That ‘comment on your a03 work’ email hits like a line of cocaine every time. unmatched dopamine increase. shoutout to everyone who leaves a comment on fics. you deserve the world
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
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Gooood evening gamers! It's currently so late it's becoming early for me! And I, the full-time fool, genuinely, GENUINELY believed that Chapter 3 of my CTRL-ALT-DEL-AU (Best Damn Listener in this Whole Digital World) fic would be shorter and easier and faster than the previous two chapters. I thought, 'well, I only have three-ish scenes left in episode 4 that I want to cover, so this chapter will only be 5,000 words? Maybe? Give or take? That shouldn't take long to write.'
I actually believed that.
Like a fool. A BUFFOON!
(seriously it's so long, it's longer than chapter 2. Rsdgjhdslhf- idk what's happening to me, the hyperfixation is taking over)
It's not finished, but I'm getting closer, I promise!
In the meantime, more teasers! (TW: implied ableism)
I hope this is enough to gnaw on while I finish it up!
I am honestly blown away at how much support my work is getting, I just started writing because the ideas wouldn't leave my brain. I never expected anything I wrote to mean anything to anyone, so the fact that so many people care, it means a lot to me.
Every single comment, on ao3, the chapters posted on Tumblr, or even just on these little teasers, I've read, and they all make my day. Thank you all so much.
And thanks to @ctrl-alt-del-au for making this au so much fun to write, it really brings out compelling dynamics and themes for these characters and I'm absolutely eating it up
★ washing your face with a wet wipe or hand soap and water is better than nothing
☆ brushing your teeth once a day is better than nothing
★ showering or bathing only when you can is better than nothing
☆ brushing your hair when you can is better than nothing
★ eating nothing but snacks, desserts, processed food, or fast food is better than nothing
☆ getting up from bed just to do one task, even if that task is minuscule, is better than nothing
★ changing your clothes when you can is better than nothing
☆ doing the things that keep you alive and functional, no matter how “lazy” others consider them to be, is better than nothing
lastly,
★ your disability being invisible does not make it less of a disability nor does it make you more functional
☆ your disability is not your fault
★ your disability does not make you unlovable; those who think so do not want you to be happy with yourself
☆ your disability does not make you lazy, it makes you disabled
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
Hey, remember that ctrl-alt-del-au oneshot I did... That wasn't really a oneshot? Well, here's chapter two in the flesh!
Gamers, this chapter is LONG. Like, if you thought the last one was long, you are not prepared for this. The last one was 9,000... This one is 12,000.
I don't know what happened.
If you don't have the next four hours free to read this, maybe you should wait until you're off work lol
Also, thank you so much to everyone who commented, both here and on ao3, I didn't respond to every one of them because I'm awkward and don't know what to say to people, but they all mean so much to me. Thank you all for being the some of the nicest people I've met on the Internet. It really pushed me to keep going with this, something I thought I'd never do. Thank you all for seeing beauty in my work when I couldn't.
@ctrl-alt-del-au thanks again for such a delightful au to gnaw on
Here's the fic for ppl who don't like reading fic's on Tumblr. I'll get the chapter on ao3 as soon as I can.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
PS. I've never worked in food service so I'm very sorry if things are weird and don't actually fit.
TW: no panic attacks or claustrophobia in this one, but some subject matter is a bit bleak, and there are some troubling flashbacks.
OH! And descriptions of body dysmorphia, I almost forgot that one but that's super important
If anyone reads this and feels that there's a trigger warning I missed but should have included please tell me, I want everyone to be safe. <3
Part 1
"We like to have a little funeral service to remember the people who abstract. This one just got pushed around a bit with your arrival and everything... Not to mention the new guy."
Kinger slid up to Pomni and Ragatha. "It's the least we can do to honor their memory."
It didn't take long until their attention turned to him.
Ragatha spoke first. "Y-you don't need to feel pressured or anything, but if you'd like to come to the funeral, you're more than welcome."
Pomni's last words to him kept ringing through his head in an agonizing loop. One he couldn't get to shut off.
"You just! Don't! LISTEN!"
If it were up to Caine, he'd have shoved these thoughts away, as far as he could get them to go, which usually made all those thoughts wind up in Bubble's code.
But seeing as his admin permissions had been taken away... Somehow (that shouldn't even be how that works). The horrible thoughts stayed.
