Chapter Text
A chirping alarm cuts through the silence, slowly waking Battat up. He reaches out an arm to slam down on the clock, cutting it off. Ugh. He is not a morning person. Especially when he gets so little sleep. Battat sits up, getting out of bed. He quickly throws on some clothes and walks out the door of his room.
Another day in the TV Studio. He should hurry up and get to his “office” so he can be Mike. Same routine, every day. It gets tiring, but it’s preferable to the stress of a mixed up schedule.
He walks into the studio, moving quickly to get to the unceremoniously dubbed “Mike Room” that was his office. No one but he, Pluey, and Jongler ever came in here. They weren’t supposed to, it was the Mike Room, not the Public Access Room!
Walking in, he sees he’s once again the first one here. Might as well get into costume right now.
Pluey walks in a few moments later, waving hello. As soon as Pluey is in costume, he flops onto the ground and starts playing with the yarn balls.
“Hey boss!” Jongler says as they walk in the door next. They’re already in costume, but they’re missing something.
“Jongler. Your bowtie,” Battat says tiredly, pointing at the empty space where their bowtie should be.
“Oh yeahs! Sorry, guess I forgot it,” Jongler says, hopping towards the door. “I’ll go get it.”
“At least change back into your normal self if you’re going to be walking back to your home!!” Battat insists. “We have to be CAREFUL!”
“Oops.”
Pluey meanwhile, continues to play with the yarn balls on the ground.
While Jongler’s out, he might as well go bring Tenna his coffee.
In costume now, Battat speed walks down the hallway, carrying a hot cup of coffee. He’s gotta get this to Tenna quick, so the show can start! Today wasn’t anything special, just regular programs like the weather, but Tenna was always expecting everyone to put as much effort in as they could. So he has to hurry.
As he’s walking, he walks past a sign on the floor. Probably not important-
Before he can finish that thought, he slips on the wet floor that he had completely ignored the warning of, falling backwards as the coffee goes flying out of his hands. He yelps, landing flat on his back, the coffee also landing and spilling everywhere.
Battat immediately sits up, looking around to see if anyone had seen that. No one in sight. He got lucky. But also, terribly unlucky, because now there’s coffee all over the floor and nothing to bring to Tenna.
Well. Time to get a new one.
“Tenna! Tenna, I got your coffee, your cup of joe, your morning concoction of grounded up beans!” Battat as Mike says, running in. “Ready to start today's shows? I am! I reviewed the schedule, looks like we’re starting with the weather and then doing a cooking program, and then moving on to a few reruns before doing a horror movie marathon!”
Tenna’s standing there, directing everyone on where to go and what to do. “Thanks, Mike! I knew I could count on you.”
He doesn’t have to tell him about how this is actually the second cup of coffee.
“Anyway, scratch the reruns. Replace it with the music channel, we can’t have reruns, we can’t have people getting bored,” Tenna says.
“You got it, Tenna!” Battat says, crossing out the incorrect parts of the schedule. This would have been great to know the previous day, but what can you do. Battat can barely even remember the previous day, when did he plan this again? Well, now wasn’t the time to try and remember yesterday, there were more important things to do.
“Where’s Elnina and Lanino? We need them here ASAP!” Tenna says. Since the coffee was cool enough now, he sticks his nose into it, slurping it up like it’s some sort of proboscis.
“We’re here, Tenna!” Lanino says, he and Elnina quickly running in.
“Good! You’re up first.”
“I’ll be working backstage!” Battat says, and then runs off to go do that. His help is always needed behind the scenes. He leaves behind Tenna to direct everyone as he goes to the tech room, setting up what’s needed.
He can see everything on the cameras, he’s just about to start broadcasting when something falls from above, crashing into the stage.
“Holy macaroni! What was that!” Tenna yells, as everyone else backs away from whatever fell.
Upon closer inspection, it appears to be a stage light.
“Ah, just a light falling,” Tenna says, looking down at the broken fixture. “We’re lucky it didn’t hit anyone! It was probably just an accident, it’s not like we have our very own “Phantom of the Opera” here, right? I don’t think anything else will happen.”
Then the lights go out. All of them. And the stage is engulfed in darkness.
“Oh.”
“What the hell?” Battat says from his spot backstage. It looks like a power outage, since every light was off.
“Mike! Mike, can you hear me?” Tenna says over the headset. “Okay, I think I’m getting through, it’s just the lights! Do you think you could fix that for me?”
Of course he had to do it. He was the only competent one anyway. No one else would be able to fix this. Battat sighs, and stands up. Better drop the costume off first. No use scurrying around in it when one of the other Mikes could take over for him while he gets this done.
After doing that, Battat needed to figure out where the hell the power could be. This TV Studio didn’t really follow real world logic, it could be anywhere. Maybe in the electrical room. Yeah, that had to be it.
Battat is lucky he knows his way around the studio. He has to, if he’s the one in charge behind the scenes as Mike. It doesn’t take long for him to get to electrical, pushing past anyone standing in the way in the dark. He’s brought a flashlight with him too.
“Let’s see…” he mutters to himself, going over and looking at the mess of electrical systems. He opens up the fusebox, and sure enough, one seems to be dead. He has to get another one, and there’s only one place he knows that may or may not have it.
Battat stands at the entrance to the basement.
“What TV studio even has a basement?” he mutters to himself. He takes out the flashlight, and descends down the stairs like a protagonist of a mediocre horror game.
Now, Battat would like to consider himself a brave darkner. A trip into a dark basement shouldn’t be scary at all.
