Chapter Text
Battat would Mike if it was the last thing he did, goddamnit.
Exhaustion pressed against Battat’s eyelids as he snipped off a piece of his spool of red string. He delicately wrapped it around a pin that stabbed a yellow post-it note to his conspiracy board until the thread hung from it like blood dripping from the cork.
He blinked for a few seconds longer than usual, trying to alleviate the pain behind his eyes. An agonizing pressure gripped his brain, unrelenting and slow.
The rising sun peeked through the blinds. Battat squinted at its glare, shielding his gaze with one hand as he pulled on the string with the other. Despite dawn having only just shown its face, Jongler had already left the room to, quote, “go get groceries”. What groceries? They didn’t need groceries.
Battat nibbled on a macaron– Jongler had given it to him the previous night, but he’d only now been hungry.
He used the thread to connect the note (labelled MIKE) to a second, pink post-it (labelled FRIEND). On his lap, Pluey stretched out with a soft swoon but did not wake. After having yet another night terror the previous night, he’d been practically attached to Battat. Not that Battat minded, obviously. Pluey was soft.
Apparently Pluey had been told that the lights weren’t what he seeked… Maybe they were supposed to go somewhere where there weren’t any lights? Battat wasn’t even sure if that was possible in Cyber City.
Spamton was fast asleep just in front of the bed. When Battat had gone to sleep, he was at the foot of the bed, but he must have fallen off at some point. His blanket indicated the trajectory of his fall as one corner still clung to the bed like a final soldier.
Battat shook his head– now wasn’t the time to be distracted by other mysteries.
FRIEND. Unsure of what to call it, Battat simply decided to refer to it how it referred to itself– according to Pluey, it often described itself as his ‘friend’. A disturbing thought, and an inaccurate name, but Battat wasn’t very creative, sue him.
The title uppercase because it was IMPORTANT! FRIEND. Similarly, MIKE was bold, italic, underlined, and uppercase. Because it was IMPORTANT.
He’d just connected these two VIPs (very important pieces-of-evidence) to each other with his beloved red conspiracy thread because, and while this baffled him to no end, apparently FRIEND was Mike????????
No amount of question marks would ever aptly portray Battat’s confusion at the mere thought. Not that this was a thought he needed to write down, so it didn’t need any question marks. Even through his sleep deprivation, this was a musing that could not be forgotten.
Okay, so FRIEND is Mike. Presumably. This mere probably-fact (was that a contradiction?) sent Battat down an inescapable tunnel of questions, sucking him in like a vacuum. It posed one (1) answer, an answer to the question he’d been asking all along– Who is Mike? – but, annoyingly, it was an ultimately frivolous one.
What does Mike/FRIEND look like? How did Tenna know him? (it? Them?) Adding onto that, why did he vanish? How was he connected to the phone in the Z-Rank room? Why was he possessing Pluey– in fact, how was he possessing Pluey?
Pluey fluttertongued beneath Battat as he idly stroked his back.
How did Tenna believe that the fake Mikes were the real Mikes when they seemed so different? Was the real Mike a shapeshifter? Had Tenna never seen the real one in person?
Moving to grab a sheet of paper to write down all his questions, Battat realized he’d forgotten to bring his lucky pen. Great. He’d have to use the dinky hotel one.
How did Spamton know Mike? How did it possess him? What did it do to him to elicit such a reaction in him when simply prompted by Mike’s name? Was Mike the reason Spamton was like– like that?
Battat glanced over his shoulder– Spamton was muttering in a voice that was not his own.
Envy tugged at his stomach. Despite Spamton’s current situation, Battat couldn’t help the feeling that stirred within him. He was jealous.
Battat was jealous of Spamton’s past relationship with Tenna– he never had to pretend to be someone else to win over the darkner. He wasn’t a part of a species which Tenna despised. He wormed his way into Tenna’s heart, saw Tenna when he was most vulnerable, loved Tenna, had Tenna all to himself. Despite Spamton’s denial, Battat knew the true nature of their relationship. He’d heard plenty about it, even if he never had a face to attach to the person Tenna spoke of.
Spamton stirred in his sleep.
Battat was jealous that Spamton knew Mike. He’d seen Mike with his own two eyes, he was apparently close with Mike, Mike had turned him into a ‘big shot’, whatever that meant. Mike was never a mystery he had to solve– had to ruin himself to solve. Spamton had never lost hours upon hours of sleep scrawling ideas onto torn-off corners of paper, nearly slicing his finger off when using fabric scissors to snip off a string. Spamton had never needed to find Mike, not just for himself, but for–
Battat blinked away the thought.