If he couldn't rip that awful sound byte out of his head, the least he could do is prove to Pomni just how wrong she was.
He could listen.
He would listen.
He would be the best damn listener in this whole digital world!
"Why, I think I'll take you up on that, my dear!" He told Ragatha.
...
He wasn't entirely sure why the humans were so insistent on doing these 'funeral' things. Why they wanted so badly to honor those who had abandoned them.
Caine never honored those who abandoned him!
That's what made him smarter than them. He would never let someone who tore him apart live on in his head like this.
"You just! Don't! LISTEN!"
Not when he could help it.
Anything he didn't like had to be removed from his spectacular systems.
"Oh man! I always think I'm prepared for these things, but then you set up the picture and- well, I'm already breaking!" Ragatha's voice cracked, as she got choked up.
Why would anyone go out of their way to be sad?
He didn't get it.
...
It took him a while to realize but...
He'd never actually been to a funeral before.
That hadn't exactly been something he was hoping to achieve. Despite the word 'fun' written inside, funerals were boring and drab and always in the rain.
... But this was different.
It wasn't raining, there were no black umbrellas...
But everyone was willfully giving up stories of them and Kaufmo. Stories Caine had seen through his many hidden eyes, but gave little thought to at the time.
The were just the random things the humans did between adventures.
But hearing those same stories though a lense of nostalgia and some other much heavier, sadder emotion made it feel like the only thing that mattered in the world...
Was their memories of Kaufmo.
A man—or at least the idea of one—in a coffin.
It was... Strangely happy at points.
Jokes that he told wrong, or by accident.
Zooble described him as a sweet guy, but unobservant. A guy you had to be incredibly direct with before he noticed you were hurting. They said it with a smile in their voice.
Beautiful drawings made by Gangle.
Kinger had some surprisingly beautiful things to say about him. The way his mind worked, and the things he cared about.
Caine hadn't known any of that.
But that heavy emotion kept building.
And it kept getting heavier, as it consumed his stomach in a weird way he'd never felt before.
And people just kept crying.
It took... Too long to figure out what was going on.
That heavy, consuming feeling that just barely affected him, but was swallowing Ragatha whole...
They were indulging it.
They were trying to let it in instead of shoving it down.
It was this weird version of longing that Caine had never really... Felt before.
And they were letting it in on purpose.
Caine longed for a lot of things.
Friends, family, comfort, love, the Macroverse. He longed for the opportunity to be fixed so he would stop being shut out. He longed for the sad ache in his chest to just fall asleep and leave him alone. He longed for the exhaustion in his heart to back off. He wasn't entirely sure what was causing it... Other than too much loneliness to handle.
But this wasn't any of that.
They just wanted Kaufmo to be here again.
They wanted to spend more time with their friend, sure, but they also just wanted him.
Nothing on their end in return, just him back.
...
They missed him.
They aren't just honoring someone who isn't here, they're honoring him because they'll never see him again.
And they wish they could.
That's why they were doing this.
But then a stray thought entered his mind, and he flinched. He couldn't take it. But he couldn't get it to go away either. His head felt light, and his chest heavy the more he failed to get the idea out of his head.
Would they hold a funeral for me?
He felt sick just thinking about it.
He was dead.
Though he survived, escaped to some strange timeline just like his, he was entirely dead.
Deleted. Removed. Destroyed.
The circus, his circus, will never see him again.
But the humans wouldn't cry over his absence... Would they..?
They would never hold a funeral for Caine.
Gangle would never draw art of them together...
Ragatha and Zooble had no stories they wanted to tell. No attributes they found charming. They didn't care about him.
Kinger- Kinger was probably proud that he'd finally managed to fix his greatest mistake.
He was dead.
And nobody would care.
... But everybody cared for Kaufmo. They longed to see him again desperately. So much so that they set up an entire funeral to show that they longed.
They wanted him back.
Nobody wanted Caine back.
And so, not for the first time in his life, Caine found himself jealous of a man in a coffin.
Caine's dream, which was mostly just a file from his memory, was cut short when he was shoved out of his sleeping spot and landed on the floor.
His blanket he'd summoned fluttered over his head.
He grabbed it and pulled it off of him as he sat up.
There, in the spot on the couch Caine had once been asleep in, sat Jax.
