Chapter Text
6453
Despite having never seen that number before, Kris entered the code knowingly
Why did they know the code? It must just be obvious in some way, right?
Kris couldn't keep thinking about where this mysterious code came from because they were already moving into the newly unlocked room. This was fine, they could just file away this mystery with all the other weird things that they had been doing, all by themself, definitely just them.
Ralsei spoke up
"Umm... A-are we supposed to be in here...? The door was locked..."
To which Susie replied
"Wait, arn't you curious who the hell Mike is? He sure got mentioned a hell of a lot"
"M.. Maybe just a peek...?"
As Kris approached a small statue of a cat, they mused over this small mystery. Mike certainly had been called upon by Tenna a whole lot. From what they could infer, this unseen Mike seemed to run most of Tenna's show from behind the scenes, pulling the strings and getting everything in place. It almost seemed that Mike (by virtue of setting up and moving about pretty much everything) had more of a say in the running of the show than Tenna did!
While thinking these things, Kris absentmindedly petted a small cat statue (it disappeared) and continued down this room, which was feeling more like a corridor.
In the further parts of the room, a taller cat statue blocked the way north, well out of Kris's reach. Additionally, on a similarly high shelf, a row of hats lay inaccessible (how inconvenient, Kris mused), and at the end of this corridor, a Maus cowered in fear of another (much more modestly sized) cat statue.
Kris, out of the goodness of their SOUL (or was it curiosity?), pet the statue, freeing the Maus from the perceived danger; in return, the Maus squeaked with affection and transformed into a hand.
"(Kris, it looks like you can use the MAUS with the MOUSE...!)" Ralsei whispered to Kris in the same way he always did when he said something that didn't really make sense.
The newly transformed hand began moving around the room, floating in the air as if gravity were a mere suggestion. The hand moved erratically yet mechanically, moving mostly in straight lines around the space, yet seemingly searching curiously despite the minimalist nature of the room.
As Kris walked back towards the large cat statue, this newly formed hand followed them, grabbing one of the hats from the shelves and waving it around in the air. Kris was slightly disappointed when the Maus returned the hat to its shelf; they would quite have liked to wear it.
After the Maus had petted the large statue (making it disappear as expected), Kris, Susie, Ralsei and their new "handy" friend approached another door with a microphone on it. That's odd, Kris mused. Is this a Mike room inside the Mike room? How big is this room?
Next to the imposing double doors were two things: a small patch of the ever-helpful healing light (which Kris promptly touched) and a mysterious crystal shaped like a microphone.
As Kris peered into the crystal ball, pondering microphones, a new voice emerged from somewhere.
"Testing 1,2,3 testing... OK, Mike seems to be working fine. Next up, the fight"
The voice was alien, yet painfully familiar. It was coming from everywhere and nowhere, almost internal? As if hearing it was as natural as reading their own thoughts, yet Kris would have sworn that they had never heard this voice speak before in their life.
"Still not sure why you're getting so excited. Everything seems to be running pretty smoothly"
This entity appeared to be talking to someone else that Kris could presume was: A) not them and B) inaudible to their ears.
As Kris approached the door, they briefly scanned the rest of the fun gang and noticed Ralsei looking somewhat uncomfortable; had they heard this voice too?
The fun gang walked through a pitch-black room (where was the light switch?), and from the darkness they heard a much more normal (relatively at least) voice coming from inside.
"Hey, the heck are you doing in here?!
Didn't you read that DOOR"
Kris replied to this stranger, "Yeah, it said 'Mike' "
"AND YOU STILL WENT INSIDE!?
What!? What!? You think you're Mike or somethin'!?"
"You're Mike", they retorted.
"... Miii hi hi hi hi hi hyike!
So ya figured it out, did ya?!
Mee-yike, that's right!
There's only ONE real MIKE...
And that's ME!!!"
Mike, as he called himself, appeared from within the depths of this (seemingly endless) room. He had a microphone-shaped head with a big smile and was holding another microphone, and as soon as he appeared, a battle began.
The Maus hand from earlier returned, floating between the gang and Mike, attached to some central pivot that, despite being right in front of them, Kris could not make out. This (they supposed) was just another eccentricity of dark world battles, akin to the way that they felt responsible when their friends got hit, even when they stood apart.
As the hand petted Mike, Kris tried to tune out Motormouth Mike's odd ramblings, since he talked quite a lot.
"This is a private room,... we are recording, YOU are background noise!"
As Mike's attack began, the voice from earlier returned in a way Kris could not tune out.
"Let's get into it!, Woo YES KEEP IT UP"
This voice had appeared to have mostly abandoned traditional sentences, opting instead for shouts of cheering and praise, but this was only a distraction from a far more peculiar sensation; gravity had turned off.
As the shouts of joy continued in the background, Kris felt themselves lift off the ground; this wasn't inherently unusual, but the subsequent coincidence of the cheers stopping just as the gravity switched back on (the entire fun gang landing on their feet with varying levels of success) was suspicious.
As the attack ended, the voice's speaking restarted
"Sure, I can answer a few questions."
Questions? Who was this voice talking to?
"Kris? I like them, they're a good kid, but they need to be more willing to accept help."
