Chapter Text
He climbed over the snowy tundra as best as he could, using his arms to pull himself up and out of any particularly deep swathes of powdery white he fell in. He was light enough that he could mostly walk on top of the snow, but it didn’t change the fact that he couldn’t see what the ground was like beneath it. It was snowing aggressively, bordering on a blizzard, and if he had any truly fleshy parts of his body left, he’d have surely gotten frostbite by now.
That said, the cold did freeze up his knobby joints and stiffen them to the point where he could hardly bend his limbs. His fingers had lost fine movement and speed early on into his trek.
Tenna. He needed to find Tenna. The sight of the CRT getting his arms cut clean off by the Knight, though foreseen, was something he could never erase from the back of his eyes. Hearing that it would happen and seeing it happen were two very different things. Sitting on Kris’ nose as the Dealmaker when it happened, he got a front row seat to watch the gruesome dismemberment himself. A seat that he reserved long ago, when all he held for the man was resentment and bitterness.
Again, seeing it was different. The second it happened, he was struck with the realization that nobody deserved this, not even the man he tried so hard to hate for the past few decades. His blind hatred that had crystallized over those years suddenly shattered, and he was filled with a deep sense of dread when Kris and the rest of the gang had to go after the Knight. Both dread for the group- he knew that the Knight was not someone to mess with- and Tenna, who had been thrown off course and left behind like he’d always feared.
Finally, he saw something in the distance through the white haze. Flickering between channels and the bright colors of the intermission was Tenna, slumped against a particularly large pile of snow behind him. If he wasn’t careful, he could disturb that pile and completely bury Tenna under the freezing white. If that happened, there was no way that Spamton would be able to dig him out and fully uncover him again. The snow was already falling harder and harder by the second, and it’d only be a matter of time before he’d be buried that way.
Spamton gritted his teeth and moved forward with renewed vigor, determined to reach Tenna before he had the burial that he knew the TV never would have wanted. He would have wanted a nice, full venue for a showy funeral- in or as close to his studio as possible. Kris and the rest of the family would be there, paying their respects. Dare he say that Tenna would have wanted him there too... while he was in his prime at least. He hadn’t even recognized him earlier. Spamton moved even faster to push that thought away; there was no time to think about how that made him feel right now.
Finally reaching Tenna’s feet, he clambered on top of his legs to momentarily escape the biting cold of the snow beneath and quickly cupped his frozen hands tightly to his chest as best he could. Shaking vigorously, he scrunched his face and furrowed his brows as he hunched over his hands, trying his hardest to summon one of his strongest healing spells. Green glittered around him as he formed three small Spamton-shaped angels to heal Tenna as well as he could. This was his best bet- as his hands were far too frozen to make physical repairs to Tenna’s wiring and he didn’t have any tools on him. The angels would have to do for now.
He’d like to keep his eyes off Tenna’s screen as long as possible, forcing himself to focus on healing the severed arms first. Two angels gently reattached each arm- immediately dissipating after finishing their jobs due to using up all the magic they were made of. The third hovered in front of Tenna’s screen and tapped him softly on the top of the head with a small hand, staying close and watching as Tenna’s screen started to flicker on. Spamton turned away, still sitting on Tenna’s legs. He knew the angel would make sure Tenna was fully repaired. There was no need for him to continue staring.
The air filled with the thick kind of silence that only snowfall could bring stretched between the two of them, only interrupted by the soft flapping of tiny wings near the steadily brightening screen. Spamton gritted his teeth harder, a bad habit he had gained after his fallout. Soon enough, the quiet whirring of fans and ringing of a screen turning on joined the few noises filling the space. Spamton scrunched the ends of his blazer with a death grip, ignoring how numb and stiff his hands were in favor of holding on as tight as he possibly could.
