Tennis Ball expected to be doing quite a lot of things once he *finally* got out of that rut of Battling for Dream Island; this, however, wasn't quite one of those things.
One day, while they were out in their little adventures to look for science treasure in the ruins of Yoyle City, they were able to find a most exciting and interesting piece of technology; in a basement sealed away by a chance collapse, after spending quite a bit of time digging out an entrance, they were able to find not one, but *two* functioning computers. After going through the long, arduous process of dragging them out to their brand-new Factory (an abandoned building they set up shop in), and hooking it up to all the other curious devices and doohickeys and whatnot, they were able to get it connected to the Internet. *The* Internet. The two of them had heard many legendary things about that series of tubes preserved in ancient texts; it was some great, vast repository of knowledge in every field one could possibly imagine, a place where anything and everything could be found if one was dedicated enough. Upon finally getting a good first-hand experience of it, however, TB wasn't too particularly impressed. Time and tide clearly hadn't been kind to that old relic, much like most things of its age, and it was clear that nobody had been maintaining or using this thing for 2,763 years at *least*. He agreed that it was definitely a neat find, but that was all it was; there was still much ground to cover in that abandoned city, so he quickly moved on to greener (well, purpler) pastures and newer mysteries.
Golf Ball, on the other hand... she couldn't really let it go.
He'd been sifting through their large pile of assorted discoveries, categorizing everything based on purpose or hypothesized origin or how many cool things it has, when GB would suddenly march into the scene and *demand* that they make their connection to this all-important source of information stronger, to ensure that not even the disaster that depopulated the place could sever their link. And of course, because nobody in their right mind would want to get into boring nerd junk like this, big clumsy Tennis Ball would end up spending most of the day agonizing over clambering up the decaying husk of their home, what with its half-destroyed stairs and non-ergonomic ladders and sharp glass shards and absolutely *no* help (both physical and informative) for miles. He'd trip, he'd fall, he'd stumble, he'd bawl, and he'd go to sleep every night hating every single moment, wondering what other nonsense that team tyrant was gonna have him do the next morning.
And he'd also hate the fact that, regardless of what he thought, he'd end up doing it anyway. It was all for her, after all. For science and research too, but largely for her. His platonic friend. His research associate. Despite her continuing to gawk over that machine more than him, he'll still be willing to go through *anything* for her.
Because that's what a good friend should do.
-
It was well past midnight when Tennis Ball finally set up their latest antenna in their now-massive array.
He'd grumble to himself as he went down the stairs, complaining to nobody in particular about the lack of lights that prevented him from seeing stray shrapnel that waited to strike an unsuspecting foot; TB had complained mightily about this glaring issue to Golf Ball in the now-rare instances where they could actually talk for more than a few seconds, and she always *swore* she'd get around to setting that up, but of *course*...
The fuzzball finally made it back to their little disheveled corner that they had turned into their makeshift laboratory, a home away from home. Well, a factory away from factory. Everything was still and unmoving, just as it usually was in this horrible place; the sunlight couldn't touch this place even in midday, and not even the slightest breeze could make their way here either. TB was just about to curl up into his lumpy bed to get at least an hour or so of sleep when he came across an all-too-familiar sight; there GB was on her workstation, passed out over the keyboard, repeatedly spamming a single letter into some digital draft. He shook his head, having read up on just how bad this was for the body and soul. He'd slowly but surely make his way over, planning on shutting down the thing to save on power before *finally* getting his well-earned rest.