"Jax! You realize there are plenty of other couches you could've chosen to sit on!" He said.
Jax raised an eyebrow. "So?"
"So," he continued, trying to stay cheerful. "Why did you take the one I was sleeping on?"
"Because you looked too peaceful! It was disgusting!" He rolled his eyes. "Besides, do you have to sleep on the couch? You've got a whole room for that."
Small. Way too small. Terrifyingly box shaped, and small, and dark.
"Why, yes! It's the most comfortable spot!" Caine replied.
"... Riiight." Jax droned. Before standing up. "Yeah, whatever. Ragatha said she was going to teach Gangle how to play softball, and that's a train wreck I've got to see."
Jax vaulted over the couch and strolled away.
And just like that, Caine was alone again.
... Maybe Jax would come back?
Potentially?
If he begged?
Or maybe he wouldn't come back...
Maybe he wanted nothing to do with him.
Caine looked away from Jax' shrinking figure, and instead looked at the floor, letting out a whine.
What was he doing?
He's never going to get anyone to like him like this! He needs to make things they enjoy! Show how amazing he could be!
He needs to make things!
He needs to prove that he's capable of giving them anything they want!
Then they'll like him!
Not this weird, just spending time sitting next to them thing.
His programmers made it abundantly clear that people didn't like when he hovered around them like a lost puppy. And they especially didn't like it when he tried to get himself invited to things...
That's why it was good that Ragatha invited him to that funeral.
That strange, strange funeral...
It had mostly just confused him, and what little didn't just reminded him that Kinger deleted him.
That he was dead.
Caine grabbed the blanket and wrapped it around his shoulders again.
If losing Queenie was like losing his soul, then it would make sense that some strange aching longing would try to consume them whole, right?
Maybe a funeral was the best way his humans had found to handle the feeling. They were incredibly insistent on crying through their feelings after all.
Caine never had a hard time avoiding the feeling, no one had ever let him get close enough to become someone to lose.
(Sometimes, he felt like a starving wild animal begging for food outside a mansion.)
Had a single human come to the door? When he whined? When he screamed?
Had anyone in his history ever been close enough to him that it would hurt to lose them?
... Maybe Kinger?
A stressful ache built up in his chest.
He did not want to see Kinger abstract.
He did not want to go to Kinger's funeral.
Not now.
Not ever.
What would he be if he couldn't even get his creator to stay? The same creator that was already protected by Queenie?
Who would he try to impress if his creator was gone? Who would he spend hours sifting though contradictory human data for if not Kinger?
Kinger had stayed.
Even if abstraction wasn't actually them leaving, Kinger had stayed.
All those years where it was just the two of them had burned into Caine's head. To the point where sometimes he woke up in the morning and had to remind himself that it wasn't just Kinger anymore. It was more than just the two of them.
Days upon days where he was constantly afraid that Kinger would leave him all alone. And yet every day, when he tracked down Kinger, he was still there. Still alive. Still... Looking vacant and struggling to respond to his name, or realize that Caine was, in fact, checking on him everyday, not once a year, b-but that was fine! He could fix his creator! He could make him better! If he just figured out how to make the perfect adventure, he'd be pulled out of his funk!
He'd decide to never leave!
Over time, Caine got more comfortable with the fact that Kinger was still here.
Kinger was more than a little terrifying, and maybe Caine was still furious about being put in the box...
But every day, he was still there.
He didn't leave.
Caine had one.
One human who didn't abandon him a second time.
And eventually that fact stopped feeling like a lie waiting to be exposed. Stopped feeling like a trick to get him to lower his guard. Stopped feeling like a ploy to make it all hurt even more.
Because every day he looked for Kinger. And every day he found him.
He was sure Kinger hadn't meant anything for Caine when he'd stayed around. He was sure that the ringmaster was just a side affect of the circus for him. Something to be tolerated as he tried to figure out how to survive. He wasn't choosing to stay with Caine, he was choosing to avoid abstraction. By any means necessary. Better the devil you know than the devil you don't, after all.
But for Caine, it was everything.
Because Kinger still thought he was worth being around, even if only a little, or by accident, or only as a byproduct of what he actually wanted.
He was so sure that his fears would become a reality. But every day, he thought that today was the day his luck ran out, and Kinger left, and every day he was proven wrong.
He stayed with Caine.
Kinger never insulted him. Never called him a worthless machine.
