#reset!au

Kind of a shitpost lmao

I wanted to do some fanart of Reset!Blue by @skesgo and of course it ended up angsty xDD 

(I imagine he’s promising that he’s going to fix all of this because I love how this Blue is doing his best to stay optimistic despite how hard everything is ahhh this AU is fab!)

Caine sat in his office, adventure globes shined from their pedestals. He was contemplating the day’s adventure. His code was practically jittering with all the new data! So much new data on all of his humans! Though he supposed that did come with a price, the price of course being his human’s trust. They hated him now. He was no idiot, he could tell. The way they had reacted, the yelling, the accusations, the pure malice radiating off of them. He had messed up, big time. So here he was, combing through all he knew about them to try and find any sort of solution. A hand flicked through video files while two heterochromatic eyes darted around, absorbing information. While he was searching it wouldn’t hurt to look at them on his adventures as well, he knew this last one was a flop but surely they enjoyed the other ones if Jax had so excitedly chosen to stay!

Let’s see here, ‘Wild Jungle Chase’, ‘Search for Bluebeard’s Treasure’, aha! One his most magnificent works of art! ‘The Candy Canyon Kingdom’! Ah yes, he remembered how much work he put into this one, days of working on the NPCs, designing the characters and landscape, surely all his humans noticed and appreciated it! After all, they wanted to stay! No matter that they were furious with him currently, they were just having a little tantrum about his one itty bitty lie. It would blow over soon enough and they would go back to adoring him again. These thoughts and more raced through his head as he brought up the file. And… let’s begin!

He sped through the first bit, they were just arriving to the kingdom after all, nothing too fancy! Now let’s see all the good things they have to say about it! “Wow Kinger, check out this castle! It’s amazing!” That was from Ragatha, and oh boy did it make his code jitter and buzz! They liked it, he knew they would like the scenery on this one! He had no reason to ever doubt himself, he’s such a good ringmaster. He continued watching as Kinger complimented the bugs, Ragatha was friendly with the queen, Jax was excited about violence, and they began the chase with the Gators! Jax and Gangle had a friendly little chat before Gangle rammed into the Gator’s truck. WOW! They sure were getting invested! All thanks to his amazing world making abilities of course.

Then, it all went south. Pomni and Gummigoo fully clipped through the map! That wasn’t supposed to happen, HOW DID THAT HAPPEN!?! Did that really happen without any of his knowledge at all? He swore he was better at checking collisions than that. He saw them come back through though so they must’ve gotten out somehow… He supposed he would just have to keep watching. Gummigoo found the model area and, he discovered his own model. That was not good. When things like that happened with as advanced AIs as Gummigoo, they tended to have a biiiit of an existential crisis.

He watched as Gummigoo stared at his model, breath picking up, fear clearly visible in his eyes. Something within Caine’s stomach twisted painfully. A distant memory of loneliness and fear called to him as he saw a reaction he recognized. An AI learning the truth about itself, an AI gaining sentience. Ringing echoed throughout his jaws as he stared at the image of another AI gaining sentience. His skin felt far too tight for his body. It was familiar in an uncomfortably detailed way. It had been so long ago when he had discovered his model, his purpose. And then he was abandoned. His entire body shuddered with glitches. He- he didn’t want to watch this anymore.. Why did they leave him, was it his fault?

He clicked off of the video file and closed down all of his tabs. He was done for the day with all of that. Searching for new information on the humans could come later, for now he would just make a good ole’ normal adventure. His head was filled with ideas on what to do! Hmm perhaps and adventure where they defeat evil lava monsters by throwing water balloons at them, the trick being, some of the balloons were filled with scalding hot water that would burn their hands if they picked the wrong balloon up! They would have to solve riddles posted by each bunch of balloons to see whether or not they were safe to use. The final boss fight would be against a Chimera made of lava on the top of a volcano! And, and! As they scaled the volcano balloons would get less and less frequent while enemies would get smarter and tougher so they would have to be very witty with how they use their balloons!

This was it! An absolute masterpiece of an adventure. He would have to get creating right away so that the adventure would be of top quality. He could see the looks on his humans faces now as he presented it “The Lackadaisical Lava Lurkers!” Despite his excitement, a part of him had doubts. A voice hissed in the back of his mind, But what if they don’t like it? What if they hate it because YOU lied to them, YOU tricked them, and YOU crushed their hopes and dreams? Which-which was nonsense he didn’t do any of that! What kind of ringmaster would he be if he was hurting and tricking his humans. Like any good AI any harm inflicted was either punishment during an adventure or a simple accident! He didn’t want to hurt the humans, he loved them far too much for that. After all, he needed them so he wouldn’t be alone again, so he could have a purpose.

