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One of two things tended to happen when Tenna had a meltdown as big as he had the night before. Either he'd show up begging his employees to take him back again — usually making himself out to be the victim of his own outburst — or he'd cut people off, just like that. It had happened before. Shuttah had been around longer than any of them, even before Tenna himself. Sometimes Shuttah spoke about old friends who'd worked alongside it, until Tenna had just dropped them after some fight or other, like they never even existed at all. And then there had been the whole thing with that mail guy. Ugh. That one had been so bad people still talked about the fallout! And the mail guy was as good as dead, Tenna had even locked up the room he used to stay in.
Okay, maybe Battat hadn't actually been around when that had all happened, but Pluey had, and he could put the pieces together well enough on his own anyways. It was always a disaster. And the worst part was there was no way of guessing which way Tenna would go about all this, no way of stacking the odds in their favour. It was completely random! Even if there WAS some pattern, if there WAS some way Battat could figure it out (and he had tried) it didn't matter because things were completely different this time around! This time he'd lost his friends, his show, his home... This was untested waters in the marvellous world of Tenna 'episodes' and even Mike couldn't have known what to expect.
It was kind of unnerving not knowing how things were going to shake out (although he was sure they didn't have to worry, right?). All day Pluey and Jongler had been debating whether Mike should go see Tenna first up at the castle, or if it would be better to just wait it out until he'd composed himself. It was hard to be certain, so Battat had just made himself busy trying to figure out their next move instead. Tenna would need Mike at some point — he always did — and they had to be ready.
As Mike, the three of them had a pretty good thing going, and none of them wanted to lose it. Sure, Tenna was annoying, and demanding, and basically completely insane, but Mike himself was never short on praise and affection working for a guy like that. A-and besides, Mike was how the three of them had gotten started, Mike was the glue that held them all together, there had to be a Mike! Without Mike where would they even be? Where would they end up? There couldn't be no Mike, no Jongler or Pluey? He'd lose his marbles like that!
Well it didn't matter! Tenna had shown up anyways, like he knew he would, giving Pluey and Battat all of three seconds to scurry out of the spotlight before his big square head was poking through the door to Mike's room.
"Mike! There's my star crew member! I've been looking all over for you." Tenna spun into the room with a flourish before stopping short with a sheepish grin. Oh yeah, he was feeling guilty about last night. Battat could tell plain as dark even from were they were hiding — behind a couple old filing cabinets and a pile of hats.
"Here I am, Boss." Jongler was on Mike duty today. "I'm Mike."
They really had to stop saying stuff like that! Battat sighed, and behind him Pluey giggled out a few quiet notes. Sometimes he really thought he was the only one who took this seriously.
But it was fine! Just fine! Jongler was the best of them at comforting Tenna when he got all... mopey and neurotic. Which he was going to do, obviously, because he'd finally shown up!
It wasn't like Battat could just poke his head around the cabinets and watch everything as it unfolded, but Tenna was tall enough he could be seen just fine as he stalled for time by pretending to adjust his tie. All in all, their boss was pretty terrible at apologies.
"What's on your mind, Boss?" Jongler prompted, the spitting image of an attentive Mike. Tenna took the opportunity instantly.
"Why, you're on my mind of course! Why wouldn't you be? My star employee, my right hand man, I just can't stop thinking about you, Mike!" Bad at apologies, but plenty good at flattery. At least he wasn't the one who had to deal with it today.
"Listen Mike, I don't know what you've heard about some other folks quitting," Tenna continued, static lacing through his tone as a betrayal of his nerves. "but I'm here to tell you that you don't need to worry about it! You don't need to quit, because I've ripped up the contracts! Every last one!" He finished bombastically, almost frantically, before adding as an afterthought "A-and the rest Kris shredded with a lawnmower."
Hang on, that wasn't an apology. It wasn't even a bad apology. What was going on? Why was he rambling on about contracts, was he trying to— Something dropped like a rock in Battat's gut. He hadn't expected this. But it couldn't be true, could it?
Across the room under the attention of Tenna, Jongler faltered. There wasn't any scenario for this in the Mike decision tree that Battat had made for them...