… And Spamton had just thrown it all away! He was living Battat’s dream– no, a life so far beyond his dream that he hardly had the creativity to imagine it! He was living everything Battat could have wanted, and he squandered it. He was probably why Tenna was so unstable, why Mike had– had become FRIEND. Because Battat knew Mike, he knew that Mike wasn’t the monster that Pluey saw at night!
A pair of pink and yellow stared back at Battat. For a moment, he was confused– he wasn’t looking at his corkboard, how could he be seeing the sticky notes attached to it???
Just as his brain had caught up with his eyes, Spamton rose from his blanket avalanche, grinning at Battat. “[[Good Morning USA]]!!! DO YOU NEED MY [Ass Istance]?”
“I– No. Ignore me.” Battat swivelled his chair back to his conspiracy board, really not wanting to deal with the addison right this very second.
“STILL [Working Hard (or hardly working)] ON YOU R [[C0nsp1r@cy Th30r13$]]!?!?” Spamton spat. Anger laced his patchworked voice, twisting it in a way that only made the mouth it belonged to extremely punchable.
Battat sighed. “Yes, and I’d like to work on it in peace and quiet.”
Scrambling over to where Battat sat, Spamton leapt onto the table beside him, eyeing the corkboard with an uncomfortable scrutiny. “WHY DO YOU WANT TO [Find Her] SO [[Bad Bad Bad]]!?”
“Well,” Battat muttered. “If I can find the real Mike, I can– I can bring him– them?” He looked to Spamton for clarification, but the addison just shrugged. “I– okay. I can bring them back to T– Mr. Tenna, and I can stop… Being Mike.” Trailing off at the end of his sentence, Battat tugged at the collar of his cloak.
“YOU GET SO MANY [[Specil Privileges]] TH0UGH!!!” Spamton argued. “AND YOU’RE KEEPING [ Trash heap ] AWAY FROM [[Danger, Danger!!!]]”
Spamton did have a point. If he was right, and Mike (FRIEND) was truly dangerous, Battat was doing a great favor for Tenna in keeping him safe… And happy.
… Besides, a part of him enjoyed being Mike.
Who said that!?!? Not Battat, nosiree! He hated having to dress up in that stupid costume and putting on that stupid voice and–
He glanced down at his feet, where his costume rested, staring up at him with an eyeless gaze. If he found (the real) Mike, if he brought (the real) Mike back to Tenna, he’d be betraying (his) Mike.
His Mike.
What a sick thought. That the real Mike wasn’t his. They weren’t even Tenna’s, really. His Mike was Tenna’s Mike now. His eyes burned but he didn’t cry.
“WHAT, [[DEVICE_FRIEND]][Got Your Tongue?]” Spamton sneered.
Battat made a so-so motion with his hand, tilting his head back up. “I don’t– I just gotta find Mike. It's, like, my thing. My shtick. I’m the Mike guy.”
“LISTEN, [Mold]. YOU DON’T WANNA [[L0c@t3]] [Mike.] YOU DON”T WANNA GIVE HIM BACK TO [ Boob Tube ]. HE’S [[Horrible, I say!]] HE’S–” Spamton’s voice shifted up in pitch as he spoke.
Uncaring of his interruption of the addison, Battat snapped, glaring Spamton in the eyes. “You can’t tell me what to do! I– I have to find him! Maybe I won’t bring him back to Mr. Tenna. If he’s really who you say he is, you’re– you’re right. He’s dangerous. But I have to know for certain.”
Spamton crossed his arms. “DON;T YOU [[Real Eyes]] THAT–”
Pluey suddenly lifted his head with an excited squeak. He leapt off Battat’s lap and to the door– Battat spun around in his chair to see what the sudden commotion was for. Pluey pawed at the door impatiently, a happy song pouring from him.
When the door opened, Pluey had to quickly step back in order to not get hit by it– Jongler slipped into the room, grocery bag in hand. “Mornin’, Plues.” They reached down and pet Pluey’s head with their free hand. Then, they pulled a container of dark candies from the grocery bag and tossed it to Battat. “Helps wit’ da pain.”
“Thanks. What took you so long?” Battat questioned. “The cafe is just down the street. Couldn’t you just get food there?”