Tenna groaned, bringing a hand to his head. He felt like he’d drank far too much- wait. Blinking his screen on properly, he looked down at his hand- hands? He could've sworn that both of his arms got cut clean off before he’d passed out, and he’s still sitting in the snow, so it wasn’t a dream. Looking up, he realizes that this moment might be a dream... that or he’s already died and gone to heaven. In front of him floats a small middle-aged man with wings on his back and a halo above his head. Yeah, he was definitely dead. There was no way his arms recovered that quickly.
Feeling a light weight resting on his legs, he tried to turn his head to the side to get a good look at what it was, only for the strange angel man to follow the motion and continue blocking his vision. He frowned. What was this guy’s problem?
“Ugh, hey, I don’t know who... or what you are but if you’re supposed to be welcoming me into heaven, you could at least do a better job at it. I’ve got a killer headache right now.” The little angel tilted his head in a silent question. Looks like this guy had nothing to say for himself. Fine. He started to move to get up, but as soon as he did, the angel shook its head vigorously and emitted glittery little green stars from its oversized head like it was sweating. Tenna gave up and slumped back down against the snow.
Funny, he'd have thought it'd be warmer here- and all at once it finally hit him. He was dead. He was DEAD! Oh God, in one fell swoop from the Knight, he was struck down right in front of Kris and the rest of the team. He'd finally gotten what he'd wanted through a small breach of the Knight's contract and before he could even properly celebrate that Susie really would be his friend, he was killed.
Starting to profusely sweat despite the cold, he rested his head back in his hands as his fans started to whir faster. That was cruel. He didn't get a second of the one thing he'd wanted his whole life. On the verge of tears, he started to shrink rapidly in despair, fully covering his face. The weight on his legs got heavier the smaller he got, but he was too caught up in his despair to notice before he got small enough that it fell off him, curling his body into itself as soon as he was able to.
The angel made a small chirp of surprise before floating down to the now very small TV, worriedly looking over him to check for any missed injuries before being abruptly smacked hard by a pure white hand and poofing into even smaller green sparkles. The sudden violence snapped Tenna back to reality, abruptly putting a stop to the crackly static tears that he'd never realized even started.
Jolting with a spike of panic, Tenna realized that he might still be in danger and quickly scrambled backwards as fast as he could at the small size he was now. He was still far too afraid to properly resize himself in time. He snapped his head up at a speed that was certainly not good for the intricate wiring in his neck. The hand hadn't moved from the spot where it'd brutally smacked the little angel out of existence.
Tenna may have not particularly liked the thing, but he felt like the extreme force was unnecessary, and he hoped he wouldn't end up the same way. Trailing his shaking gaze up the arm, he saw a larger version of that same man, but without the angelic features. He was completely turned away from Tenna obscuring his face. He'd hit the angel without even looking at it. Tenna started to sweat harder.
Over the horizon, three figures came running as fast as they could, each of them panting harshly. Susie ran in front of the other two, going as fast as she possibly could in the thick snow. At the very least, the blizzard-like conditions had let up, and she could see what looked like... Spamton? Sitting in the cold and turned away from a particularly large mountain of snow.
Suzie grunted to get the other two's attention and pushed forward even harder than before. It wasn't who she was looking for, but it was something. They all knew that the Dealmakers had flown off somewhere between Tenna getting hit and them chasing after the Knight. She thought he'd simply been knocked off in all the commotion, but there's no way the glasses could've flown this far just by being simply knocked off Kris' face. Spamton being in his physical form again confirmed that he'd moved here himself.
Tenna glanced slightly to the left for a second, noticing a rapidly approaching purple mass in the distance. Sparing another split-second glance away from the man in front of him, he realized it was Susie and was immediately filled with both relief and a massive amount of confusion. That meant that he wasn't where he thought he was. Now that he thought about it harder, why would heaven look exactly like the area he'd just "died" in?
Turning back, the man that sat in front of him had disappeared in the moment he'd looked at Susie, leaving a pair of multicolor pink and yellow glasses in his place that looked mildly familiar. Wasn't that-?