"Whaddya mean by 'dat?" they asked instead.
All at once that high energy switched to an uncomfortable shuffling as Tenna's front dropped away in an instant. "Well, I mean you don't— you don't have to..."
"You saying youse don't need a Mike no more?"
That couldn't be right. Couldn't be! No Mike? No Mike?! There had to be a Mike! Tenna could barely function without some Mike somewhere, and Battat was not about to let all his hard work go up in smoke — there WAS a Mike, he just knew it, and his job for the past several years (outside of all the other stuff) had been to find him! What was Tenna even thinking?!
They'd gotten way off script, Jongler was just going to mess this up. He had to get out there and take control — to help. Scrambling into Mike's suit and bow tie, Battat hurried out from behind those old dusty filing cabinets just in time to watch Tenna's screen go dark.
"I-I won't... It's not like I'm going to, heh, force you." Tenna mumbled, and Battat felt an angry heat rise to his cheeks. "I wouldn't do that to you Mike."
He couldn't believe this guy! After all that, all the years of effort, of scheming, of late night theory crafting, and he was just willing to let Mike go?? Just like that? It didn't make any sense!
And why wasn't Jongler stopping him?!
It was the last thing any of them could have expected from Tenna. But he'd been through more than just a public meltdown last night, hadn't he? Sometime between when the three of them had left the booth to run damage control and when the fountain had been sealed... The whole thing must have really done a number on him, scrambled his signal. Mike hadn't been there for any of it, at least not in any way Tenna would have recognized. Maybe that was enough...
B-but what kind of gamble was this?! Nobody won if there was no Mike, nobody!
"Uhhh, Mike ain't sure how to feel about 'dis." Jongler was dying out there, helplessly looking around for a cue and missing the way Tenna visibly deflated at their response. Pluey was on it, urgently motioning for them to swap out, but Battat had already shoved his microphone head into place and was charging out to centre stage. This was a crisis.
"Hold on! Hold on! Forget what I just said! There has to be a Mike!" It wasn't that Battat had been too impulsive, it was that Jongler hadn't moved fast enough; rooted in place by the curveball they'd been thrown. Either way a 60Hz refresh rate didn't give them enough time for Jongler to dive out of the frame without Tenna seeing double. The fact that they also went crashing into their cover instead of beside it didn't help either. The hats went everywhere.
He could still talk their collective way out of this. Probably. He was still Motormouth Mike, right? Right?! It was fine!
"Hey Boss—"
Tenna had leapt back in shock at the initial outburst, but after refreshing his screen once, twice, to take in the new scene he launched right into pointing between the two Mikes with one hand and flailing wildly with the other.
"Who the— How the— Woh Whoa— What the— Hey, what— The woh what— How— Whoa— Who the HECK are you?!!"
Crap.
It was salvageable. It was still salvageable. He could talk his way out of anything, and hey, at least this had gotten Tenna out of that weird mood he'd been in, right? That was a good thing! Battat adjusted his big red bow tie, put on his best smile, and tried not to think about the hot flush creeping down his neck.
"W-whaddya mean? I'm Motormouth Mike, of course! Don't tell me you forgot."
"Yeah, what he said. He's Mike." He heard Jongler supply helpfully from the right. Whipping his head to the side so fast that he almost rolled it, Battat found that Pluey had also jumped out from behind the now dented cabinets — in full cat suit — and was helping Jongler to a stand. Oh, great. This was absolutely NOT what they had practiced.
A distraction. They just needed a long enough distraction and he was sure he could convince Tenna that this whole thing was just a fever dream, or hysteria, or something. Happened to everyone. And it wasn't like this was the first close call they'd ever had, right? There had also been that time with the costume mix up.
Battat waved his arms and tried to keep Tenna's attention off the other two. "That's right!" he practically shouted, "There's only one Motormouth Mike, and you're looking at him right now! I wouldn't even look anywhere else! Ha!"
But last time hadn't been this bad, and even Tenna wasn't that stupid. Wasn't stupid and was losing patience for the situation if the tone of his voice was anything to go by.