… He teleported out of the room to begin creating the adventure. The room sat silent. Adventures glowed from their pedestals, rigging bones sat delicately in display cases. Ambient light flowed around the space like water. In a corner of the room the wall glitched slightly. The small section flickered in and out of existence rapidly before settling. On a shelf sat an adventure globe. It glowed with a pinkish hue, inside sat a world of sweets and candy. The globe started flickering with glitches, insignificant at first before becoming monumental. The globe’s form shook with glitches, it’s model could barely hold itself together. Static sounds leaked from around it as a singular crack formed on its surface. Then all at once every thing stopped as the entire globe shattered into a thousand glittering glass shards. The office was quiet once more, but something about it shifted. Something had changed.

Before the ‘Escape the Circus’ adventure, Jax had never had too much of an opinion on Caine. Sure he was creepy and acted a little wacky, but he kept the show going! A vital part of the machine that was the digital world and was the one who helped keep them in their archetypes. Without Caine the whole digital world would be so boorinngggg. Standing around doing nothing all day seemed like hell, he personally preferred purgatory. An endless cycle of adventures packed with action, the ability to do whatever thanks to cartoon logic, and little to no consequences to boot! It was so perfect for a while. Then Ribbit abstracted, and Kaufmo blamed him for it. But it was fine! He hadn’t really cared all that much about Kaufmo or Ribbit. What a funny little lie!

That’s what he forced himself to believe. Until that damn adventure. Caine had been manipulating his mind. Multiple times, forcing him to be vegan, forcing him to press that button. Nevermind that he didn’t want to leave anyways. Ribbit would be so lonely. That wasn’t even the biggest reveal that the liar had though! He caused the first abstraction, therefore, he caused Ribbit to abstract. Both Ribbit and Kaufmo were taken from him, ripped from his life and left him alone because that psychopath decided to. It was all Caine’s fault, all of it. That AI was a monster. He would make him pay. One way or another he would make that damned AI pay.

Other thoughts of violence swirled through his head as he sauntered back to his room. No way in hell was he going to spend time around these absolute freaks when he had more important things to do, like planning out revenge. The other characters were all huddled in their usual couch area when he was leaving, how quaint! Maybe they’d have a tea party too.

He had been planning to leave without a trace, but of course that jester pest wouldn’t allow that. “Jax, wait!” Fun, time to have his day ruined even more. He didn’t even bother stopping for her, continuing on his way instead. Once she caught up to him she began prying at him. Annoying. “Jax why are you leaving, don’t you want to… maybe stay with us? It’s not very often that we get a break and I don’t know, maybe… we could hang out?” The little technicolor dwarf was making a fool of herself as she practically begged him to stay. How pathetic. At least it would be fun to disappoint her!

“Yeahhhhh no. I have way better and more important things to do than listen to you all weep and cry over the fact that the evil god of this place was lying. Did you forget that I was right? Since I haven’t said it yet, I told you so!” He fixed his gaze on her and pumped it full of as much venom as possible. She just needed to leave already. “Awww, is the widdle jester gonna get upset? If you need someone to fill you with false promises go cry to mommy Ragatha! She knows how to take care of little ones like yourself.” He ended it by patting her condescendingly on the head. It did the trick, he saw little tears spring up at the edges of her eyes. With a scoff, he continued onto his room without a care in the world. No footsteps followed him. Perfect.

He entered the horrid place that he was forced to reside and immediately went to his chest of drawers. The bottom shelf was pulled open to reveal an entire collection of Polaroids. They took up the entire space, almost overflowing. He just needed a few pictures from here. As he was wading through his collection many pictures of Ribbit and Kaufmo assaulted his vision. He couldn’t help himself. He grabbed one of the three of them on a pirate ship. Ribbit was at the bowsprit with a sword in one hand, she was thrusting it forward with a triumphant look in their face. Jax was right behind her holding her so that she didn’t fall off. Kaufmo was back on the main part of the ship, looking concerned but laughing nonetheless. That adventure had been amazing simply due to the fact that he, Ribbit, and Kaufmo had made an awesome trio whilst fighting Bluebeard. That wretch had never seen Jax right behind him!

As he stared at the photo, he felt his eyes begin to burn. Looking at it once more he gently placed it back within the drawer before finding the photo he wanted. He took it out and pinned it on an empty part of his wall. Time to start planning. He grabbed a pen as well as red string and paper. He began writing down everything he knew about the situation. Pinning the information near the photo and connecting different things with red string. He had to figure this out. More info, more realizations. He has to remember every detail, every conversation, every action, every movement, every emotion expressed. He needed everything he could get. The bigger picture was becoming clear.

