Chapter Text
The leader of each Dark World is undoubtably their most important Darkner. In the absence of a Fountain and the determination of the Lightners that comes with it, the will of the leader, nearly always the object that receives the most attention, is what shapes the aimless darkness into a proper society.
In the early days of the Dreemurr household, before Asriel was born and Kris came into their lives, the living room Dark World was a cold and barren place. Only when the Holidays gifted the newlywed Toriel and Asgore with a brand-new television did the world brighten up. Tenna gave the Darkners of the newly formed TV World structure and purpose the day he built his studio atop the purple cliffs. Darkners of all shapes and sizes came to work under his command, and despite him not being the best boss one could ask for, it would be a lie to say they weren’t content.
Until the day Tenna was unplugged.
They had all seen it coming. One by one, Lightners stopped gathering around Tenna’s glow until it was only Toriel who ever bothered to watch, and even she would only dedicate half her attention to him, relegated to background noise, second fiddle to the dishes. Darkners are subject to the will of their Lightners, of course, and it isn’t their place to complain, but… it hit the old CRT hard. New episodes of TV Time stopped production altogether, Tenna not seeing a point in broadcasting into the darkness without the eyes of his precious family watching. Instead, he had taken to holing himself up in the more remote corners of TV World. It wasn’t uncommon to come across a small, glooby CRT wailing alone in the frozen wastes, and he would have to be dragged back to his proper room with a soft body to cuddle and a listening ear to hear his woes before he would calm down enough to sleep.
He wasn’t in any of his usual haunts that day. Battat checked. The cold place, the metal desert, and the purple cliffs were all devoid of a certain (relatively) tiny television. The broadcast day was over, Lanino and Elnina having stepped in to host before playing reruns for the rest of their airtime, and, well, leaving Tenna alone overnight in his current state wasn’t ever a good idea, so finding him was each Mike’s topmost priority. Pluey and Jongler came up empty-handed. Battat was beginning to worry that he would, too, if this last hiding spot turned out empty as well.
Tentatively, he placed a gloved hand up against the familiar screen in the southern section of the studio and pushed. The hidden door gave way, revealing the path leading to the bonus zone. Many parties had been held there in the past, but now it was overrun by an eerie silence. Even the most rambunctious of Pippinses couldn’t find it in themselves to run amok in these conditions, it seemed.
Battat checked inside of each empty chest. Tenna was most definitely gloobier than usual, for him to be this difficult to find, so Battat figured he would likely be small enough to fit inside one. No luck. Not that he ever had much to begin with. He reached the corridor that filtered back out into TV World proper, already formulating plans for a wider search in his head when-
Oh.
Oh no.
Hands trembling, Battat slowly removed his Mike mask and stared. Maybe if he stared long enough, it would go away.
Tenna’s petrified form stood vigil in front of the cupboard, hands clutching… something, and next to him, next to the remains of the most important person in all of their lives, sitting as if nothing was wrong, was Ramb.
“What in the Angel’s name is wrong with you?!” Battat shrieked. “Do something!”
Ramb lazily met Battat’s gaze without making a single attempt to move. His plug-tail idly thumped against the creaking wood floors. “Oi, Batts. Care to have a sit? Awfully comfortable.”
Battat couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He knew the Plugboy was never Tenna’s biggest fan, but he had been at least somewhat fond of him! They all were! Suddenly hit with a wave of righteous fury, Battat stormed up to Ramb and grabbed him by the collar before forcing him to his feet.
“You’re just going to sit there and let him petrify!?” He demanded. “Not even try to do anything!?”
“Let him?” Ramb parroted with a chuckle. “Mate, he was like this when I found him. He’s gone, and if I had to take a guess I’d say you knew that already.”
Ramb’s tail threaded itself between Battat’s legs and pulled taut, sending both darkners to the ground. Ramb landed on his feet, looking down at the green Pippins.
“Soon enough, the rest of us will go with him. Won’t be long now, the way things are going. So, I’ll ask again. Care to have a sit?”
Battat scowled. He hated when Ramb was right. Things were already noticeably worse, darker and colder and with a tension in the air you could cut with a plastic knife. Without a lynchpin of a darkner like Tenna to give everyone purpose, the vast majority of them had no chance. TV World was doomed to crumble back into the wasteland it was before.
Battat sat. Ramb joined him a moment later. Angel above, he wished he had a cigarette.
They sat in silence for what felt like an eternity before Battat dared to break it.
“I don’t like this.” He said.
“Who would?” Ramb asked. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t at least a tad nervous about what comes next.”
“I don’t want to die.” Battat stated, plainly.
“We don’t die, Batts.” Ramb corrected.
“I don’t want to die, Ramb.” Battat hissed through gritted teeth.