"Then who are they?" He gestured wildly over to Jongler and Pluey, each a Mike in their own right, who were both just standing there like they'd already been caught. But they hadn't yet! They could still solve this! Why were they being so stupid?!
"Uh, my assistants?" Battat tried. Maybe it wasn't too late to just hit the lights and run. Tenna beat him to it though, flashing him a manic grin before the room and all his senses with it lurched into the bright light and static tune of the technical difficulties card.
It only ever lasted a moment, and when the lights cleared again all three Mikes found themselves standing in a line with Tenna frowning down at them. That wasn't great.
"Now come on." Tenna smiled again, waving towards Pluey with a more collected motion this time. "You can't tell me that's not Mike. It looks just like him!"
In response to the glowing endorsement, Pluey struck a little pose and trilled. Traitor.
"I know Mike, and that's Mike." Tenna decided.
No. No. Absolutely not. There was no way he was accepting that. Pluey was a lot of things, some of them were even kind of good things, but there was no way he was the real Mike— Mike wasn't a cat!
That flush had turned to fire, and Battat, er, that was Mike, the Real Mike, was nearly hopping off the ground in frustration. "Alright, fine! Fine!" he snarled, "Then what's the real Mike look like??"
The question seemed to stump Tenna for a moment, who looked at each Mike in turn for long enough that Battat found himself wondering — not even remotely for the first time — if burn in had really left his eyesight that poor... No wonder they had gotten away with this for so long.
"Well obviously, Mike looks like..." Tenna started and then laughed awkwardly, hand to his tie again, fiddling with the fabric, "All three of you, actually." His antenna twitched, nervous. "Mike, what's going on?"
"Alright. Da jig is up." Jongler decided for them all. They removed their cowboy hat solemnly. "We's all Mike."
From beside them, Pluey leaned over and whistled a riff.
"Oh, right." Jongler removed their fake Mike head too and Pluey followed suit. "We's none of us Mikes."
They were giving it up? Now? Some days a die could really regret picking two of the most laid-back and straightforward darkners in TV World as his partners for high stakes identity theft...
Yeah right! This was a lifetime commitment here! Who else would he have picked?!
Well it was over now.
An apprehensive glance up revealed Tenna's screen had gone completely blank and featureless the way it normally did before he started shouting, or crying, or both. It never really felt great to get him to that point. He caught it before he broke though, reformatting quickly into his showman's stance and a smile set for the stage. And that actually felt distinctly worse.
"Wow! What an upset folks! My own crew plotting against me! Is that what this is??"
Oh boy, he was going to lose it. Battat did not have a plan for this. His only plan had been to keep the Mike thing going indefinitely, or at least until he FOUND the real Mike, he had to be close, right?
Luckily, Jongler was a bit better off than the rest of them when it came to sincerity. "No Boss," they emphasized with a shake of their infrared head, "we's trying to help you."
"Help me?? You took my best guy!" Tenna snapped. And then he snapped, clutching his head between both hands and reeling like the force of the upset was a physical assault. "Or- Wait did he leave already?! Don't TELL me Mike already LEFT me!!"
"Nah, he ain't left." Sure and steady, Jongler reached up to place a reassuring hand on what they could reach of Tenna's jacket. "We are your best guy."
Like a rock in the face of a windstorm, Jongler probably had the best poker face around when it came to Tenna's mood swings. Where had they learned that, anyways? Annoyingly, Pluey was just as good, always knew just when to talk. His explanation a soothing solo that Battat didn't understand a note of.
Tenna did though. "What? you mean- the whole time?" he asked after a pause, screen clearing of static. "It's been you three this whole time?"
Another shorter tune from Pluey, and the shadowguy shoved his cat head back into place and danced on the spot.
"Yeah, like he said," Jongler agreed, "da whole time."
It was an explanation, but it probably wasn't a satisfying one. It took a moment of stunned silence before Tenna asked, "Does that mean Mike's been on three separate payrolls this whole time?"
Four actually. Cashing Mike's points in had been the first thing Battat had figured out after the costume. Of course Tenna would have a problem with it.
