Chapter Text
A Time For Change
Chapter 1: Static And Snow
The snow was falling and he was cold. So very, very cold. Through cracked screen which occasionally popped back to life, he gained brief snapshots of his now mangled existence. Arms gone, shoulders sparking. He was in far less pain then he would have expected, but the cold was cutting into him so deep that it numbed everything out. Everything except one simple yet so very deadly thought that kept creeping into his mind like ice.
He was broken. Broken. Broken...
Tenna could hear fighting. It had been there from the moment he had regained consciousness. It must be the Knight. Who else could it be? They must have turned their blade on the kids. Consequences of Tenna going back on their deal, no doubt.
He had to do something! He had to try! He couldn't let the Knight harm them! He should have been there to protect them! If only he hadn't been cut down from behind! If only...if only...
Tenna tried to get up, but it felt as if his very circuits were frozen solid. He managed to get onto his knees...only to collapse as his already fading strength flagged further. His TV head hit the snow and that, at the very least, was a soft enough landing that it protected his screen from collecting even more cracks.
Thoughts flitted through his mind like a channel with a bad signal. It mingled with the wind in a way that created white noise that only he could hear. 'Cold. So cold. I have to get up. It doesn't matter what happens to me now that I'm...no, stop thinking about yourself, Tenna! You have to do something to help those kids! You were already so selfish today! If you can't get up, if you can't just push through this, then the knight is going to-'
His entire body shook as he tried yet again to get back onto his feet. This time he felt something inside his chassis give out, for the damage ran so much deeper than just his external injuries. He was not even sure how he was still holding on with his HP so deep in the red. What did it even matter now? He was broken. There was nothing left.
His body hit the snow on what remained of his right shoulder. Sparks shot from the exposed wiring. Pain ripped through that shoulder so sharp that it was like the knight was severing his arms all over again.
…..That pain remained his only anchor as a flurry of snow gave way to an entirely different scene. Suddenly he was raising his left hand to grip his right shoulder, once again suffering pain so bad it was as if he had been cleaved anew. His right arm spasmed uncontrollably. Stage lights that he had always performed under with perfect ease now felt harsh and all too bright. Too many eyes were on him. Eyes that were meant to be his new audience. His second chance. And he was....
Teeth grit, he turned his attention on to the microphone he had dropped the moment the agonizing spasms had begun. It was about to roll right off the stage. He needed to do something. Fast.
'Just some technical difficulties, folks!' He announced, and his voice had sounded so, so small without the mic.
He tried to angle his spasm wracked arm away from the crowd. Somehow. Somehow he was going to salvage his first show for the Castle Town Darkners. For the first educational video he was showing the Lightner school children. Because that wonderful girl Susie, who had given him hope, who had gone above and beyond to save him after The Knight's attack, had donated him to her school where he could still find use in helping educate children. This had made him a permanent resident of Castle Town and he HAD to make a good first impression upon its denizens. No matter what.
But...as he struggled to regain control of his arm between stabs of pain, he saw what simply could not be. Snow. Snow was beginning to fall down upon the stage and he could see his own breath. Ice crept in through the cracks in the wood, drawing ever closer to him. Any warmth that his regular functions generated within his chassis leeched out, leaving only the icy cold that he had been so desperate to escape. With it, the feelings he had been fighting ever since he was brought to Castle Town surged forward.
'I'm not supposed to be here! I'm not supposed to be alive! This is a farce! I'm broken! You can all see it! Stop looking at me!'
He was not sure if he had actually said those words out loud or not. His mind was filled with the howling of a blizzard and the harsh hiss of white noise. He swayed there on stage. Too many eyes on him. Too many eyes watching him fail. His very core was freezing over, all while his shoulder throbbed with white hot pain.
He felt himself fall, as if watching it from a great distance. His right shoulder hit the stage much too hard and sent another, far greater surge of pain running down his arm. But he was numbing out at the same time. His screen was flickering into darkness. And....