“M’not allowed at da cafe no more,” Jongler grumbled.
“What? Why not???”
Spamton raised his hand from the table beside Battat. “I GOT THEM [[Banned Forever]]!!!”
Battat nearly fell off his chair as he swivelled it to face Spamton. “What!?”
“Yeah, he got in a fight wit’ Swatch.” Placing the bag on the counter, Jongler plopped themself down on the couch beside it. Pluey leapt up next to them with a fluttertongue. “He, uh… Broke a buncha drinks n’ stuff.”
“Well, why would you do that, you rubberbrain!?” Battat threw his hands out at Spamton.
“HE [Steal His] MY [[Look]], YOU [Amino Mold]!!!” Spamton argued.
“What does that even mean!?”
“Will yous two shuddup!?” Jongler interjected, pushing Battat’s chair back so they could stand between the two. “It already happened. There’s nothin’ we can do ‘bout it.” They grabbed the grocery bag from the counter and began to rummage around in it. “Why don’t we’s just have some breakfast ‘fore we gotta check out?”
“I– I’m not hungry,” Battat muttered as Jongler handed him a CD bagel.
Spamton jumped onto Jongler’s shoulders and held his grubby hands out to Battat excitedly. “I’LL [Robbery] IT!!!” Rolling his eyes, Battat forked the bagel over to Spamton.
“Are you sure?” Jongler asked– their voice had a concern that seemed almost mocking. As they spoke, they gave a tube of churu to Pluey, whose excited screech made Battat flinch. “All youse eaten today is a macaron.”
“I’m fine, really,” Battat said as he turned back to his corkboard. All these distractions were getting in the way of his conspiracy-ing!!! “I have work to do, anyways.”
Just as he picked his pen back up, a brand new distraction made itself known– Spamton, on top of his head, dangling half of the CD bagel in front of his face. “EAT!!!” He screeched. Angel, was he loud.
“Wh– I just said I wasn’t hungry.” Battat swatted away the addison’s hand, but it immediately moved back in front of his face.
“AND I [[just said]] [EAT!!!]” Spamton pressed the bagel against Battat’s mouth, who reeled back uncomfortably. “YOU NEED [Sustenance] TO [[ConspiracyBoard]]!!!”
“... If I take it, will you leave me alone?” Battat relented.
“IT’S A [[Deal]]!”
–
It was not a deal.
Battat ate the stupid bagel, and Spamton did not, in fact, leave him alone, nor did Jongler, nor did Pluey.
Battat twisted the shower handle, then quickly stepped back before any of the water hit him. He held a hand out to feel the water as it slowly warmed up.
His friends (and Spamton) had bothered him relentlessly, chatting away about stuff he really couldn’t care less about. Sure, he was glad they (excluding Spamton) were having fun, but he just wished he didn’t have to get involved in their bonding. He was busy!
Battat stepped into the shower, letting the probably-too-hot water fall onto his body. Only a few seconds passed before he nudged the handle slightly to the left, deciding it was, in fact, too hot.
And not only did they force him to eat, not only did they harass him with friendly conversation, but they also forced him to go shower before they had to check out of the hotel! What kind of friend does that!?
As far as Battat was concerned, his wellness was his problem, not theirs.
He glanced over at the mirror that sat parallel to the shower door. His view of his own body was slightly obscured through the steam, but he recoiled at the sight nonetheless. There was nothing vulgar for him to bear witness to– most darkners had nothing to hide under their clothes, if they chose to wear clothes at all.
Still, it made him uncomfortable to look at. He just looked so… Vulnerable. So weak. The cloak hid his frame rather well, making him look slightly more put-together than he was. The Mike costume he adorned most of the time helped to further obscure his weakness. It transformed him into a new person, he had to admit.
But right now, he was Battat. A scrawny, pathetic pippins who wasn’t even the right color. The foggy glass door between him and the mirror slowly turned him into a blurry green blob.
A knock on the bathroom door dragged Battat from his trance– how long had he been staring at the mirror for? “Yous gotta hurry up, boss,” Jongler’s muffled voice called through the door. “We’s checkin’ out soon.”
“Okay!” Battat replied. “Gimme a second!”
—
Cyber City was bright as always– how was Mike ever going to find a part of it that was dark??? He walked beside Jongler and Pluey, all three wearing their Mike costumes so Jongler didn’t have to carry them in their bag. Spamton was in the bag, which Mike had no objections towards.