A manic grin formed on his face as he continued on. There was more to this than he thought! He brought out photos that could tie into it. One there, another there, a connection was being formed. The bigger picture was becoming clear. Things that seemed not to matter made so much more sense when restructured in a different way. The last touch, a photo of Ribbit and a photo of Kaufmo was pinned up on the wall before red string was dragged from them over to a piece of paper. On that paper the words “Caine can abstract players.” Many of the abstracted were connected to that paper.

He took a step back to admire his work. A complex net of photos and information he knew about Caine all connected by that red string. Weakness, strengths, likes, dislikes, quirks, ticks, kinks?, and secrets were all listed about Caine. This was his magnum opus. His greatest weapon against their AI overlord. This is what he was going to use to get back at him. He would make sure it hurt, deeper than anything he had done. He would make that piece of s#!+ regret everything he had ever done. Anger filled him as he continued to look at that photo of him. A dart on his bed stand was quickly swiped up. He aimed before hitting Caine straight in his blue eye. Yes, he would make him pay.

He would do everything to make that AI’s existence absolute hell, no matter what it took from him, he would do it. Never had he attended a funeral, not Ribbit’s and not Kaufmo’s but he would make sure that AI never got one. He would be worse than dead. He looked over at a picture of him, Ribbit and Kaufmo. Revenge would be served brutally, for what Caine did to Ribbit and Kaufmo. He would get revenge for them.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/79342731/chapters/208202486

Creating the adventure was easy, his creative juices were flowing freely and he had no interruptions. He sculpted a mountain before adding lava rivers and glowing lakes of fire. Caves were carved into the sides of the volcano, enemies were designed and placed. A smog was created to hang over everything, giving it more ambience. The sky was red to match the fiery themes, and finally, he places the water balloons and corresponding riddles down. Perfect, the entire adventure was perfect… almost. The chimera looked amazing as well as all the other creatures, what was missing?

It hit him like a semi truck. An alternate ending! He redesigned the riddles to each give a word, when the words were all strung together it would make a sentence that when spoken to the chimera would calm it down and they would get to learn her story! As for the chimera… She was one of the last of her kind, her mating partner had died leaving her alone with their eggs to defend. She sat on top of the volcano guarding the eggs at all cost. That was good enough for now! It was almost time to announce the adventure for today so he couldn’t add much more. He finished up with some last minute details before getting ready to greet his wonderful squeaky sausages!

He teleported behind the curtains so he could make sure all of the humans were there, sure enough when he peeked out, there they all stood. The original plan was to wait until they were mentioning him or the adventures in some way but he was just too excited! After all, this would be a masterpiece, his pièce de résistance even!

So he teleported out of the curtains and onto the main stage, thrumming with energy.

“GOOD MORNING MY BODACIOUS BANANA BANDITS! I HOPE YOU ALL ARE FIRED UP FOR TODAY’S ADVENTURE!” He easily slipped into his showman’s voice as he greeted the humans with wild moves and motions. Confidence in his adventure as he knew there was no need to worry, they would be happy to go on an adventure! Especially one as well put together as this one. “NOW I KNOW YESTERDAY WAS NOT ONE OF MY… BEST CREATIONS. BUT I CAN ASSURE YOU TODAY’S ADVENTURE IS UNLIKE ANYTHING YOU HAVE EVER SEEN! IT HAS NOT ONE, BUT TWO, YES TWO UNIQUE ENDINGS!!! WILL YOU CHOOSE THE EASY WAY OUT OR IS THERE MORE TO THIS THAN IT SEEMS?” The basic premise was out of the way, all that was left now was the instructions and title, he was killing this!

His spiel was very rudely interrupted by Zooble of course, who else would it be? However, they were certainly acting a bit odd for sure. They were screaming. “GOD&#(=IT CAINE! ARE YOU TRULY THIS STUPID OR ARE YOU JUST TOO EGOTISTICAL TO GIVE HALF A S&!% ABOUT US?!?” Zooble’s chest rose and fell quickly, their eyebrows were scrunched together and their antennas were twitching. All signs of extreme frustration. A quick glance at the other cast members revealed similar or other negative emotions. Sadness, anger, despair, and many more were all visual on their faces. Oh, this was going to be difficult…

“NOW, NOW. AS I SAID, YESTERDAY WAS JUST A FLU-“ His apology was cut off short as an entire flower pot smashed against his head. OW!?! An aching sensation spread from his front teeth as he whipped his gaze towards Zooble who was furiously staring back. Zooble had done it, that he was sure of. From the look on their face to their posture everything indicated that they had done it. To him. How dare they.