"You know I can't let you get away with that, right?"
Okay, now it was his turn. Sighing, Battat removed his own Mike head. He couldn't do anything to keep up the ruse now, so he held his breath and gambled instead. "You ended all the contracts, didn't you? So maybe we can... make a new one?"
--
It actually worked. Somehow it had actually worked. Whatever he'd originally been feeling about the Mike conspiracy, Tenna had changed his tune entirely once the topic of contracts had been brought up again. And really, Battat should have known that had been the pressure point. Apparently somewhere in the chaos of the night before Tenna had gotten the idea into his head that Mike had quit on him too. Battat couldn't imagine what would have led him to think that — none of them had said so much as a word to him after he'd started throwing the lightners into gacha balls. It had taken all three of them working overtime just to keep the lights on and the stage in one piece! He'd probably just made the whole thing up because he felt bad. It didn't matter now.
Ten minutes later found them around a table hashing out the finer details of a three Mike contract. Making connections, planning for the future, this was where Battat knew he could really shine. When Tenna didn't need Mike to listen or be the muscle, he still needed Mike to do the talking, right? Keep the show moving in the right direction. Sure, Tenna didn't have a show right now, but he would again eventually. And they all knew he needed Mike support beyond that anyways. There was an opportunity to hit the jackpot here, he just knew it.
And if Tenna could focus instead of begging for reassurance every two minutes, they might actually get somewhere.
"Really? You like working for me that much?"
It had to be the fourth time he'd asked that, each time looking a bit more pleased with himself than the last. He was so annoying!
"Yeah, Boss." Jongler didn't miss a beat of course, they were practically blushing themself under the attention. "We like your show. And, uh, we like being your Mike." Suck up.
Tenna beamed, nearly dancing on the spot as he riffed off some joke and Pluey backed him with the TV Time jingle. Were all shadowguys so shameless?
But that was all fine. It was great actually. Jongler and Pluey could keep buttering him up while Battat did the real work. Everyone who'd worked for him more than a season or two knew Tenna melted for praise. It was basically a necessity in the position they were in. And as an added bonus Jongler even meant it.
Battat hid his own straight face behind his folded hands and tried to get them back on track. "Happy to do it Mr. Tenna, but we still have to agree on a few things first." He wasn't going to lose his big chance here — not when the opportunity had presented itself.
Tenna was in good spirits after the chaos that had landed them here, and that was probably the only reason why Battat's throat seized when Tenna turned his head and cast his charm on him directly.
"Alright little guy, what do ya need?"
That was...
He had a job to do. Battat forced his eyes downward and grimaced. He was not even CONSIDERING whether that had been the first time Tenna had ever looked him in the eyes directly. Without Mike between them.
Stick to the plan, idiot! "Okay!" He'd start with the softball. "First, Pluey wants to keep the cat suit."
"Done!" Tenna laughed, and it was just so easy for him wasn't it? "I don't even remember buying that!"
Alright good. The next one was more of a deal breaker, but he was banking on Tenna being desperate for people on his side right now. Eyes on the prize. "Second, as Mikes we're a package deal, okay? You can't just hire one or two of us for the role." It was important. They had a system in place after all, it would have been a headache to have to rework it!
"Oh sure," he knew he could get sneaky sometimes, but Tenna's smile was still too friendly for what came next. "Once TV Time gets back on air, I'm sure I can find enough work for all three of you to do."
Wait, dammit! What was he agreeing to?!
"Okay, fine! Last thing!" Concessions, concessions. It didn't matter in the end anyways because this last hand was the most important. Extra work? Longer hours? Neither of them meant a thing if he could get Tenna to work with him on this last part — the question he'd never been able to ask before now.
Maybe he'd taken too long contemplating the enormity of it, because he heard Tenna start to speak again before he had cut him off in his own frenzy.
"You gotta tell me who Mike is!! Who is he? Who's Mike? Where did he go? Why haven't we EVER seen him?!" Battat had all but jumped up onto the table, each question falling out of his mouth faster than the last as he tried to cover years of conspiracies in a single breath. Another thought hit him in the moment and he lurched over to grab his friend by the shoulders. "You said he looked like Pluey first, right?? Is that a hint? What is it? The eyes? The smile? The—"
"Easy there, buddy." Steady hands at his waist and Jongler had pulled him off Pluey and back into his seat.