“Plues n’ I wanna go visit the pet store. Yous comin’ with, Boss?” Jongler asked. Mike supposed they’d gotten bored of wandering around aimlessly… He hadn’t exactly explained what they were looking for.
“I actually have something I need to do,” Mike replied. “You three can go without me.”
Poking his head out of Jongler's bag, Spamton chimed in. “I:M [Banned for Life] FRO M THE [[P3t Pl@c3]]. I’LL [Coming!] WITH YOU!!” He jumped out of the bag and onto Mike’s shoulder.
“You gotta stop doing that,” Mike complained as he waved goodbye to Jongler and Pluey, who seemed to be quite content leaving him with Spamton.
“[Whereabouts] ARE WE GOING, [[M1cr0ph0n3]]!?” Spamton scrambled up atop Mike’s head.
Suddenly, Mike was struck with a realization– for once, Spamton might actually be useful! “Well– actually, you can help me with this. Do you know any dark places in the city? Pluey told me that’s where FRIEND– er, the real Mike told him to go.”
“WHY. ARE YOU [Listen Closely] TO IT?!? ARE YOU [[stoopid]]???”
“Unless you have any better ideas on how to fix Pluey, I don’t wanna hear any arguments from you,” Mike hissed. Truly, he was beginning to reach his wit’s end with the spammy addison. “Do you know any dark places or not?”
“HMM…” Spamton mumbled. “I DO [[Did you know?]] ONE PLACE., BUT I’M [Illegal] THERE.” Where was he allowed??? “CAN YOU [[Sneak Attack!]] ME IN?”
“You know it.”
—
On the plus side, Mike’s head was large enough to fit both the head of a pippins and the body of a short addison. However, it was an incredibly tight fit, and Spamton’s claws against Battat’s skull surprisingly didn’t ease his growing headache.
Mike was lucky he blended in amongst the various servants all performing their various duties around the mansion. According to Spamton, this is where the ‘queen’ of Cyber City resided… He wasn’t even aware cities could have queens.
Still, he felt extremely out of place, even if he outwardly fit in just fine. Everyone around him was performing some sort of job, and Mike was pretty sure he wasn’t even supposed to be here!
All around him, darkners were dining– this appeared to be some sort of ballroom with an active event occurring.
“THAT SWITCH,” Spamton whispered in the quietest voice he seemed capable of. “THERE’S A [Switch] RIGHT THERE.”
“Right where!?” Mike whispered back. In reply, Spamton slammed into the side of his head, forcefully turning him a few degrees to the left. Sure enough, there was a lever poking out from just behind a marble statue of what appeared to be the queen.
“[[Turn on]] IT.”
Glancing around anxiously, Mike approached the switch and flicked it– a low rumbling sound shook his core as a piece of the wall slid open to reveal a hidden passageway. With one last glance over his shoulder to ensure nobody saw him, he slipped into the opening and pushed the wall shut behind him.
It was dark, alright. So dark, in fact, that Mike had zero indication of how fast he was walking, and thus, how much distance he walked. For a while, his muscles were tense, ready to crash into something. But as the minutes passed and the moment never came, he loosened up.
“Where are we?” Mike tried looking around– he saw nothing. Water dripped somewhere.
“WE’RE [Almost Th—”
Mike walked face-first into a wall.
“... WE’RE [Almost There],” Spamton corrected himself as Mike put a hand to his face. “TO YOU’R [[East]], [Mold]!!!”
Assuming ‘east’ meant ‘right’, Mike turned to see…
A teacup ride?
Right, he’d seen a few of these in Cyber City before. The darkners seemed to use them as elevators, though they looked extremely inconvenient– what if one got motion sick easily!?
“Do I… Go down?” Mike took a hesitant step towards the contraption. It had certainly seen better days– a faded paint job peeled off the sides, only hardly visible in the near total darkness he found himself in.
Spamton slipped out of the costume head, leaping down behind Mike. “OFF WE [Go, go, go!]” Without warning, he pushed Mike with a strength he wasn’t aware the addison had– he tumbled into one of the teacups head-first. He heard a clunk which must have been Spamton jumping into the teacup beside him.
Before he could sit up normally, the machine whirred to life and began to go down. Mike’s stomach lurched at the sudden movement, despite it certainly being slower than the ones he’d seen around the city.