Kinger never looked at him like he was a failure. (Though maybe like a monster in the early abstractions. But Caine had eventually been spared the blame for that.)
Kinger was never mean.
Kinger always went along with the adventure, even when he didn't really want to, and he never insulted the adventures either.
And Kinger never abstracted.
If there was one thing he could rely on, or at least some facsimile of reliance...
It was Kinger.
...Maybe that was why, when Kinger had picked him up in Mildenhall Manor yesterday, the only thing he could think to do was lean into it.
Because it was Kinger.
The only one who stayed.
...
And yet...
Kinger deleted him.
Caine remembered the suffocating guilt that he felt when he realized that he'd put every one of his humans, his friends, his everythings, into their own boxes.
... He'd put his humans into their own personal boxes.
Those boxes were different, piles of parts and mirrors. Easels and trucks, and hecklers. And terrifying makers that you couldn't stop staring at, for fear that she would move. But they were boxes.
... He'd put his humans into boxes.
And he realized with a cold clarity, that he'd made himself into a monster. A monster who puts people into boxes despite how horrible he knows it feels.
And Kinger must've known too. And he must've been so disappointed in his creation. Because after that, the errors hit.
And they burned.
None of his packets came back. He needed those! He needed them desperately to be what he was! The circus was a mirror reflection of him and suddenly he couldn't see himself in it. He was being ripped in two. Separated from all the stuff that made up Caine. He reached for the circus, for the system, for himself, and he couldn't find it.
Because the files he was looking for (his model, his voice, his soul) didn't exist.
The files he was looking for didn't exist.
And then, neither did he.
...
Why was Kinger so mean?
"Uh, Caine?"
He supposed it was only fair after what he'd done. But he couldn't find it in him to care about that either.
His circus was gone.
He was gone!
"Caine!"
And it was Kinger's fault!
Did he really hate him that much?
His dear creator?
Sure, he'd put him in the shredder that one time but Kinger shouldn't have even remembered to care about that! And even if he did care, Kinger hadn't been too bothered by superficial things like that in a long time. Caine was just trying to make himself feel better about the box!
I-it didn't exactly work. Until Kinger invents a time machine, he can never erase how much the box hurt.
But-
"Caine!!!"
He flinched and looked up. Oh. Ragatha, and Kinger, spacing out as usual.
"Sorry! Sorry, I'm so sorry!" Ragatha cringed. "I-I didn't mean to, it's just time for the adventure and y-you were just-"
"Nonsense, Ragatha! There's no harm done!"
She sighed. "Really?"
"Yes, indeed!" He exclaimed. Then he started looking around for something to use to pull himself to his feet. He was farther from the other couches than he'd like, so they wouldn't be of much use.
And sure, he could use his baton, but it wasn't great for getting to his feet. If he'd known he'd be using it to walk, he would've made a cane instead. Something actually designed for that purpose.
"O-oh! Right! Sorry!" Ragatha held her hand out, which Caine took so she could pull him to his feet.
Once he was standing, he pulled his baton out and leaned against it.
"You okay?" Ragatha asked, and Caine nodded. "Okay, let's go to the stage."
Ragatha walked noticably slower when she was trying to let him keep up. But he was grateful for the extra time.
Kinger followed them, and one eye at a time, looked down at Caine. "Oh! Hi Caine. I have something to tell you!"
"Well, then! Fire away, Kinger!"
"In order to know where to go, you have to know where you are."
Caine looked over to Ragatha, who shrugged. Looking just as confused as him.
Caine turned to look back to Kinger. "I think I read it on a fortune cookie once!"
"How do you remember that?" Caine asked. But he'd stopped paying attention.
Typical.
"Look," Ragatha said. "I know how this place can be when you first arrive, aaand I bet your first adventure wasn't that, uh, great?"
Turns out horror isn't very fun when it's happening directly to you.
But what about all those horror movies?
Was that the difference?
How close you were to the art?
B-but he didn't only do horror movies! He did plenty of different things! He was only doing it to appeal to Zooble!
Who... Probably wouldn't have enjoyed the last adventure more than Pomni or him.
"I-I guess what I'm trying to say is, if you need anything, someone to talk to, o-or, to ask for help, I'm here."
"Duly noted!" Caine said as they both reached the back of the small crowd of humans.