Right. Now wasn't the time to get into those stupid 3AM theories. No way Mike was a cat, that was something Pluey had just decided for himself even though there was no real evidence for it. He just liked being a cat!
It didn't matter! None of that mattered! Hopeful eyes turned back to Tenna for the real answers, but the old CRT wasn't even watching them anymore. Screen trained to the distance with a weird expression on his face. Oh great, what now?
"That, heh, that's what you want to know?" he asked, and then immediately changed the subject, "Wouldn't you rather have more points instead?"
Points? Points?! This wasn't about points, this was about Mike!
"Who's Mike." Battat stared. "Who is he? He has to be someone." He had to be. He had to be. He just had to know, and it was so annoying that Tenna wasn't telling him!
This time he was deflected with another fake smile and something that sounded distinctly like a whine. "You three are Mike now, aren't you? I thought we already covered that."
Battat felt his eye start to twitch. What was wrong with this guy?!
Once again, Jongler decided to take matters into their own hands, shrugging big sturdy shoulders and agreeing easily. "If that's what ya want, Boss. We don't mind."
Frustratingly, Jongler might have actually had the right idea. The last thing they all needed was to set Tenna off right now. He'd already been taking the whole Mike conspiracy better than Battat had ever expected him to (really adding weight to the 'he's known the entire time' theory), and they couldn't afford to lose their advantage anyways. Tenna needed people on his side right now, he needed Mike. So Battat changed course and tried to appeal to desperation instead. There was no way he couldn't understand that, right?
"Mr. Tenna, please, you have to know who Mike is." he wasn't begging, he was asking, "I just need to know something. What does he look like? When did you hire him? Just something, that's all I want!"
He might lose his marbles all the same if turned out they had gone through all of this for nothing. After a short silence (cut only by the hum that always accompanied Tenna) Pluey chimed in with something musically upbeat. Battat probably could have understood it if he hadn't been from Card Castle — and maybe he was the stupid one here after all because those two always seemed to be able to get through to Tenna so much more easily than he did.
Tenna, who was definitely trying to look more stern than he was pouting before he threw up a hand with a static sigh.
"Alright, fine! I admit it! I never actually saw Mike!" he proclaimed, shifting into dramatics. "No one ever saw him! Don't blame me, blame that mailman! Besides, I don't need a Mike to look at, I need a Mike who listens!" Tenna laughed sharply, "That's fine! Who needs him? Who needs either of them? That's why I've got you three, right? You're good at being Mike, I've got you!"
He never SAW HIM?!
Wait, Hold on, had he heard that right? Had he? Tenna had never actually seen Mike? He'd never met him?! Battat felt like his head might implode. He was speechless. Distantly he felt Pluey's hand on his back, rubbing small circles into what he just knew was going to be tense for days after all this.
Because that was insane! Tenna was insane!! This new bombshell fact singlehandedly tore apart everything! Every theory, every conspiracy board, every— Battat knew Mike. He knew everything he could possibly have learned about Mike, gathered as scraps over years of searching. And the one thing that had been obvious from the start, that no one had ever stopped to question, was the notion that Tenna and Mike were, like, best friends! They were practically as close as Elnina and Lanino!
Which is why it was so WEIRD that Tenna had never noticed the switch!! It NEVER should have worked! They never should have gotten away with playing Mike for as long as they had! It never made any sense, except it did. It did because Tenna had NEVER. ACTUALLY. SEEN. MIKE.
What was he supposed to do with this information?
Free from the maelstrom brewing beside them, Jongler once again had the task of talking Tenna down.
"Ey, dat's alright, Boss. We'll be Mike for ya now, official-like. And we'll still listen to ya." Right to the point, way more patient than they had any right to be, Jongler turned back and pulled double duty by clapping Battat on the shoulder too, "Ain't that right, buddy?"