Kris did not like how this comment made them feel; they tried so hard not to think about it that they almost didn't notice the next attack starting up until they were already rising into the air.
"Wooooooo!" The voice let out a long cheer as Kris and their friends rose towards the ceiling, narrowly avoiding Mike's rising attack, until the cheer suddenly stopped, and in the silence, the gang fell flat on the floor. Kris was vaguely aware of an attack inches above their head as they struggled to get back up and reorient themselves.
"Susie? She'll do great things. I know that no matter how her story ends, she's going to fight for the best ending all the way till the end."
Susie grinned with pride at this comment, relishing in this praise before the next attack (Quite literally) swept her off her feet.
"UP UP UP, down ... down UP UP!" The words appeared to be having somewhere close to their intended effect, with Kris rising and falling around the attack, doing cartwheels in the air. They noticed Susie and Ralsei enjoying themselves with this roller-coaster ride of a fight
"The knight? I've got a few theories about their identity."
"Hey!" Susie shouted, "If you've got an idea about who the knight is, tell us!"
The battle went silent; even the background music had stopped.
After an uncomfortable minute, Motermouth Mike spoke up, "What do you mean? I didn't say anything about the Knight"
"Well, somebody sure did", Susie insisted.
After an even more uncomfortable silence, the voice spoke again, "Are you talking about me?"
"Yeah," Susie said, "you're Mike, right? We started hearing you when Kris touched that crystal ball thingy."
"Uhh, yep! That's me, Mike!" the voice spoke, sounding concerningly unsure of themselves. "Great job, you guys, filling in in my absence!"
"Is it really you?" Motermouth Mike asked, looking confused and searching for the source of this voice.
"Yes, Battat it, uh, is me the original Mike."
"Wait, wait, stop the battle!" Battat commanded as the structure of battle fell away, leaving Kris, Susie and Ralsei, along with Battat and two other microphone-themed darkners, standing in an otherwise empty room.
"Hey, boss, why's the battle over? we'se don't even got to our attacks yet?" The darkner in a cowboy hat asked.
"Forget the attacks, forget the costumes, Mike is back!"
"But boss, you'se said we was mike?"
"No, the original Mike! He's real! I KNEW IT"
Slightly more distorted than before, the voice said: "Uhh, testing testing, can you guys still hear me?"
"Yes, Mr Mike, we can hear you loud and clear.", Ralsei reassured
Battat started laughing in a deranged way, disturbingly familiar to Kris.
Everyone in the room slowly backed away as Battat ripped off their costume, revealing an otherwise average pippins aside from the green colour. He, in a fit that could only be described as madness, jumped and ripped a sheet off the wall, revealing an intricately maintained pinboard that Battat started tearing down.
Throughout this Battat ranted, "I was right, I was always right, there WAS another Mike! I just got a few details here and there wrong, of course, it's so obvious now!"
"Mr Battat?" Ralsei tentatively inquired, "Could you stop destroying that pinboard and, perhaps, give us some answers? If that's not too much of a bother for you of course."
"It's quite simple, really", Battat responded, surprisingly coherently "We three have been standing in for this deserter for quite some time now! We've been there every time for Tenna while this bozo went off galivanting or whatever it is that a Mike does when they are skiving off work."
"Uhh sorry about that, I guess?" Mike sounded quite confused, "I guess I've kinda been here all this time, just never gotten a chance to communicate with you guys before."
"Perhaps this room has some sort of microphone property that allows you to communicate within it?" Ralsei's question seemed too specific to be a random guess, but Kris knew better by now to question Ralsei's instincts and odd mannerisms.
Mike asked, "Do you think you could, uh, reproduce the effect outside of this room? I was wondering if I could come with you, uh, heroes."
After just about reaching a state that could be described as calm, this comment set Battat off again, "Wait, you're leaving again? We've got so much to talk about! So much to discuss! You're just going to run off with the first legendary heroes of prophecy that walk in through the door!"
Ralsei attempted to reassure, "Mr Battat, not to be rude, but what actually would Mike do if he couldn't leave this room? All the needs of the darkners are being met here in Castle town. Tenna doesn't really need Mike at the moment."
"But, it's Mike, I need to know the answers", Battat cried, having now become exhausted by his ranting, and resting against (what appeared to be) a shadow guy in a cat suit.
Ignoring the whines, Ralsei spoke, "Mr Mike, I'm certain that I can make an appropriate receiving device in time for our next dark world adventure, if your wish is to join us."
"Uh. Sure!" Mike responded in a tone that suggested this development was surprising but not the main thing on his mind.
As the Fun gang left Mike's room (without having to pass through the corridors they had taken to get there), they left Battat to be consoled by their fellow Mike impersonators.
Susie spoke up first, "I'm gonna be the first one to say it, that was weird. And not just the whole microphone theme"
"I'm glad we made a friend in there, Susie (though I do agree it was a bit odd)", Ralsei whispered the last part.
Kris wasn't sure what to think of the "Mike experience", better to just get back to what they were doing, which appeared to be leaving (Of course). They would be going to see Noelle now, and everything would be fine, nothing would go wrong, the plan was failproof, and there were absolutely no cracks.