The ache in his right shoulder remained. Everything still felt so very far away as he lay there in his bed with Susie at his side in his TV World themed room. She was outraged at what he had done to himself. 'What were you thinking trying to run a show like that so soon after The Knight nearly killed you? You stopped working in the Light World too, you know! Right in the middle of class! Alphys did some tinkering and got you back up and running, but-' Susie bared her teeth at him. 'Dammit, Tenna! If you go and work yourself to death before you've had a chance to heal....after everything we did to save your sorry ass, I swear I'll repair you again just so I can kill you myself!'
Tenna had tried to play it all off with jokes and exasperated apologies. It did not sit well with him when he later found out that she had faked needing to go to the bathroom in the middle of class just to come to the Dark World and check on him after his breakdown. Darkners were not supposed to inconvenience the daily living of a Lightner like that. Even now he was failing and he could not understand why Susie cared so much for an old CRT well past its prime.
The pain in his shoulder did not subside after his fall on stage. It remained a dull ache that worsened whenever he stretched his right arm too far or too quickly, and if he wasn't careful, it could go into full blown spasms like when it had flared up for the first time. It seemed that, in his haste to make a good first impression, he had exacerbated that particular injury in a way that wasn't getting better. He'd check the shoulder over and over again in the mirror, but aside from the fact that it was obvious that the metal had been messily soldered back together, there was no clear sign of injury. Yet it continued to radiate pain.
The grim reality of this eventually broke through all of his attempts to deny it as time wore on and the dull ache did not subside. It seemed to cycle through different levels of pain that followed no real rhyme or reason. Some days were better than others, and some days he would get careless and set off a full on spasm attack by accident. Then the pain would remain at its highest for hours before finally subsiding back into that dull, endless ache. He did his best to hide it. He could not bear the thought of Kris, Ralsei, or Susie finding out that he was still broken in some irreparable way.
He had spent plenty of time just laying around in bed with certain hollow thoughts echoing through his mind over and over again, 'I can't run my show with my arm like this. I can't fulfill my purpose. What am I going to do? Will I turn to stone, or will I just watch myself being thrown into a trash compactor when the school finally realizes I'm broken junk?'
He was supposed to be focusing on rest and recovery for the foreseeable future. It would be a long time before anyone in Castle Town had to know he couldn't perform. That he couldn't....couldn't be the TV host Darkner that he was meant to be. The school would figure it out long before any Darkner could.
The cold had crept back in then, coating his room in icicles. A flurry of snow obscured a dark figure as it drew nearer. Tenna froze solid at the sight of a gleaming blade and his right shoulder exploded into agony. The Roaring Knight hovered before his bed, raising their black knife high to plunge it deep into his chassis and finish the job.
All Tenna could think was, 'Why? Why did you take my purpose from me? I distracted them for as long as I could. I did what you wanted! I know I gave them Toriel, but it was never right for me to keep her like that in the first place! Why was it so wrong of me to let her go?Sometimes I think you tried to kill me for nothing but the sick satisfaction of doing it.'
The howling of wind and hiss of white noise grew louder and he was caught up in another blizzard that obscured his vision in static...
...And then he was standing in the cafe, having gained a few too many extra inches in his fury as he loomed over the crew he had cobbled together for his disastrous Castle Town debut. Many TV World Darkners had not wanted to work with him again for....obvious reasons. And despite his remorse for the way he had treated them, he was doing a horrible job of showing it to those who had remained loyal as his desperation stoked the flames of his frustration.
He kept rubbing at his right shoulder. The ever present ache made everything so much worse. Fangs bared, he all but snarled, 'I just don't get it! Why did you shut the show down? You could have kept it going without me! You could have salvaged it! We needed to make a good first impression and that was the worst possible impression we could have given them!'
Silence followed for one long moment as his meager crew gave each other looks before one Pippin dared to speak up for all of them, 'Because our boss was kinda having a medical emergency right then and there on stage. Why wouldn't we have shut things down?'
Tenna's claws were out now too. He had not noticed the dead silence that had fallen over the cafe. 'Then you should have started things back up the second they got me off stage! The show must go on! It's what we do! It's what we're made for!' He clapped his gloved hands together, wincing a little at how the motion pulled at his bad shoulder. 'But we have a chance to fix this! We'll set up a new performance for tomorrow and apologize for the technical difficulties that ended the last one early!'