"Huh?" Battat felt like he'd been rocked, rattled, and rolled, and he still had the stars in his eyes to prove it. "S-sure, whatever. That works."
What was he supposed to do with this information...?
—
Okay, so he'd been thinking about it over the last few days. The whole Mike situation. Everyone else was content to put it behind them, and things had gone back to normal for the most part. Even without a show, they were still helping Tenna with this and that; the shock therapy, the nose drawer, maintaining those new repairs where they could, and Mike had become like some sort of job title instead. Tenna was happy enough just to have any old Mike by his side — and yeah, he'd always kind of been that way, but at least it all made sense now! It was fine. Really, it worked out for the best that he was so weird, and so needy, and so completely insane, but for Battat something still didn't fit right yet. And it wasn't just because he still didn't really know who Mike was. On the contrary actually, with his newest insights Battat had realized he was closer than ever before to figuring it all out. (It all came back to that mail guy. Of course. Everything around here always came back to the damn mail guy!)
The thing was, he just wasn't sure he was interested in being Mike anymore. The character. It wasn't like they still had to be. Pluey had kept his entire Mike costume of course and wore it more than anything else he'd ever owned, but Jongler had only held on to the cowboy hat from theirs — it had been the only part of it they'd ever liked anyways. At first, Battat had figured he'd just keep up the ruse out of convenience. It was easier at the end of the day, wasn't it? For himself and for Tenna. But the thing was...
He kind of hated that old costume now. The more the thought about it (and he'd been chattering on about it all week) the more the whole thing seemed just totally unfair. It had always been Mike that got everything, all the appreciation, all the love, all the immunity. He got everything! But the thing was, Tenna should really have been appreciating them for all Mike did for him instead of... Mike. Whoever he had been. And it wasn't even that selfish for him to want! Really! Could Tenna even tell the difference between Mike the character and them simply playing Mike for him instead? He had thought three entirely different guys in three completely different costumes had been the same Mike for years! He was such an... Ugh!
And he was doing it again right now! It was late. Battat always ended up on the night shift when Tenna wanted his shock therapy. He didn't exactly prefer it, but the other two had asked one too many times what the difference between voltage and current was until Battat had just taken the job over altogether. It wasn't usually that big of a headache. But tonight had been a slog, and the therapy session had barely gotten off the ground at all because Tenna wouldn't stop acting weird!
It wasn't like Battat didn't know why he was acting like that, he just didn't want to deal with it tonight. "Anyways, I've set up your bedtime programming for the week," He explained, not really caring at this point if Tenna was listening or not, "and the boys were able to find another copy of the TV guide you were reading. Don't worry, I already cut out all the ads."
It was hard not to feel small working in such close proximity to Tenna, the guy was larger than life and even with him sitting cross-legged on the floor Battat always needed a ladder to climb up and slip the alligator clips back off his antenna. For whatever reason he felt even smaller now without the Mike costume on. That stupid costume had always been so hot, and so stuffy, and as it turned out had also offered something like a mental buffer from it all. Like he said, it wasn't that he didn't get it! But as long as he ignored the fact that Tenna's undivided attention on him felt about twice as potent as it ought to be, then he wasn't being the weird one here!
Tenna on the other hand...
"Hey, you remembered all that?"
"Ugh, I do this every week for you!" Battat scowled, chucking the TV Guide in the direction of Tenna's recharge setup.
Tenna on the other hand was so infuriating, and so all over the place, and Battat would really never understand just how the other two made dealing with him look so easy! Where had they learned that! (He'd asked once and Pluey had just LAUGHED at him!)
"Oh, right. Of course." At least Tenna had the good grace to look embarrassed about it, pink haze tinting his screen as he reached up to fidget with one of his antenna now that they didn't have a live current running through them. "It was your idea, right?"
"What was?" He was so done with this guy today. Turning away, Battat threw the clips back in his toolbox with the rest of his equipment. The sooner he cleaned up the sooner he could get out of here.
"Pretending to be Mike."