Ramb, for once in his life, shut his mouth.
Good, Battat thought. More time to think of a solution. Ramb may be determined to lay down and die but Battat was nothing if not capable of working under pressure. For all he knew, there could be some way to come back from petrification that they just hadn’t heard of yet, and good ol’ reliable Mike just needed to hold down the fort for a little while until Tenna got back on his feet. Mike could do that! He could keep everyone in TV World calm and structured and happy enough to stay sentient while he waits for the real leader to have his comeback special! Tenna would be so happy upon his triumphant return that Battat could see the flower bloom at the tip of his nose already!
“Ramb.” Battat said decidedly. “Help me get him.”
Ramb, who had apparently been relaxed enough to rest his eyes, cracked one open to look at Battat incredulously. “Pardon?”
“Too many Pippinses know how to get in here, so we can’t let him stay.” Battat stated as if it was the most logical thing in the world. He was hardly even focused on the Plugboy at all, instead paying most of his attention to his earpiece. “Jongler, I need you to make sure not a soul leaves the Green Room for the next thirty minutes or so.”
Upon hearing confirmation from the other side of the line, Battat rose, shooting an expectant look at Ramb. Ramb rolled his eyes but elected to humor him and followed suit. He couldn’t help the little snort that involuntarily came out as he watched the smaller-than-average Pippins attempt to lift a solid stone statue of a darkner that, even while shrunken, was still taller than him by a significant amount.
“You're serious about this, mate? Just going to pretend nothing’s wrong and hope the problem goes away?”
Battat switched positions and tried to push the Tenna statue from behind. Without any leverage, it didn’t budge. “Better than sitting around and waiting for the end! Anything’s better than that!”
Ramb got that terrible, smug look on his face that Battat was sure was half the reason why all of the reasonable darkners avoided associating with him. “Oh yeah? I don’t suppose you and your partners are going to try to roleplay as both Tenna and Mike, huh? How well do you think that’ll go?” Ramb drawled.
Angel above, Battat wanted to strangle him. “We’re not going to! …Pretend to be Tenna, at least. We’re going to hold down the fort and stop everyone from dying out in the cold while we find out a way to get him back!” He retorted, “And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll help!”
“And what, exactly, is that supposed to mean?” Ramb questioned, straightening his back to rise to his full height.
“Are you trying to find out!?”
CHRRR CHRRRR…
Before their argument could progress into something more physical, a loud, strange, heavily bitcrushed clucking made itself known. From Tenna’s statue. For a moment, Battat allowed himself to hope. Maybe the boss had heard them and decided that now was no time for sleeping, clearly tensions were running far too high without him there!
Alas, he quickly discovered the source of the sound to be the weird blue… something, that Tenna had been tightly clutching when he petrified. The object now had a series of thin cracks forming a spiderweb across its surface. Battat hoped that all his attempts to move Tenna weren’t responsible for the damage to whatever had been so important to him.
In all of his investigating, Battat failed to notice that Ramb had gone stock-still the instant he heard the sound. He didn’t register the Plugboy’s presence in the room again until Ramb had picked him up by the scruff of his poncho and set him down a comfortable distance away from Tenna’s thing, right as he was about to poke it with a tentative claw.
“What’s the big idea!?!” He shouted, but he didn’t get the chance to work himself up into a proper tirade because Ramb had already walked to the opposite side of Tenna and hoisted him off the ground with relative ease. He was far stronger than he ever let on to the average TV Worlder, that was for sure.
Ramb quirked a furry eyebrow at the Pippins. “Well? You getting your side or am I just meant to stand here and look mental?”
Battat startled a bit at the sudden complacency, almost finding it in himself to be suspicious that a hard-headed geezer like Ramb suddenly gave up on something he was set on, but he quickly found himself giggling and fixing his tie. He really can’t get enough of his guys listening to him, he could bark out orders all day just to see them follow-
“Batts!”
“R-right, coming!”
If Ramb was correct, and he honestly wasn’t sure if he wanted to be or not, a baby was about to be born. A baby who, if Ramb was correct, really had no business hatching so late after a certain deadbeat salesman ran off. Of course, there was always the possibility that some other Addison had managed to crawl their way into TV World just to knock up Tenna but, well, Ramb wasn’t exactly getting his hopes up.
He had, admittedly, always been closer to Spamton than he had ever been with Tenna. He supposed there was a sense of solidarity that came with being migrants from Cyber World. That, or the fact that they were both odd ones out among their species, and they both knew deep down that everyone who hated them had good reason to do so. The two of them were more alike than the salesman had ever cared to admit, which is exactly why Ramb could never say he blamed Spamton for leaving, despite the fact he never did find out the exact reason why he left. He could understand leaving Tenna behind, even if in hindsight it was likely the first nail in the CRT’s metaphorical coffin, and the Angel knows he could understand wanting to get away from an uppity Plugboy like himself, but he had to admit that leaving a clearly fertilized egg was a bit much, even for him.