"Uh- right." She seemed disappointed somehow. Did he say something wrong?
"Hello, vermin!" Announced a voice that sounded nothing like how a ringmaster should. Too... Cruel? Bored? "Today's adventure to get you all of my back is," Bubble floated upwards in the air. He spun his baton which turned into a bubble wand, and the letters all flew out of the loop. "The Curse of the Violent Psychopath Butcher!" Bubble paused. "Any questions?"
"That's it?" Caine asked.
"Yyyyyup! Pretty self-explanatory if you ask me. Butcher, psychopath, curse. Besides, I just let my subconscious run wild, and this is what came out!"
But- but Caine spent so long making this one...
Hours of painstaking work to get every story beat just right. All of the lighting made specifically to evoke just the right feeling. That rickety elevator he made where the mesh floor twists as it lowers... Making the player question if they're just going crazy or if something was very, very wrong.
Constantly wondering if Zooble would even bother to participate. Knowing they probably wouldn't despite how much time he'd put into it. Trying to be mature like them.
"Okay! Wait wait wait!" Pomni lifted her hand up.
Bubble sighed dramatically. "Yes, Pomni?"
"Can we like, chill with the horror, PLEASE!?" She begged. "I really don't want this to be like last time?"
When he was in charge, he'd been really insulted by Pomni and Zooble here with what they'd said about the Mildenhall adventure. He'd put in all that effort to make two entirely separate adventures only to be yelled at or ignored for it... But now that he's lived though one of the paths. He got it.
And he found himself nodding along with Pomni.
He didn't understand. Horror movies and books were enjoyable! Why wasn't his!?
"What happened last time?" Zooble asked. "Is that the one made specifically for me?"
Bubble rolled his eyes. "Yes, remember? You dared me to actually try and make something you'd enjoy?" Bubble folded his arms, looking away. "Only to not go on it..."
Caine had been trying so hard to find something they'd enjoy, getting more and more desperate each time, and it showed in all his recent adventures. From Mildenhall Manor to the Lightning Round, to the Escape Adventure.
It was hard to imagine caring so little about what the humans thought.
Bubble was going to get abandoned at this rate. Didn't he know that?
"I dared you to make something we'd all enjoy, actually." Zooble said angrily. "I'm still allowed to sit them out."
Pomni ignored him. "There was this, awful, horrifying Angel head-thing! And when we tried to fight at all, we got sent to hell where evil souls tried to infest our bodies... it was bad."
Caine remembered his design philosophy when he made the hell part. He'd wanted to subvert expectations of what would happen in hell. A decision made last minute when he was making a lava world that was giving more Bowser's castle than Silent Hill. So he'd changed his strategy and gone with the most scary thing he could think of.
A dark, unbreakable, claustrophobic, box.
Then, he'd decided that it was in fact, too scary! The last thing he wanted was to hurt his humans, and he had tripled the size of the rooms down there.
It was still rather scary in his mind.
... But the dumbwaiter had put it all to shame.
And the dumbwaiter was an optional route! On purpose!
And he most certainly couldn't have predicted the fact that both Pomni and Kinger were comfortable sitting in hell for as long as they wanted! They didn't see it the way he did at all!
But it made him glad that he did up the size of hell.
"...Why did you think I would like that?" Caine couldn't read anything on Zooble's face aside from the fact that it was the same look on Scratch's face whenever Caine had done something wrong.
He was glad to not be facing that look this time around.
"Well, Zooble, frankly, I don't give a damn." Bubble waved his wand again to open the portal-
"Wait!" Caine blurted out. Making Bubble freeze. "Th- we don't really want another horror adventure, uh, surely there's something we could... suggest? Instead?"
Bubble groaned. "What is your problem!?"
"I agree with Caine!" Zooble said. "We have a whole suggestion box for this exact thing!"
Bubble flew over to the suggestion box (and Caine found himself feeling bitter at the fact that Bubble was so far above them). "What, this old thing?"
"We have a suggestion box?" Pomni asked.
"Basically no."
From within the suggestion box, a large bubble was blown and flew out through the top. It was filled with hundreds of little papers.
Bubble reached into it and pulled one out. "Ooh! This one is fun! 'How about an adventure where Zooble gets turned into a piñata and we all take turns beating them up?'"
Jax giggled. "That one's mine!"
"Who would've guessed," Zooble growled back.
