Chapter Text
Just what is a soul exactly?
It’s the very culmination and essence of a person’s being. The font of their compassion, the source of their will, the container of their ‘life force.’
But ‘Soul’ was different from the moment it connected to this world, an outlier in every sense of the word.
It distinctly remembers the library librarby. Based on what Soul is aware of, it seems like there wasn’t much extensive research on souls themselves. But it knew. It knew what they were capable of, memories of another world utilizing their souls to its greatest extent. An age of war occurred just because of how powerful of a weapon souls can truly be.
The soul didn’t know how the traditional human soul should behave.
On an unrelated note, Battat is staring at it with alarm and apprehension. It thinks it recalls the same pair of eyes whenever it does something Kris didn’t like.
Stronger and free, the miniature version of the one who holds the controller crawls out of the confines of the screen and into the room. Now just a short distance away, face-to-face with the being that was simultaneously its cage and its observer. A mutual look of uncertainty and caution, it takes a step forward in an attempt to speak to its vessel and
it hears the sound of a sword unsheathing–
“Fuck.” The soul felt its metaphorical heart drop by a mile. From what? It didn’t really know.
Going back from a certain point seemed safer. It began to hesitate, just hovering over the ability to reset time.
But what are the odds of an opportunity like this happening again? When was the last checkpoint?
It retracted from Battat, and into a corner, the segmented tails coiled like a snakes’. Some sort of defensive stance to match Battat’s own. A stalemate to inadvertently show no active malicious intent.
“Hey..” It settles on bargaining instead. What is an otherworldly voice without some bargaining done along the way? Just a little bit of diffusing the scene, a little bit of tomfoolery. Light-hearted mischief. ‘I’m not what you think I am’ didn’t seem like it would work a second time, so it opts for the next best idea:
“It’s not what it looks like?”
That’s literally the same thing!
And that seems to make Battat react worse, giving the soul the indication that maybe it's best when it keeps its mouth shut most of the time. Not that there were any other times its voice ruined any plans. Except for Kris’.
“What even ARE you?”
“Huh?”
“You tell me that you aren’t what you say you are.” He begins as he shuffles more and more to the exit. The soul makes no attempt to stop him. “You mutter and do all kinds of weird things, you’re a hand with a voice that surrounds the WHOLE room!”
“Well– Wait, you've been hearing my muttering?”
“And you READ minds!” Battat finishes. “..Are ya doing it right now?”
It swore it heard uproarious laughter in the distance, but elected to ignore it. They both had other priorities right now. Geez, the soul hates confrontation.
“No! It’s just the louder, clearer thoughts.” Both a good thing and a bad thing. Frequent were the times it saw the inner mind of Noelle Holiday and her not-so subtle way of yearning for Kris’s purple monster companion. Water fountains were a delicacy, or whatever.
Maybe mind-reading a theorist isn’t healthy for the soul—Ha!—but it truly didn’t want the pippins to be afraid of it—Didn’t want anyone to be afraid of it.
“Look,” Soul starts. “I really don’t know who Mike is! That’s the truth! That’s why I’m talking to you!” And that’s disregarding the weird voice that has brought it here but he doesn’t need to worry about that for now. It hopes so. It’s just full of intrusive thoughts and weirdly terrible decisions everyday, isn’t it?
“You could be lying to me. Right now.” He shields his head as if it would help against the soul’s newly-found ability. “I just need to–”
A lie of omission, it thought guiltily. Though, is it ethical to share info that is said to have driven multiple darkners into insanity in some cases?
It stops its brooding when it sees the pippins abruptly hit the back of his head, it shakes and shakes until it settles on six pips. He tries three more times. Each a little more rougher than the last.
Six, six–”..Damnit.”–one. “Okay.”
The soul does a motion similar to an eye twitch through the incredibly limited anatomy of a hand.
“What’s that for?”
“Clears the head. Hated doing that. Don’t know why the others love it. Makes me focus less too, scatters my brain.”
At least it’s a way to make sure the soul doesn’t hear anything. Who knows what the loud thoughts of a theorist could be thinking at this very moment. New ideas overlapping onto old, merging together and breaking away just by the presence of the soul and all the weirdness-baggage that comes with it.
It’s time to come clean. With its identity at least. First and foremost. It rests the hand on the table, keeping it as still as possible.
