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Tenna sat tall and confident at the desk in his bedroom, staring intently at his computer screen. He tried to stop his legs from bouncing, but to no avail. He was just too excited!
“Oh boy!” he whispered to himself. “I can’t wait to see the Lightners again!”
It hadn’t been that long since he last saw Kris and Susie. After all, they had defeated the knight and banished the angel a little over a week ago. Now, all the Darkners were living peacefully in Ralsei’s kingdom.
Meanwhile, in the Light World, the general public had learned about the existence of Dark Worlds. Even though opening another dark fountain would certainly cause another calamity, they still wanted a way to contact the Darkners. Luckily, some geniuses over at Zoom headquarters had figured out a way to do just that. The mechanics of it all went way over Tenna’s boxy head. All he knew was that he was able to talk to the Lightners whenever everyone had their computers open at the same time. All he had to do was click on the long link that Ralsei sent him, and press the large blue button that said “Join Meeting.”
The clock struck 4pm. It was finally time for the meeting to start! After opening the Zoom app, the sight in front of him was something he never thought he could conceive. Kris, Susie, and Ralsei, all moving and talking right in front of him on his computer!
“Oh, good! Everyone’s here!” Ralsei said. Tenna’s eyes widened in awe when he saw his background. How did he manage to project an illustration of the Deltarune behind him?
“Yo, sick background!” Susie said. “Lemme change mine.” After a few moments, Susie’s background showed a stock image of... something that would certainly upset the censors! The new picture blocked everyone’s view of the cracked walls in her bedroom behind her.
“Okay!” Ralsei sighed. There was truly no stopping her, was there.
“And Tenna!” Susie smiled. “What’s up, my man?”
“Susie! I’m so glad to see you!” Tenna said. “I can’t believe-”
“Huh, I guess he’s not there yet.”
“What?” Tenna waved his arms in front of the camera. “Can you not hear me?”
“Let’s just wait for him!” Ralsei said.
“Anyways, check out these filters!” Susie’s portrait started showing a bunch of strange images. At first, the border around her screen changed. There were smiley faces, red curtains, and even a very modern looking TV screen!
Tenna piped up after seeing her fun borders. “How did you find that-”
“Ah, here are the good ones!” Susie started applying more and more filters to her face. She flipped through several animal themed filters until she landed on one that gave her cartoonish looking sunglasses. “Kris, you gotta try this one out!”
Kris found the same filter, but it didn’t land on their face correctly. They tried other filters, but none of them seemed to work. Tenna chuckled to himself. Modern technology still has its many flaws.
“Dude, the computer can’t find your face!” Susie said.
“Maybe you should uncover the hair from your eyes,” Ralsei suggested.
Rather than respond, Kris simply turned off their camera. In place of their image, white lowercase letters that read “kris” appeared instead.
“Aww, Kris! Don’t be shy!” Ralsei giggled.
“Turn on your camera, ya doofus!”
After a moment, Kris turned their camera back on, revealing real sunglasses on their face, though they were wearing the lenses upside down. Everyone, including Tenna, burst out laughing at their antics. Even Kris let out a small smile.
“Kris!” Tenna said between giggles. “You look so-”
“Hah! You look like an idiot!” Susie smirked.
Tenna’s smile dropped, and his chest began to ache. Why was everyone ignoring him? Why was he constantly being interrupted? Did they not want him there anymore? Had he truly fallen into obscurity?
“Hey, guys!” Tenna called out. “What’s-”
“Ralsei, you should try out some of these filters,” Susie said.
“Oh, uh sure!”
As Ralsei fiddled with the various filters, Tenna’s breathing became uncontrollable and rapid. The old wounds in his shoulders began to ache again. A phantom pain that only appears when he becomes emotional.
“Did I do something wrong?” Tenna asked, his voice small and weak. “Why don’t you want me anymore?”
Ralsei smiled after picking a filter showing a small cartoon leaf sprouting from his head. “I like this one!” he said.