It had been, of course. He'd been the one to set everything up, recruit Pluey and Jongler, coordinate their duties and schedules, and even their costumes as much as they had let him. He had actually put so much work into the Mike con and it was nice to get SOME form of acknowledgement for it for once. Battat had done enough tonight, and he didn't really need to put his attention towards anything but his job right now, but he offered a non-committal nod in response to the question anyways.
It was all Tenna needed to continue, caught up in the nostalgia and sentimentality that always seemed to strike him on late nights.
"Things were so hectic back in those days," Tenna laughed, not bitter but wistful, "network changes, family changes, Kris accidentally denting me with that hockey stick..."
It wasn't like it was unusual for Tenna to get a little touchy-feely after his shock therapy, or any other time when they were alone with the cameras off, really. Of course not! Mike was his best friend, right? Mike who'd been there with him through everything. That was a large part of why things had been so stilted and awkward over the last few days! Now that Mike was gone, now that the secret was out and Battat was just some pippins who worked for him again, some of those walls had naturally gone back up. It wasn't like he didn't understand.
And that was also the only reason it hit him like an electric surge when Tenna reached out for him, placing one giant gloved hand on Battat's arm as he said it.
"I really needed a Mike back then... So, thanks. For doing that."
He wasn't thinking about it. He wasn't turning around to look back at that face. He grit his teeth and replied with the first coherent thought that worked its way through his rattled head. "We just did it so we could keep our jobs."
Immediately Tenna let go again, "Oh. Y-you did, huh?"
Stupid, stupid, STUPID!! Why the hell did the say that?! It was true! It WAS true, that had kind of been the reason it had all started, but he didn't have to say it!! It was all Battat could do not to reach up and strangle himself on the spot. What was WRONG with him?!
"I-I mean! It wasn't just that! It wasn't!" Even with his back to Tenna, Battat was certain that his mortified blush stuck out like a flare on all six sides of his head. "More like, it's because- " He didn't know what to say, he didn't know what to say, he had to say something.
"It because Mike sucks, alright?! He sucks! What kind of person just drops outta the world like that without even saying anything?" If he even existed at all, but there words were falling out of Battat's mouth now faster than he could stop them. He knew Mike. He knew him, he knew everything about him! And all his theories were now solidly pointing to the fact that Mike, whatever he actually was, whoever he had actually been, was also just a huge jerk! He was an asshole! And it was frustrating after everything. It shouldn't have been that way, he should have been better than that, it went against all his Mike headcanons!
But it was true! And someone had to hear it! Motormouth Mike, right? With the floodgates open Battat kept up the rant and couldn't stop if he'd wanted to.
"— Shouldn't he have known? Shouldn't he have known not to do that?" He must have! Battat knew, Jongler knew, Pluey knew — they all knew! "He was your best friend and he still left you! How do you keep getting so unlucky? And what kind of jerk does that anyways? After everything else how could he not have known??"
If he'd even existed at all, but if he didn't that meant Mike had been Tenna's weird imaginary friend after all and he had still ditched him! That was insane!!
Behind him, sounding much too distant for the space between them Tenna made a sound like he'd onlined his speakers to talk but couldn't get anything through them. Oh crap, he was just making it all worse, wasn't he? Battat flinched. Why did he have to be so annoying? Of course Tenna didn't want to hear about that right now!
It didn't matter what he thought about the situation. If he could be more like Pluey maybe he wouldn't have even cared that much in the first place, if he was more like Jongler maybe he would have put everyone else's well-being first. Battat could consider himself a friend at least, because he forced himself to turn around and face Tenna just for the sake of the big guy's comfort.
"Look," Battat took a deep breath and started again, forcing his register into something less frantic this time. "Whoever Mike is... he just sucks. I know you like him, but I've got half a mind to roll over to Cyber City myself. So I could find that guy and give him a piece of my mind. Okay? That's what I meant."
That had to be enough, right? Shakily he turned his eyes up to Tenna. At first his screen was completely unreadable, but after a second or two it bloomed into a big wobbly smile.
"You'd do that for me?" Tenna asked, and the whole room brightened with him.
It was cute. Battat could at least admit that it was cute, it wasn't like Tenna didn't already know it.
"I do a lot for you already."
Who needed Mike anyways?