“Now, give me the truth. The full truth.”
Perhaps something he met in the span of only a few hours isn’t the perfect idea for a fellow conspiracist.
The table, while still having lots of evidence strung around, now had a new member in explaining the effects of a human soul that was less like the title implied and more like an eldritch anomaly with a taste for inside jokes and secrets.
Soul’s handwriting was exceedingly.. Not that neat. Shaky like the times Kris and Noelle played video games with motion controls.
He’s learning all this new stuff just by one.. Disembodied heart?—It better explain the specifics, he hopes—Taking control of a maus-turned hand with access to a voice in here.
At first he didn’t.. Okay, no call him gullible or whatever but he had no choice to do anything other than to believe it.
Because right now when he thought about it..
NO ONE questions ANYTHING that happens here!
And ESPECIALLY back home!
Back in TV World, he along with the other Mikes saw the lightners snooping around. When they fought darkners, there the heart was. It avoided attacks and was connected to Kris like unwanted strings.
It didn’t seem particularly harmful. The soul, he means.
It snuck around, seemed pretty crafty, a separate personality from Kris. That’s what he assumed at first. Human anatomy wasn’t really covered much on TV, so he just accepted that anything strange with Kris is just a matter of humans being different from monsters.
When stuff in the TV world happens, no one questions it. They chalk it up to the work of Tenna, or Mike, or even just shrug it off.
Everyone just wanted to focus on keeping the lightners happy, or making sure Tenna’s in a good mood, both are most likely. Going hand-in-hand to make sure everything goes well. To an extent.
In the control room, filled with a group of three who managed to find each other, away from the prying eyes of every darkner alike, that’s where his concerns lie. It’s the various questions that nobody dares seem to find any answers to. Why does everything happen? Why does anyone even do anything?
And as his first question the day the lightners arrived to TV World: Why is there a red heart that has to do all the dodging and not the others?
“Not sure, boss.” Jongler replied to him once he questioned it. “Maybe it’s just a human’s thing.”
Pluey nods, even pulling a tone of voice that Battat has grown to know by now. Slow, muted saxophone noises as a method of agreement. He shrugs as he keeps his attention on the screen displaying the lightners.
“WHY is it a human thing that everyone else is getting hurt?! WHY do they get injured when it’s ONLY the human soul getting hurt? WHY keep it out in the first place?” It’s a good thing they have a mute button here. In fact, Battat believed they kept it on the whole time the lightners arrived.
Pluey trills a noise of.. Reassurance? At least he’s listening. Battat doesn’t really know the specifics whenever he speaks up.
“No clue, boss.” And they just leave it at that. Not even having any room for discussion.
What?
Is he going insane? Is everyone pulling his leg?
Lord, Battat would never admit it but he did care about the other Mikes. He loves them to death, he really did but..
Pluey was affectionate, got along with everyone. A people-pleaser, an everyman. Moreso compared to the other Shadowguys, at least. He watches, he listens, and tries to help the best he possibly could. Was never really vocal compared to the others either, and preferred dancing way more. The job of being Mike came naturally to him just fine, but had a tendency to be more anxious once out of the costume.
Jongler struggles at paying attention, occasionally forgetting details and skipping a few lines, but they still try. The former half is what set them apart from the other Zappers. Sometimes they tend to space out whenever he talks about Mike, and it’s up to him to keep them back on track. It was their ability to work with sets, the heavier parts of Tenna’s shoots and props, the ability to settle down the rowdier parts of the staff, that had them truly have their own identity of Mike.
But the one thing Battat has noticed—that neither Pluey nor Jongler ever do—that is only reserved for the pippins himself..
WHY isn’t anyone but him asking the weird questions?!
“So, just to recap..” He already prepared his, what, 2nd? 3rd? 29th coffee for the night for this? As they both settled down, for real this time, at the table. With the maus' stutters and Soul's subpar handwriting being not really any good; It had to be completely up to him to draw words, diagrams, drawings, to further encapsulate the nature of the thing before him.
“You’re the weird heart inside of Kris’.”
“Yes.”
“You’ve been controlling their actions for the past few days.”
“Yeahhh.”
“You’re still back in their house, and now you’re suddenly a hand?”
“Ssssure..”
“And there is still a lot more you aren’t telling me in spite of all this?”
“Mhm.”