His crew glanced at each other again and the leader Pippin sucked in a breath before saying, 'Ralsei doesn't want us helpin' you do any shows while you're supposed to be healing up.'
Tenna tried to keep his anger in check, but his shoulder just kept on aching. 'Who are you going to listen to? Your boss...or a kid like him?'
'Ralsei's our prince now.' The Pippin challenged. 'He's your prince now too and he doesn't want you shutting down on stage like that again, especially when it's affecting your functions in the Light World too!'
'Fine! Fine!' Tenna snapped, still having enough clarity left to not try and push his former employees more than he already had. 'But what are you all going to do without our show? It's what we were made to do! We're all going to end up thrown out when the Lightners find out we're not performing our functions properly! It'll be curtains for us for real this time! And-AGH!' He had furiously swung his right arm in an arc, pulling at his bad shoulder in the process. White hot pain shot down his arm, causing a flare up of spasms along with it. He had not meant to cry out. The last thing he had wanted was those looks of sympathy on his former employees faces.
Noticing the uncomfortable silence, he realized then that all eyes in the cafe were on him. Anger melted into shame and he lost all of his extra height. He clutched at his shoulder in a desperate attempt to stop the spasms, to stop them from being visible to all the watching Darkners. Any hopes of making a good first impression had truly gone up in smoke the second he had let his anger get the better of him on that day.
He left the cafe without so much as an apology or goodbye to his crew. All he'd wanted was to get out of there and away from all the stares. His shoulder ached on, filling him with feelings of doom and dread as he tried desperately to walk the spasms off. He'd apologize to his crew later. He'd make it up to them. Somehow. But right now....god he just wanted this flare up to be over with.
The cobblestone beneath his shoes started to crunch strangely and he came to a halt. Cold inched up his legs.
It was happening again.
There were no torches lighting the alleyway he had wandered into, but the glow of his screen did a good enough job illuminating what he needed to see. Ice. Somehow he was now standing atop an iced over pool so deep he could not see the bottom.
His shoulder exploded into pure agony once more and this time he swore he heard the swipe of the knife along with it. Whipping around, he met The Roaring Knight nearly face to face and he stumbled backwards. In a blind panic, he summoned his Darkner magic and sent a barrage of star shaped bullet patterns streaking toward The Knight. He was still a boss Darkner after all! By no means was he a pushover, even if he preferred game show challenges over a real fight. Had The Knight not ambushed him from behind, he surely would have been able to hold his own, at least long enough to keep Toriel and the children safe, right? Had he just been able to perform his duties as the boss of TV World, he wouldn't have lost his purpose to The Knight's merciless attack...right?
His magic faltered. A Darkner expressed their meaning and purpose through their magic and bullet patterns. Now he could feel that magic twisting and becoming undefined, losing what made his specific kind of magic unique to him. Who was he now if he couldn't even...
Not a single star had hindered The Knight, even before Tenna had lost command of his powers. They plunged their gleaming knife into the ice and the floor shattered into a million pieces. Tenna watched the alleyway around him vanish as he plunged into bitterly cold water. Numb yet again, only the burning pain of his shoulder remained. It practically became his whole world.
Suffocating. He was suffocating. The burn in his shoulder had him clawing at it with his left hand as his mechanical lungs burned for air. Why? Why couldn't it just stop for a little while? How was he meant to live with this? The burning! The constant burning!
….And the ache in his shoulder finally woke him up. He was not underwater. He had his blank screen pressed so hard into the pillow that it had been making him feel like he couldn't get air. The cold, as always, was something that was never really there. It crept in during quiet moments. When he was given too much time to think. Otherwise, it always seemed to infect his dreams and turn them into frozen nightmares. The Roaring Knight sometimes featured, but not always. Tonight had been especially bad. A surreal mix of recent events, invaded over and over again, all while his damn shoulder pulsed with pain to remind him of what a waste his second chance was going to be when A TV Darkner could no longer be the entertainer that defined his whole existence.
The flare ups of pain had been real. His left hand was still clamped on the shoulder, trying to soothe the ache, even as he had slept. He must have pulled it at some point in the night and brought that fiery pain to his dreams. It would not be the first time. In fact, he'd not had a decent night of sleep since his fall on stage. It still left a dull pit of dread in his core whenever it hit him that this chronic pain was not getting better.