He had considered telling Battat about the soon-to-be newcomer into their little group but, sue him, he had the right to be a little petty every once in a while, especially after being turned into a glorified pack mule by a neurotic little Pippins who had long given up on even pretending to put any sort of effort into carrying his half of their boss’s not a corpse, they aren’t really alive so they don’t leave corpses statue, and was now walking ahead of him whilst going on and on about something or other. Normally Ramb would take great pleasure in listening to Battat’s rambles, but at the moment he only found it grating. He hoped it was just the stress. Despite everything, he quite liked Battat. He would hate for a terrible situation like this to ruin a friendship that he was sure kept him from turning to stone himself ages ago.
Now that he thought about it, Battat had slipped neatly into the hole that Spamton left in his life all those years ago, and Ramb hadn’t even noticed. Funny how things work out.
They arrived at the door to Mike’s room with little fanfare. Jongler did a phenomenal job of herding any prying eyes away from their little corner of the Dark World. Battat punched in the code- 6453 if he remembered correctly, a bit on the nose- and when the heavy steel doors cracked open Ramb was met with the sight of Pluey, who had evidently been standing in the entryway, waiting for them.
Pluey was a bit of an odd bloke, but not for the reasons most other Darkners tended to cite. His silence compared to the constant musical voices of other Shadowguys wasn’t particularly strange, considering he kept company that included a green Pippins with an aversion to gambling and a buttonless Zapper who was too laid back to enforce Tenna’s rules. His fascination with cats, despite not having cat ears himself, was also something that he could dismiss as less strange than some of his own interests.
No, the odd things about Pluey were the sort that required very specific knowledge to notice, in such a way that Ramb couldn’t be sure if the Shadowguy intended for him to pick up on them at all. Things like his affinity for the colors pink and yellow. The only other place that Ramb had seen the combination was on the pair of sunglasses that Spamton wore religiously during the later half of his time in TV World, and as far as he was aware, Pluey never got the chance to meet Spamton in person.
Another oddity was quickly added to the list at that moment. The way the Shadowguy was staring at Tenna. Even assuming that Battat had briefed him on the situation through their radio channel when Ramb hadn’t been paying attention, most Darkners would have an adverse reaction to seeing the petrified remains of another. Ramb could feel Pluey’s gaze boring into him as he kicked a cat statue aside to make room for Tenna, and he didn’t look surprised in the slightest. If anything, he almost looked relieved.
If Ramb didn’t know any better, he’d say Pluey knew this was coming.
That hardly made any sense, though. Barring Battat, Pluey was probably Tenna’s biggest fan. He severely doubted he was the sort to plot something like this.
CHRRRRR CHRRRR…
Ah. He didn’t exactly have time to ponder, did he?
The egg, still clutched in Tenna’s petrified hands, was moving now. Gingerly, Ramb pried it away from his cold, stone embrace and inspected it with the softest paws he could manage. There was a tiny chip in the surface of the shell, through which he could see the telltale Addison glow. White. He hadn’t expected anything else, but seeing it in person invoked the sort of bittersweet nostalgia he typically reserved for fond memories of Kris.
Battat joined Pluey in his staring, silent for the first time in his life. Ramb suddenly regretted not mentioning this little issue earlier. He didn’t even want to think about explaining this to Jongler after the fact. It was a bit too late to do anything about it, however, as the young Addison had decided their time was now. With two Mikes watching intently over his shoulders, Ramb held the newborn Darkner steady as their little nose pipped through the shell of the egg, widening the hole just enough for them to shove their head through the gap.
Tenna’s genes clearly hadn’t put up much of a fight. The baby was a young Spamton’s spitting image, pearly white feathers untouched by cheap box dye, the beginnings of a crest that curved backwards just like his, even down to the baby’s squinted eyes, yet to open for the first time. The only traits from Tenna that Ramb immediately noticed were the pair of curved antennae that sprouted from their head and the way their glow seemed to be filtered through fuzzy TV static.
There was complete silence in Mike’s room for just a moment, as if the darkness itself had stopped to admire the newborn, before the spell was broken. Shrill cries burst from the infant before they even finished breaking out of their shell.
The three adult Darkners all snapped out of their collective trance in an instant, Ramb rushing to comfort the newborn as Pluey flailed about the room, searching for a way to make himself useful. Battat, mid-panic, rapidly switched between pointing to Ramb, to Tenna, and to their newest addition, as he screamed out a question that he likely spoke for Pluey as well.
“Since when did Tenna have a kid?!?”