The others continued talking amongst themselves, but their voices faded underneath Tenna’s racing thoughts. He should have expected this, right? People always prefer new technology over him .
“Please…” he whispered. Please don’t throw me away.
No… he couldn’t go through this again. How could they forget their old pal so easily? After everything he did for Kris and their family over the years! This wasn’t fair!
Tenna’s body began to shrink in his seat as he grew more dejected. Tears dripped down the TV screen on his face, and he let out a weak sniffle. As he became smaller and smaller, he hugged his knees to his chest and buried his face in his legs. He tried his best to slow his breathing and control his tears.
“Tenna, are you there?” Ralsei called out.
“Yo! We’ve been calling your name for the past two minutes!” Susie said.
“What…” Tenna whispered. He looked back up at the computer screen. The tears blocked his vision, making everyone's faces look blurry.
“Tennaaaaaaaa!!!!!” Susie shouted.
“He’s still muted,” Kris said.
Everyone went silent for a moment.
“Oh, that’s why he hasn’t been responding this entire time!” Susie chuckled.
“M-Muted?” Tenna said, his voice still cracking with emotion.
“Tenna, you have to click on the microphone on the corner of your screen,” Ralsei said.
“Wait!” Tenna quickly grew his body in size and examined his computer screen. He searched intently for the microphone.
“It’s got a red slash through it,” Susie said. “Try clicking on it.”
“Oh, um…” Tenna started clicking all sorts of buttons on every corner of the screen. First, he found something called “Security details,” which didn’t seem right at all. Then, he clicked on something else called "Original sound for musicians.” Could that possibly fix his sound?
“It’s on the bottom left corner,” Ralsei said.
Tenna found two black buttons with red slashes through them. He decided to click both of them. Finally, his own Zoom screen, which had simply read “Ant Tenna” in big white letters, was showing his face!
“There you are, buddy!” Susie said with a bright smile.
“H-Hello?” Tenna called out.
“We can hear you now!” Ralsei said.
Tenna sighed in relief. The crushing weight of abandonment dissipated from his chest. Mr. Ant Tenna was back!
“Oh, finally!” Tenna said. “I thought you guys had…”
“Had what?” Susie asked.
“Nothing!” Tenna said, forcefully pushing away the memory of himself shrinking and crying only a few moments ago.
“I was beginning to get worried!” Ralsei scratched the back of his head. “I thought you didn’t want to be here or something.”
“No, no!” Tenna threw his hands up. “I was just… doomed by the fatal flaws of modern technology, that’s all!”
“Tenna, check this out!” Susie said. “You can change your hair color!” Her hair turned from its usual purple color to an intense light green. Her eyebrows then changed to a bright yellow color, and she seemed to suddenly grow a large orange beard. Tenna was fascinated by how realistic everything looked. The color followed her head, even as she moved around! What kind of TV magic was this?
“Look at that award-winning hairdo!” Tenna said, snorting with laughter.
“Ralsei, you have hair, too!” Susie said. “You should try some of these colors.”
“Oh… uh, I don’t know…” Ralsei hid his blushing face in his hands.
“Aw, come onnnnn!!” Susie whined.
“I-I’ll just give myself some makeup instead,” Ralsei said. He played around with the various colors available for his pink eyelids, until he settled on a bold smoky look. He then gave himself some dark red lipstick.
“Looks cute,” Kris said. Tenna hadn’t noticed it earlier, but their formerly brown hair had turned completely white. They still wore their upside down sunglasses, and their background was a strange photo of Ralsei taken with a 0.5 camera lense.
“Oh! T-Thank you, Kris!” Even underneath Ralsei’s makeup filter, everyone could still see an uncontrollable blush on his face. As Tenna continued chatting with his friends, he just couldn’t stop smiling. Simply knowing that the Lightners still cared about him despite his… technical difficulties, filled him with a feeling of satisfaction and pride. Even after everything, he was still wanted.