Groaning, he pushed himself up with his left hand and scanned his TV World themed room. There had been a few upgrades since his adoption by the school. The biggest one was the addition of a kitchen alcove. Toriel had always enjoyed cooking shows so Tenna had inevitably picked up some decent cooking knowledge from all the shows he had run for her. It was something that kept his mind off of...everything.
Well, coffee was sounding really good right now, even if it was two in the morning, going by Lightner time. Darkners followed a similar sleep pattern, but day was not really a concept here and time did not always follow the same flow as the Light World. Tenna simply had the unique ability to sync with Light World time as an ability inherent to a TV Darkner who needed to keep a schedule for the sake of Lightner entertainment.
He slipped into a pair of banana yellow slippers and shuffled into the kitchen. He was currently garbed in TV Time branded red pajamas. In spite of everything, Ralsei had done an amazing job at making sure the TV World denizens had enough of what was familiar that they would not get homesick for a place that no longer existed. Tenna greatly appreciated it, especially when he was already struggling with feeling like he was unmoored from everything he had ever known or understood.
While he waited for the coffee to brew, he couldn't help but feel troubled by the nightmare and decided to check just one thing. He raised his left hand, palm facing upward, and called upon his magic. Four stars appeared, floating a few inches above his palm and ready to burst into the bullet patterns that defined so much of his fighting style and flare. He felt profound relief at the sight of them. He had not yet lost his identity to such an extent that he could no longer call upon his unique bullet pattern magic.
He let out the breath he had been holding in. Despite everything, he was still Tenna. Maybe a little down and out. Maybe feeling just a tiny bit glooby. But still himself. The Knight had cut away so much of what mattered to him, but who he was had survived.
Letting the stars dissipate, they popped out of existence like mini fireworks going off, briefly illuminating the dark kitchen in the process. He never bothered with turning the lights on unless he was cooking something more involved. The glow of his screen let him navigate easily enough in the dark.
It was as those stars made their grand exit that he saw a dark silhouette in the kitchen window. His whole body froze solid. He swore he could feel the kitchen icing over. Swore he could see every puff of his own tense breathing.
And then there was a knock at the window. “Dammit, Tenna! Stop standing there and open the window!” A muffled yet familiar voice yelled out.
“S-Susie?” He sputtered in alarm. The ice coating the kitchen walls melted away until no evidence remained, and yet the chill still lingered inside Tenna's chest.
He rushed over and unlatched the window. Susie rolled head first into the kitchen, landing heavily on her back. She was breathing as if she had just run a marathon. Despite this, she was grinning like a maniac.
“C-climbed all three stories up the castle wall so nobody would see me and tell Ralsei!” She gave Tenna a cheeky thumbs up. “Queen is throwing one hell of a party and I wasn't in the mood for a stealth mission.”
Tenna crossed his arms, wincing a little as his bad shoulder pulled. “What in the name of Mr. Rogers are you doing here at this hour? It's almost three in the morning! How did you even get into the school to come here?”
She gave a casual shrug from her place on the floor. “Broke in. Heh, never thought I'd WANT to sneak into my own school one day.”
Tenna only became more perplexed by the Lightner's actions. “But why? What was so important that it couldn't wait until after school?”
She got to her feet and shrugged a second time. “No real reason. Just wanted to watch a movie and knew the exact Darkner to look for.”
Tenna took on some height as the same hope he had felt when Susie first promised to find him a new home welled up inside his chest anew. A Lightner still had a use for him! He could still entertain! He could-
The more rational part of his mind took over, cutting off his thoughts and returning his size back to where it had been. He shook his TV head and tried to put on his best impression of a concerned parent. “It's past your bed time and it's way past curfew in the Light World! You are breaking and entering as well! And you-”
Susie pulled something out of her pocket. “I brought popcorn.” She interrupted. Like all things that came from the Light World, it had changed upon entering the Dark World. The unpopped bag was now dark purple in color and outlined in neon pink.