Yet Battat can’t help but feel watched. Like there’s something else in the basement looking right at him.
He turns around, shining the flashlight across the dark room.
Nothing.
He really hates this.
Battat continues walking, he has no idea where a spare fuse might be. Not that anyone really would, the power NEVER goes out. It doesn’t even make any sense!
His thinking is interrupted by the crashing sound of something falling over. He yelps, quickly swinging his flashlight to shine on the source. What? What? What was it? Was something down here with him???
It’s just a few random props.
He sighs, relaxing. But wait. Battat frowns. What caused it to fall over?
….He’ll think about that once he’s OUT of this basement! Back to finding that fuse.
Battat finds a box on the shelf, it’s labeled “spare electrical stuff”. He reaches up to grab it, pulling it down and then shining his flashlight on it.
“Probably shouldn’t just have these mixed in a box,” he mutters, digging through the collection. Ah! Here’s one. That was quick. Now he can get out of here.
Battat puts the box back (on a lower shelf), but as he turns around, he glimpses something retreating into the darkness.
What.
What.
What.
He’s not dealing with this.
Battat runs towards the stairs as fast as he can, almost tripping as he moves quickly up the staircase and out the basement door. He slams the door shut behind him.
Breath out. He was probably just seeing things, and regardless, he’s safe now.
“What, was a monster chasing you back up?” says a voice from nearby. It’s a pippins, snickering at Battat’s panicked exit from the basement.
“Shut up. At least I’m doing something about this power outage,” he grumbles, and walks away, leaving the pippins behind.
It’s an easy fix, just replacing the broken fuse with the new one, and then Battat flips the switch. The lights flicker on. Finally.
Battat walks back towards where he last left Tenna and everyone else.
“Mike, you did it!” Tenna says, picking Pluey up and into a hug. Seems like he had taken over being Mike in Battat’s absence. Battat can’t help but feel a pang of jealousy at that- he was the one who fixed everything, he should be getting that attention. Ugh. It’s fine. As long as he gets the job done.
“Now things can go back to normal! There sure were some strange occurrences today, but we aren’t going to let that stop us, right?” Tenna continues.
Lanino laughs awkwardly, while Elnina gives a thumbs up.
“That’s the spirit!” Tenna says, choosing to ignore how awkward that was. “Back to work everyone!!! It’s time for the weather!”
Battat gets back to the Mike room, taking off the head of the costume and setting it to the side. Today had been horrible, and it wasn’t getting any better.
“Boss? You don’t looks so good,” Jongler says, standing a few feet away. “Are youse okay?”
“I’m fine,” Battat replies shortly, getting out the theory board. He barely had any time to get any new leads today.
“Are you sure? ‘Cause you look like you got only a few hours of sleep again,” Jongler points out. Pluey walks into the room as well, all three of them are here now.
“I said I’m fine. Besides, I can’t sleep when I’m left with so much to do and no time to research this mystery,” Battat says. He can’t even add anything to the corkboard right now. He found nothing. Except maybe that thing in the basement. He doesn’t really want to think about if that was real or the shadows playing tricks on him. “The last thing I put down was the theory that they’re blending up zappers to put into the tvslop. I don’t even know how that connects to anythi- wait, wait I know-”
Battat stops talking as he moves a red string over to another piece of paper with his theories written down on it.
“Uhhh okay. I thinks youse need to take a break,” Jongler says awkwardly. Pluey nods.
“No, not when I’m thinking.”
“Maybe because youse been gettin’ less sleep your theories are… wrong?” Jongler suggests.
Battat pauses.
“Don’t say that! Like you’d know anything, rubberbrain. You barely help with these investigations!” Battat says accusatorily. “Neither of you do! I’m the only one actually doing research around here!”
Pluey pops off the gloves of his costume so he can add to the argument.
”No, I agree with Jongler. This mystery is taking over your life,” he signs. ”Take a break.”
“I’m the one in charge here, I don’t have to listen! And I’m saying that I’m fine! None of you are any help!”
The door opens.
“Mike! Sorry for dropping by unannounced, but I-”
It’s Tenna.
The room goes dead quiet, as all three fake Mikes stand there half out of their costumes.
Why didn’t he knock this time.
“I- What?” Tenna says, not entirely sure what to think.
“Tenna! Tenna I can explain, it’s fine! It’s not what you think!” Battat tries to say quickly. “We’re uhhh just dressing up as Mike because we think he’s so cool! Yeah!”
“Then why are you in his room? And why do you have such a similar voice?” Tenna asks. He sounds the quietest that Battat has ever heard him.
“I uhhh-”
“I need to go,” Tenna says, and then turns around and leaves.
There’s even more silence after that.
“Do you uhhh think he took it well?” Jongler asks.
“ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING???” Battat yells. He’s panicking. “Tenna just found us out! I have no idea what he thinks or if he believes me! What if he doesn't! He just found out his most trusted friend assistant whatever guy is FAKE! We’re dead. He’s going to kill us.”
Battat gets out of the costume. This stupid costume. Why was he wearing it. He feels like an idiot.
“I’m leaving. Don’t follow me and don’t talk to me. I’m enjoying our last bits of freedom before Tenna decides what to do about us.”
Battat gets back to his home, unlocking the door, going to his room, and immediately falling onto the bed face first.
His life is OVER.
Everything he was working towards just gone in an instant because he wasn’t careful enough. How could he be so stupid??? This was so preventable.
What’s he going to do now?
Eventually, because of how tired he’s been, he drifts off to sleep.
There’s no way this can get any worse.
This is only the beginning. Or is it an ending?