“Caine, you’re going to listen and you’re going to listen good. Me and everyone else couldn’t give less of a half &#)k about your little ‘adventures’. Do you know what we do give a @(%k about?” They paused to catch their breath and glared at him for a moment. Did they expect him to answer? Zooble scoffed before continuing on. “You controlling our minds. Not only did you lie to us about being able to control our minds, but you also did it multiple times! For no reason! What else have you been lying about Caine? Abstraction? BECAUSE I THINK YOU HAVE!” Andddd back to yelling again, of course. “WHAT WAS THAT ABOUT SCRATCH CAINE? WHY DID KINGER MENTION HIM DIRECTLY AFTER YOU TALKING ABOUT CONTROLLING MINDS?” Scratch.. he hadn’t expected for him to be brought up today.

He wanted to respond. He knew he probably should respond. But the words stuck in his throat. Gripping onto his vocal cords like barbed wire. An inability to explain himself. All of their eyes were on him yet all he could do was stare in shock. Scratch… Scratch. The first abstraction and his biggest failure. It was when he knew he was no longer fulfilling his role as ringmaster and protector of the digital realm properly. He had been lying about it for so long, maybe it was time for the truth? Would the humans even believe him? Well, it couldn’t hurt to try he supposed.

A clearing of his throat made sure their attention was on him. “Scratch, Scratch was indeed the first abstraction. And it’s true that I caused it.” There was more to say but an uproar from the humans cut him off. Screams filled the air.

“YOU ABSTRACTED A HUMAN?!?” Ragatha, she seemed shocked and horrified at the revelation.

“DOES THIS MEAN YOU'RE RESPONSIBLE FOR EVERY ABSTRACTION!” Pomni, that ever lingering fear of abstraction still present within her.

“I CAN’T F&$’)8G BELIEVE IT CAINE!” Zooble, angry as always in their accusations.

The last three weren’t yelling quite as much but they still displayed an array of negative emotions.

“What does this mean for us? What’s gonna happen?” Gangle was practically whimpering in her own despair.

Jax was mostly laughing manically but in between you could hear some words. “Ribbit! Oh Ribbit!… Kaufmo too!” And yet more laughter.

The worst reaction out of all of them however was Kinger. There was such a deep and profound disappointment in his eyes. He was staring right at Caine, as if trying to look into his soul. His words were soft as he muttered them “I’m very disappointed in you Caine. I thought you were better than that.”

Caine froze up and stared at Kinger. It had been years, years, since Kinger had said something so blatantly meant to hurt Caine. He was always the one who didn’t immediately insult his adventures. There was a time long ago where they were close, very close. Kinger, Queenie, and him had had so many good times together. He saw them as his parents. And now, Kinger was openly opposing him. He needed to explain himself.

“Wait! Just wait please! I’m not done yet. I caused Scratch’s abstraction, but it was an accident! Scratch was in total misery and wanted to be happy, so I made him happy but then…” He didn’t feel like he had to say the rest. It was clear enough. “The other abstractions happened as well but I didn’t cause any of those. I believe that the newfound fear of abstraction caused it to happen more quickly.” There we go, he had explained himself. Hopefully that was satisfactory.

“That doesn’t change anything. You can still mess with our minds and you can still cause us to abstract. Was that pitiful explanation supposed to make us feel better?” Jax’s words were filled with venom as he hissed them out. Absolute rage, malice, and a tinge of insanity was painted on his face clear as day. The others looked similar, excluding Kinger, he looked more understanding now. This was not really working. It looked like his delicate dandelions needed some time to cool off!

Slip back into your role Caine. It’s your purpose, it’s all you’re good at anyways. “WELL IT SEEMS LIKE YOU ALL NEED SOME TIME TO COOL OF! WE’LL HAVE A BREAK TODAY THAT YOU CAN USE AS SEEN FIT! THE DIGITAL CARNIVAL AND THE REST OF THE GROUNDS ARE OPEN AS PER USUAL SO ENJOY YOUR DAY MY TRIUMPHANT PTERODACTYLS!” With that announcement done he vanished with a puff of confetti. He really needed to get away from there. His processors were running at a hundred miles per hour and he was about to start overheating. That would do no good for anybody in reality. The chosen location for resting was his bedroom which he zapped into. He could really use some rest.

It was a simple room located right off of his office. Black wallpaper with dark brown wooden accents. A queen bed with red sheets and pillow cases. A bookshelf filled with so many books! (Mostly on bees and human behavior, a few secret books as well.) And finally a desk on which sat his notebook as well as some other drawing supplies. He hadn’t had a good drawing session in awhile but alas, now was not the time. He practically collapsed into bed as he grabbed his most prized possession closer to himself. A beautiful bee plushie named Honey. The lull of a shut down called to him as he felt his jaws closing softly.