Tenna's tirade died out as he sputtered a little. “I-I'm not even sure Darkners can eat Light World food without, I don't know, exploding or something...”
Susie gave him an evil smirk. “Wanna find out?”
“Aren't your parents going to worry if they find you missing at this hour?”
Susie threw back her head and laughed long and hard. When she was done, all she gave him was a simple, “No.”
Tenna clutched at his sides. For as much as Toriel and Asgore's fighting had torn apart the Dreemurr household before their separation, they had loved Kris and Asriel with all their hearts and never once intended to harm them. They had always wanted what was best for them and Tenna could not comprehend the concept of a parent not worrying about Susie's behavior.
He followed her out of the kitchen, temporarily forgetting about his coffee in the process. She flopped onto the couch like she owned the place and looked around the dim living room that so closely resembled TV World. She seemed surprised that he had not yet done more to decorate this place.
“Look,” Tenna began, deciding to press the issue. “I may be a TV who is desperate to entertain-” He skipped a beat and groaned inwardly at having phrased it that way. “-But I am also a responsible adult, and so-”
Susie gave a nonchalant wave of her hand. “Stuff it with the lecture, Tenna. I'm here 'cause I wanted to check on you.”
“Check on me?” He repeated with genuine surprise. His undamaged antenna shot straight up in shock.
“Yeah, I stop in at Castle Town after school every day to check with Ralsei how things are going with the Darkners we've recruited. Word around town is that you-” She paused as she tried to figure out how best to say the next part. “-That you've really been out of it ever since, well, you know.”
A jolt of fear ran up Tenna's back and he tried to ease her concern with his practiced showman style. “Hahaha! You know how rumors spread! I'm doing just fine! Haha! Perfectly fine! You and the crew did a bang up job repairing me, considering the circumstances you were dealing with out there in the snow! It's a miracle you even found me! I gotta say, this is the best I've felt in YEARS thanks to you!” He enjoyed having the chance to use his splash text again, even if it was only to put a pretty bow on his lies.
The look Susie gave him made it clear she wasn't having it. “I know the way you Darkners are about not wanting to inconvenience Lightners with your problems. Kris and I already have a hard enough time with Ralsei pulling that shit on us, so just cut it out with the bullshit Tenna. Anyone would be a mess after what you went through.”
Tenna continued to attempt to deflect, even as the throbbing in his shoulder started to consume more and more of his attention, as if demanding to be acknowledged. “My whole life has been upended, Susie. Of course I'm going to be a little off as I get used to my new home, both in the classroom and here in Castle Town. This is all so new and I'm an old CRT. Change doesn't come as easily for me as it does for you kids. This is a new beginning, and I will always be grateful for the second chance you all gave me after how I acted, but...starting over is never easy. I want to do right by everyone and be someone better than who I was. So, once I'm healed up, I'm going to prove that an old CRT really can learn new tricks!” He hoped that adding some sincerity to the lies would make them easier to swallow.
Susie continued to eye him with skepticism but seemingly accepted the explanation. Tenna's hand twitched as he fought the urge to massage his shoulder. It was as if the injury had gained a mind of its own and wanted nothing more than to sabotage him even more than it already had.
He shrank down a little to better fit on the couch, sitting opposite of Susie as he did so. Thankfully he had his turbulent emotions in check and was in full control of his size shifting for the moment.
“So,” He asked. “Did you have any particular movie in mind?”
Susie's nonchalant attitude was returning in full. “Just find me the bloodiest, most gore filled B-Movie they'd be playing on cable at this hour.”
Tenna's mouth fell into a frown.
“Hey, I disabled your parental locks before I gave you to Alphys so there's nothing to stop you!”
Tenna's frown deepened to the point that it could have fallen right off his screen if given the chance.
“Blood and guts! Blood and guts!” Susie chanted, pumping her arms.
“Okay, okay! I'll see what I can find, but I really don't think that kind of content is good for a developing mind...”
“Ah, don't be such a stick in the mud, Tenna!” Susie chided him in good humor, slapping him on the left shoulder and causing him to thank Mike she hadn't been in a position to hit him on his right. “I'm sure Kris was always finding ways around those parental controls to watch stuff like this!”