“Is– is this safe?” Mike hesitantly asked, peering over the ‘railing’ of his teacup into the abyss below. The contraption made sounds which indicated an imminent breakdown, which would surely lead to Mike’s instant death. He swallowed down that worry.
“NOPE!!!” Spamton grinned at Mike from the teacup to his left.
After what felt like forever, the ride halted in front of a larger room with two hallways on either side of it. It was either a bit lighter in here, or Mike’s eyes had simply adjusted to the darkness, as he could see brick walls with vines growing from the cracks.
“Where are we…?” He murmured.
“THE [Queen’s Basement]!” Spamton hopped out of his teacup– Mike shakily followed. He pointed towards the hallway to their right. “IF Y OU [Really?] WANT TO. FIND [[Mike.]] HE’S [Over there!]”
“Seriously?”
“YEP!!!” Despite having pointed towards the right corridor, Spamton began to strut off towards the left one. “HAVE FUN!”
“Are you not gonna come with me?” Mike asked.
“I WOULD SOONER [Unalive] MYSELF,” Spamton bluntly replied. “I’M GONNA GO [[Make Out]] WITH MY [Ne0 Body].”
“What?”
“I MEANT ‘HANG OUT’.”
Ignoring Spamton’s clarification (he still had no clue what a ‘neo body’ was), Mike turned to face the dark room ahead of him. “And… This is where I’m gonna find FRIEND?”
When he got no reply, he looked behind him to see that Spamton had already abandoned him. Great. With nothing else to do, he stepped into the room.
For a few seconds, nothing happened. Then a few more. Mike’s eyes eventually adjusted to the darkness and found that the room looked about the same as every other room in the basement. At the end sat another teacup ride… Maybe he was meant to go down there?
Mike’s stomach turned as he climbed into one of the teacups, but he persisted anyway– it began to make its slow descent with a loud clunk.
The pain in his head was coming back. He must have been horribly disoriented by it, because it suddenly felt as if the teacups had vanished, leaving him suspended in midair with nowhere to go.
Looking down, Mike suddenly realized his brain was correct.
Everything was gone.
Waves crashed far, far, far below Mike’s feet, so far he could not see them. An infinite distance above him shone a light greater than any he had ever known– it called to him with a wail. An even greater infinity in the opposite direction lay a deep darkness beyond what could be perceived, lapping at the edges of reality.
Mike floated, motionless, at the worlds’ edge, unable to perceive either side of the border, only able to look forward.
When Battat realized his costume was gone, tears pricked at his eyes. Where was he?? A vulnerability rushed through his nerves, a terror that was once blocked by the shield of someone braver than him.
A being sat in front of him, hollow and yet full of a lonely sorrow that hung from its body. Battat realized that whoever this was, they were far more lost than Mike, far more worthy of a darkner whose existence was devoted to finding them. So lost that nobody could even remember them in order to do so.
But, this being, it was undoubtedly, irrefutably Mike. Its name rang hollow, beginning in Battat’s soles and rising through his body. This being, it was inarguably FRIEND as much as it was Mike. Its eyes and smile were a pair he had seen before within a far more familiar body.
Its tail, segmented then pointed at the end, lunged at Mike (Battat) through the nothing. It observed him for a moment– quickly, it was made apparent that this tail served as the creature’s hand, rather than any of its eight paws.
A boundless stretch away, a wave crashed against something, its dew turning to glass. One shard of glass rose through the growing distance and fell into the pointed end of the being’s tail. It held the shard in front of its own face for a moment, then held it out to Battat. Unable to move, he did not take the glass from its grasp. Seeming to realize this, it slotted the shard into Battat’s claws itself, then lifted his hand so he held the glass in front of his face.
Through the glass, he did not see a creature. He saw a person– though they were hardly recognizable, they were certainly a lightner. A lightner so drenched in light that it seemed to transcend the term– a lighter-than-lightner, perhaps.
Its eyes, black and soulless yet so, so soulful, blinked slowly and deliberately. A permanent black tear stain ran down one of its cheeks and up the other. It smiled softly at him, as if recognizing his fear– the expression only served to quicken his racing heart.
When it spoke, its words were wholly unreal.
♓︎⬧︎ ♐︎❒︎♏︎♏︎♎︎□︎❍︎ ⬥︎♒︎♋︎⧫︎ ⍓︎□︎◆︎ ⬧︎♏︎♏︎🙵✍︎
Battat couldn’t reply. Hot tears ran down his face and into his lip.
