything had become unbearably cold.
Tenna had given up. No more favorites, no more trusted assistants. Mike had been too little too late. Or hadn't been properly Mike. Or had been the wrong kind of Mike. Or there had been another Mike screwing things up. Or...
Before he could dive deeper into panic-induced theories, he heard an odd, crunchy sound. And then something shift behind him.
He turned back as much as he could to see his Zapper friend toppling over, single leg turned to stone. Shadowguy Mike, gasping dramatically at first, was still fast enough to catch them before they hit the floor. Cat-like reflexes, you could say. He laid Zapper Mike down gently, sitting by their side also in a cat-like way, feet and a hand close together, the other hand placed by the Zapper's shoulder, as it watched them with a worried expression.
And Motormouth Mike, well, of course he was worried too, of course he wanted to check on them, had a hand stretched out and everything.
However, his feet, then his legs, were suddenly quite heavy. And numb. And impossible to move.
"Are. You. KIDDING ME!?" He'd had enough. "NOW!? I sulk in this stupid room with my stupid thoughts and now that I'm back on my game I don't belong here anymore!? Who gets to decide that!? I could do better! I could learn to do better, I learned all this!" He punched the control panel between every shout, as if that hot burning rage could melt the stone enveloping him. "Who makes all these rules!? Who makes the fountains!? Why did it have to go like this! I could figure it out! I could figure it ALL out! If you just! Gave! Me! More! Time!"
The stone cold interrupted him with another coughing fit, the audacity, he had to keep talking, to keep burning, it was all he had left to do, all he was, Motormouth Mike! Or maybe it wasn't, but it was the thing he wanted to be, the one he came up with himself! If he was meant to be just a die, why could he do this in the first place!?
But it was Zapper Mike's —oh, screw it, fat load of good being Mike is right now—
, Jongler's voice, weak and raspy, that broke the silence this time, "I think you's gonna hurt if you keep screaming like this, we, um, ain't in good shape right now."
"Like I can't see that! What, you want me to not be mad?! We worked so hard! All this time! I did everything he wanted! It helped everyone, we did it for everyone, remember? And now you mean I got too into it, I should've cared less, just live it up with the rest of the Pippinses? I get the hint then, let me step out of the room! Why tell me that and not let me fix it, it's not fair!"
Jongler coughed, the stone still creeping up their body, halfway through their chest. "...I was gonna go anyway, I think, 'cause I'm a Zapper. We work for TV, and we don'ts change easy. This Mike business was more of the same for me, 'cept I got to hang out with you small guys for a change. I know some Zappers left anyway, but I didn't feel like it, I wanted to be in this room 'til the end anyway."
" :-) "
Cat Mike —Pluey, whatever— squeezed Jongler's shoulder, leaning closer to them to show them a smile. It wasn't the usual big grin of Shadowguys, but still a sweet attempt at comfort, its way of saying everything would be okay.
"I'm making everything worse for you two, aren't I? Screaming your ears off 'til the very end. The credits just started to roll, the audience crying while the saddest violins play in the background, and some lunatic starts raving mad because he dropped his popcorn all over the floor. Like, yeesh, get a load of this guy, I wouldn't wanna be stuck with him in my final moments! That's me, I'm the guy. I'm sorry."
Pluey turned that sweet smile to him, swaying as if it could hear the violins from his simile. Always dancing to some ambiance, that one, even if no one else could hear a thing. It usually pissed him off, how could it just chill there when there was work to do, idiot! But with work done (forever, maybe), it was just a familiar, cozy sight.
"We don't mind you talking, boss," Jongler continued, "we know you's the one who talks, and you talk good. We couldn't do any of this without you. Just don't wants you to talk stuff that makes you feel worse."
A stupid smile crept on his face along with blushing cheeks. He played it off with a cheekier grin and a wink. "Haha, what's with the sappy stuff all of a sudden, this isn't the Pushing Buddies segment," but the small warmth was more than welcome at the moment. "Though we could all use a push right now, am I right? Kinda awkward staring at you guys across the room. I hear you though, no more moping around, you get the best of the Motormouth now, 'til you forget all the doom and gloom of this fountain business. 'sides, not like it's the end, right? We’ve got a lot to look forward in the next world! If we don't get to take the room, we'll have to build a new one, bigger and better! We could set up those minigames too, I bet the Lightners would like them!"
He still didn't have that much confidence in their future, but fake it 'til you make it was his life motto, wasn't it? And it was odd, to put up that high energy without a costume, but it wasn't bad. He never found much on the real Mike, the Motormouth persona was his creation, one he enjoyed in ways he never expected.
He wasn't fully ready to stop being this Mike, nor fully ready to become Battat or whatever else. But he'd figure it out, he'd build something new out of every part of himself until it mattered, until it belonged somewhere. He deserved that.
And if he could entertain a pair of bozos in the mean time, all the better.
"I'd like that, the games are good fun," replied one of the bozos, while the other raised a pair of enthusiastic thumbs up. A gesture that revealed his feet, previously hidden by his cat-like pose, had already turned to stone as well.
Stupid cat, keeping his chill even at times like this. It was still so horribly cold. He suddenly had a stupid, embarrassing idea about it, but before he could follow the impulse or reject it, the speakers blared to life once more, with a familiar voice and theme song.
He spun his head to see all the screens back on, tuned in to the same sight, the same showman, the same small set with no audience filling the seats.
Tenna had began a final showdown with the Lightners. And even as he rampaged and hurt them, he couldn't resist making it a game. Giving them points at every action, faltering at every crumb of positive attention.
Their job was truly getting old, huh?
"Mike, if you're still here... ban everyone from the gift shop!"
And of course his final words to him would be just more orders. Too bad, boss, Mike had clocked out for once. Battat decided to follow that stupid impulse of before.
He had no legs to work with anymore, but dice never needed those to get around, nor did they need a push. They rolled.
He prepared, bending his upper body backwards as much as he could, and tossed himself at the ground. Maybe in the Light World physics didn't work like that, and the weight of his legs would have kept him in place. But this wasn't the Light World. It was a place where he could tumble across the room like the limbless toy cube he was, followed by a sequence of wacky sound effects, landing next to his catguy friend with a poof of cartoon smoke and a splat noise.
Regular hijinks for Mike's room, really.
But since the situation was dire this time, his two buddies looked pretty concerned at him. He pulled his chest up as much as he could (the stone already slowly creeping up), flashing the biggest grin he could muster, and it was genuine. "I'm fine, can't follow orders anyway so why stick around for the yelling? Mike can grovel for forgiveness next time, right now I kinda wanted... Somewhere a bit warmer."
Sure enough his face had heated up again, and the two looked a bright pink as well. Pluey threw an arm around his neck, and the other around Jongler's stone waist, or at least as far over it as the Shadowguy could reach, Zappers are big, and none of them could move much at the moment. They must have looked really awkward, a pile of clumsy kittens huddling together against the snow.
On screen, the Lightners seemed to be reaching the end, Tenna's onslaught of challenges growing faster and unfocused, until he gave up, face fully unguarded from their final finger gun assault. They sure had kept their spirits up despite any garbage Tenna pulled against them. If the future of every Darkner depended on them from there on, well, they weren't the worst heroes to have, for sure.
"Heh. You were right Pluey, the Sharpshoot act does look pretty cool."
And he was still smiling as the stone finished overtaking them.