"HEY! COWARD!! YOU KNOW I SAW YOU, RIGHT??", Susie yelled while still running. Tenna winced, personally finding that level of volume a bit extreme for how close she already was to him. Also, rude? He returned to his normal size, now sporting a large frown that covered the entirety of the lower half of his screen.
Susie suddenly stopped in her tracks with eyes both wider than pipis behind her bangs, flailing her arms and falling backwards into the snow. Kris and Ralsei finally caught up to her, Kris staring at her as Ralsei hunched over to check if she was okay. Kris was the second one to see Tenna, standing in full glory with his hands on his hips. Kris' one visible eyebrow immediately jumped up on their face.
Tenna looked down at himself quickly, thinking his suit might be crumpled before the frown on his face turned into a small 'o' of realization. He'd honestly completely forgotten, everything had happened so fast, and he'd gotten so scared after he woke up. He looked back up with a smile, doing small jazz hands in response to their baffled stares. Even Ralsei looked completely stumped.
"How did you-? I mean, that was- your arms... how did they-?", Ralsei fumbled out quietly, half talking to himself in shock. Tenna's smile turned wobbly, and he scratched the back of his head. "Well, you see- I'm not completely sure? When I woke up, they were back on, and there was a small man... angel thi-!!"
Cut off by an abrupt impact, he looked down again to see Susie practically strangling his leg in a death grip. He gave a small smile and leaned over a bit to pet at her hair before looking back up at the other two. "I'm just glad I'm here at all, frankly- haha!" He tried his hardest to not start crying again. Susie growled from her place pressed into his pant leg and looked up at him. "I WAS GONNA KILL YOU MYSELF IF YOU WEREN'T OKAY, YOU KNOW THAT RIGHT? God..." As soon as her anger flared it fizzled out into sadness, which Tenna found unnerving coming from her.
Kris walked past Tenna after giving him a small nod, as if to agree with Susie, and picked up the glasses laying on the snow beside Tenna's feet. They shook them off lightly to get rid of the remaining snow, and put them back on their face, seeming to not mind the fact that they were still freezing cold and wet. Tenna's screen got brighter at the reminder.
"Oh yeah! The little angel thing had glasses just like that! There was also a larger version of it here, but I didn't get to see his face. Where'd you get those glasses anyway?" Kris looked mildly surprised as a small glint of recognition appeared in their eye, and they pointed to the glasses on their face as a question. "...You saw a little angel wearing these?", they mumbled.
Tenna laughed nervously and nodded, "I mean, I had just woken up and thought I was seeing things until you guys came over! It tapped me on the head and next thing I knew, my screen could see clear as day, like nothing had happened!" Susie finally pulled back, joining Ralsei in giving Kris a skeptical look, as if asking each other ‘why would he bother doing that?’ Tenna looked between the three of them, wringing his hands together and slowly frowning.
Ralsei was the first to speak up again, nervously turning back to Tenna. "I'm not sure why he'd help you... he told us he'd never do that again. Not that I'm not thankful!", waving his hands around and glancing back to look at the glasses resting on Kris' nose. "I'm not sure what we would've done without his help!!"
Tenna put his hand under his chin in thought. Again? Never do what again? I've never seen that guy in my life! Sure, the glasses were familiar, but that's just because Kris wore them since they first met in the Dark World. He didn't question it, figuring they'd had a fashion change in the long time that he'd seen them last.
Tenna shook his head and threw his newly reattached arms up in the air with an award-winning smile. "Well at any rate! We'd better get back to the studio as soon as possible! I'm sure Elnino and Lanina are worried sick!"
Kris gave him one last pointed look from under the glasses before nodding in agreement and turning away to start making their way back, Susie following close behind them. Ralsei gave a small reassuring smile before turning and heading off as well. Tenna felt his smile slowly drop along with his arms and quickly did a little jog to catch up with them, however unnecessary it was with his height.