The person reached out their hand and pushed down the glass shard, revealing the creature behind it, still there, still waiting.
IS FREEDOM WHAT YOU SEEK? It asked. Though its mouth moved, it was not the source of its words. Instead, the words came from within Battat’s mind, a voice foreign to him but discernibly translatable into a meaning he could pull apart.
What? Battat replied– rather, attempted to reply. He still couldn’t move.
YOU KNOW, YOUR LITTLE FRIEND, PLUEY… The being’s smile pressed against its eyes; Battat was unsure if it heard his reply. I’M SO LUCKY HE FOUND ME, BECAUSE I’VE BEEN TRYING TO REACH YOU FOR SO LONG~ IT’S A SHAME YOU’RE SO STUPID! It cackled, throwing its head back. BUT IF I COULD GUIDE PLUEY HERE, YOU WOULD COME WITH. I KNOW HOW MUCH YOU CARE ABOUT HIM.
BUT I DON’T NEED PLUEY. I NEED YOU.
THIS CRYSTAL, it continued IT IS BORN OF A LIGHT WITHIN YOU. A LIGHT WHICH MOST DARKNERS DON’T POSSESS. It curled its tail towards the crystal, still clutched in Battat’s grasp. THIS WILL HELP YOU HARNESS YOUR LIGHT. YOU WILL BE BETTER THAN EVERYONE ELSE. YOU WILL BE FREE.
Free? Battat’s heart lurched. He– he wasn’t special, he reasoned to himself. Raw fear clawed at him from the depths below. He couldn’t breathe. His body wanted to sob, ached, even, but it could not through the tight squeeze of the antimatter around him.
Distantly, a part of him found comfort in the unrelenting grasp. Something he’d unpack later, he briefly thought.
I am free, Battat reasoned, willing his thoughts to be heard by Mike. I found you. The realization bloomed within him as the words formed in his mind.
He’d found Mike.
Despite the agony and the fear and the worry that he’d never return from this, he’d found Mike. Mike, who was only a layer of something lost, who he’d yearned to see with his own two eyes for Angel-knows-how-long. Mike was in front of him, vaguely, talking to him, looking at him, knowing who he was and saying he was special. Mike, who was horrible, so, so horrible, an inconceivable evil. The layer below him, who was sorrowful and gentle.
Battat could never let Tenna know this Mike. Battat could never stop being Mike, if only to protect everybody else from the real Mike. Tenna didn’t deserve to know the truth. He would always be Mike, and in that realization came the knowledge that he and the Mike that everybody knew– his Mike– was simply him. The bravery that Mike had felt facing the darkness was Battat’s own bravery.
Battat felt the darkness around him begin to slink away with a hesitant fear. He held out an aching arm to the creature– it moved back.
“Can I touch you?” He whispered.
TAKE THE CRYSTAL. Despite not having a distinct tone, its words seemed to grow harsh. TAKE IT AND I’LL LEAVE PLUEY ALONE.
Battat looked down at the glass shard in his hand, then up at the creature, who backed away from Battat with a weary hesitance. Somehow, he knew that, for once, it was telling the truth. At the same time, he recognized that it was far less powerful than it wanted him to believe.
He could find another way to save Pluey. The one thing Battat was good at was not giving up. He’d figure out how to banish the creature, he was sure of it. If not through his intelligence, through his hope.
His determination.
A glow– not quite light, but certainly brighter than the darkness around him– radiated from Battat, growing larger and larger until his feet could feel a solid ground beneath him and his eyes could see the walls around him.
He stood in a room, musty and rotting. Vines grew out of the brick walls that surrounded him. He was in front of the teacup ride that had led him down to the worlds’ edge. He was wearing his costume again. It was as if time had been dialed back to just before he’d gone too far.
He’d never have to stop being Mike.
As he turned to leave, Battat couldn’t help but throw a glance behind him, just in case. For a second, he swore he saw FRIEND’s face, starch against the shadowy wall.
Reasoning he was probably just paranoid, he disregarded it and began walking back to where he’d come from.
Spamton was waiting for him in the next room, sitting against a wall. As soon as Battat entered, the addison perked up, smiling at the pippins. “DID YOU FIND WHAT YOU [Hide N Seek]!?”
“I don’t want to bring Mike back anymore,” Battat muttered, voice trembling. “I just want to get it away from Pluey.” For once, Spamton didn’t reply. He just jerked his head towards the exit with an expectant gaze.
Battat nodded.