Tenna smiled a little as happier memories flooded him. He chuckled and said, “It was actually Dess who was always figuring out ways around it to show the kids scary movies.”
But those times were long gone, as was Dess...
“Lemme see what I can find...” He muttered, pulling himself out of his reminiscing. His screen turned to static as he tried to capture the right signals from the Light World to allow him to play cable TV. When he could not, he started to panic a little. This used to come so effortlessly to him so why could he not pick up even a single channel?
His thoughts began to race and the cold started to creep in. 'No, no, no! I can do this! I can't be THAT broken! Please, just let me fulfill my purpose in this one way! Susie deserves it after everything she's done for me! Please! Just let me have this one thing!'
He adjusted his antennas in an effort to pick up a signal, all while trying to keep his panic from showing. His shoulder throbbed and the sound of the static from his screen made him feel as if he were back in the middle of a howling snowstorm. His damaged right antenna would not cooperate. It was held together with duct tape now, after The Knight's attack had sent him falling down a steep snowbank. He had not been conscious for it, of course, but he was sure that fall was also where his screen had been broken. His antennas no longer moved in sync and he often could not will the right one to move at all. Desperate, he reached up to try and manually move it, hoping that with the right adjustments, he'd find a signal.
Susie was looking increasingly uncomfortable with his efforts until finally she exclaimed, “Dude, enough! You're going to mess up the bandaging! I'll have Alphys take a look at you in the morning. She's good at tinkering with older technology. We'll just...figure out something else to do until then.”
Tenna's screen flickered to black. “B-but, I-” He stammered out through the howling wind that remained in his head even as the white noise from his screen died out.
“Stop worrying!” Susie yelled. “I know exactly what you're thinking right now, and nothing bad is going to happen to you! Alphys loves having you around! You are not going to get thrown out just because you go on the fritz sometimes! And even if she did change her mind, I wouldn't let you be thrown away!”
Susie's assurances cut through the snow and ice and Tenna's screen snapped back to life. His mouth screwed up in a rather funny way as he fought back tears. “Oh, Susie!” He exclaimed, taking on a few extra inches of height in the process. He pulled Susie into a crushing hug. “How can I ever repay you for all of your kindness? I'd send you off on an All-Expenses-Paid vacation, but you know how it is with budget cuts and my show stuck on hiatus!”
“You can start paying me back by putting me the hell down!” Susie snarled and he released his grip on her. The moment she hit the cushion, she pointed a claw up at him. “Look, I will take care of things in the Light World, but you need to promise me that you'll take care of yourself here in the Dark World. I haven't liked the things I've been hearing about you from Ralsei. You can't just spend your days all cooped up like this. You need to make some friends. Start a hobby or two. You gotta get it through your thick TV shaped skull that there's more to life than performing for Lightners!”
Tenna's hand twitched and he once again had to stop himself from massaging his aching shoulder. He hated that Susie had figured him out with such ease, even if she did not know the full extent of what he was dealing with. He swallowed, let out an uneasy breath, and said, “I...I guess you're right about that.”
“Damn right I am! I'll tell Ralsei to find you a few hobbies to try out so that way you can figure out what you like.”
Tenna tapped his fingers together. “Hobbies? Hobbies....” He repeated to himself, as if the word and its meaning were a completely foreign concept to him.
“And don't forget to make some friends!”
“Right, that too.” Tenna replied, smiling down at Susie.
He was not sure if he would ever be able to convey the gratitude he felt toward that gruff but so deeply considerate Lightner. Maybe with the help of people like her, he could make something worthwhile out of his second chance, even with his injuries hindering his functions. He would not misuse Susie's kindness, and maybe someday he would have a chance to pay her back.
With that thought in mind, his expression changed to one of determination and he hauled Susie up under his good arm. Over her yells of protest, he exclaimed, “Alright, you! It's time to get you back to the Light World! What sort of responsible Darkner would I be if I let you stay up all night? On a school night no less! Ralsei would have me exiled if he found out!”
“At least let me have the popcorn!” Susie yelled, flailing around like a hooked fish.
“Next time!” Tenna sang, strolling toward the door. All the while ignoring Susie's snarls of frustration.
End Of Chapter