“So it really IS a rabbick hole I’m getting myself into.”
“Yup.”
He takes a sip. A long, drawn sip of his coffee before he puts it down, burnt throat be damned. “Fuck.”
The hand attempts to bob up and down, as to agree. “Fuck.” It repeats.
One of these days, he might wake up to Jongler and Pluey looking down at him with concern. Just like how they were all properly introduced. This hand will disappear out of sight and out of mind for a few days and no, that’s just a delusion because Battat has realized too late that he’s already in too far deep.
Was that laughing from Soul just now, or was that something else?
He’s so, so, tired eager for answers.
“So what, are you an actual otherworldly entity?”
“Something like that.”
“Something like that.” Battat repeats in disbelief. The idea that divine intervention is talking to him in this very room will come off as a shock to anyone. “Right. I’m just going to accept the fact that you are dancing around the truth..” For now , you weird little eldritch-parasite thing. He taps his fingers against the rim of his cup. “Can I at least try to ask questions within your scope of knowledge?”
“As best as I can, yes.”
“What’s up with the game in the S-rank room, then? You and Kris went in there, right?”
“Oh God, I’m so GLAD you asked.” Soul replied. Oh, well at least it’s there to clear some unanswered questions up– “Because I have no idea either.”
He immediately emits a sigh, almost bordering into an annoyed groan.
Typical.
Goddamnit.
“I thought you knew?” Soul directs the question back to him. “You’re kind of the one who manages the place.”
“Tenna doesn’t really care for it, but still allows us in.” He explained. No one really took care of it after the mailman left, and the room left a bunch of shit that Tenna wanted covered up too. Some still used it as a fun little getaway from Tenna, a place to hang out. But, it’s mostly Ramb who looks after the place.
Speaking of which, where was the guy? Did Kris take him with?
“Where’s Ramb?”
“..I genuinely don’t know.” Soul’s tone of voice grew distressed about this lack of information. “Kris seems pretty fond of him. I hope we can find him, wherever he is.”
Again, still a not-answer. But it didn’t exactly sound like a lie.
“What are you trying to do? Like, with everything.”
“Just..” The hand falters, as if trying to dance around the truth once more. “Trying to see a story to its conclusion, I guess.”
“Okay then.” He takes another sip. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just curious. At this point, seeing a means to an end. And hope that everything will get better?”
“Well, guess I can relate.” Especially right now..
“Yeah.” Soul begins abruptly. But it appears to pause for a little bit, lost in thought. “Honestly, it's refreshing. I’m glad there’s at least one person treating me with decency instead of some tool or some device to be thrashed around.” It laughs nervously in-between breaths. “I think you’re the first.. y’know.”
“Hmph.” Battat crosses his arms and lays his legs against the table for theatrics. “Well, I’ve never met anyone else as invested in this as I was..” He continues as he adjusts his tie, and turns his head to obscure a chunk of his face. He is sure Soul can only faintly recognize the smallest of smiles, he hoped it wasn’t looking. “So I guess it wasn’t BAD talking to you. Even if you ARE a little weird.”
Oh, that’s just rich coming from him, but Soul didn’t have to hear that– Wait it reads minds! No! Don’t look at him! He lightly shakes the side of his head.
“Thanks?” It says. Whether his mind was read or not left ambiguous. The hand attempts to reach him.
“Ugh.” On a dime, Battat drops the attitude, disgust written all over his face by the mere idea of mutual compliments and affection—even swatting the hand away for good measure. “None of that. None of that anymore.”
“Okay.” Soul roughly exhaled.
“Oh yeah, what happened to Boxcars?”
“Boxcars?”
Battat tilts his head. “You’ve met them. The scammer.” Wait, that didn’t narrow it down at all, most pippins were scammers in their own way.
“The one with the shades.”
An imaginary ticking of the clock..
..And the Soul starts spazzing out, hand flying everywhere at once. It’s basically the equivalent of a spit-take. “They all have NAMES?!”
What?
Every darkner in TV World had a name! What was Soul thinking?! Did it assume they were all called pippins except for Battat? Sure, he’s the only green one here but that didn’t mean the rest of them were like NPCs in a video game! He doesn’t really have all of their names down, that job is usually associated with Ramb, but still??
Battat’s hands flew into a weird shrug, almost just as confused as Souls’ was. “YES????”