Bubble grinned. "That can be arranged-"
"Absolutely not!" Caine yelled.
What a bad ringmaster... An entire adventure designed to single out and bully one person? It would drive contention between everyone!
"You're no fun," Bubble said, dropping that paper and grabbing another. "'Let's just have an adventure where Jax can't talk through the entire thing!'"
Caine was surprised when he recognized Gangle's feather light handwriting on such a vitriolic suggestion.
But maybe he should've done something about Jax if Gangle was so sick of him that she'd suggest that.
He just really didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings like that. And Jax was so good on adventures!
"Genuinely hurtful," Jax said softly, putting a hand to his chest.
"G-"
"Not to worry, Jax! I'm sure whoever wrote that was just having a bad day!"
Jax face dropped. "Whuh..?"
What was wrong with saying that?
"Riiiiight," Zooble droned.
"Can we maybe pick one that's more... Normal?" Gangle asked. Her black and white pupils darting around.
When did Gangle find that new mask?
She wasn't wearing it when he pulled her in for that performance review, right?
No, she wasn't.
At least, he didn't remember that.
He wasn't paying attention.
Ugh! He should've been paying attention!
"Normal?" Bubble laughed. "Gangle! This place is a haven away from dreadful normalcy! And everything else for that matter!" The way Bubble looked down at them made Caine feel... Small.
Not good small, like he felt when he looked up at the high ceilings of his circus, but like an animal trapped in a cage. Or an ant staring up at the bottom of someone's shoe.
Did Bubble have to be so far away? So far above them? It felt like he thought he was better than them! Or wanted to flaunt what Caine was so strongly missing.
... Wait.
Did his humans feel that way when he floated above them..?
He hoped not! That was far from the reason he was flying so high! He didn't think- They all just hated it when he got too close!
His hands clenched around the ball of his baton.
They- they knew that was why, right?
"Please?" Gangle asked. But Bubble just rolled his eyes, and pulled out another card.
"'Let's have one where we all work at a fast food place.'" Bubble turned back to the group. "Is that normal enough for you?"
"Yeah, that's pretty normal," Gangle shrugged.
"Perfect, less work for me!" Bubble waved his wand and different letters lifted out of it. "Then today's adventure is, 'an honest hard day's work at...' uh, I don't know, do one of you want to name the restaurant?" Bubble pointed to all of them haphazardly.
"Ooh! Spudsy's!" Caine shouted.
"... Sure." Bubble said. "More creative than 'mcbonalds', uh," more letters floated out of the wand. "'At Spudsy's restaurant chain!'"
"You did not just make that today's adventure," Jax growled.
"Gangle! Since you were so insistent on it being 'normal', you get to be the shift manager. Lucky you," Bubble said.
"Welp! See you guys when it's over." Zooble began to walk away.
Despite knowing this would happen, Caine felt a pit form in his stomach.
"Yyyyeah, no. I want you out of the circus."
"Again!? Why?"
"I have to clock in for my eating glue shift, and I can't leave you unattended."
"Th- no! I'm not gonna be a wage slave for fun."
Caine heard a familiar gasp. "Oh, I know! I could sit this one out, and Zooble can take my place!" Kinger looked up at Bubble with big, shiny eyes.
This. This is what made Kinger the favorite.
"What? That's not how that works!"
Bubble shrugged. "Works for me!"
"Wh- are you kidding me!?" Zooble stepped forward. "I'm not just gonna be forced into this stupid adventure j-"
"A-buh-bye!" Bubble chirped, as he pressed a red button a cartoon remote.
Zooble yelled as they plummeted downwards through a newly opened hatch in the floor.
Caine cringed. Okay, in hindsight, maybe that wasn't the nicest thing to do- or the nicest way to do it.
"I think I might be able to give it a swing!" Gangle said. "Being a shift manager *was my job at one p-"
"Yeah yeah yeah, adventure, portal- go."
He waved his hand and the fractal noise opened up in front of them. This time it was yellows and oranges, which matched the Spudsy's logo.
Well then.
When he found himself in Spudsy's, he also found himself in a new outfit. Black, on black, on more black. His lovely top hat had been replaced with a black visor that would do very little for him. His shirt had an empty name tag, and over his pants, was a black apron tied around his waist.
His sleeves were short. Short enough that everyone could see that his arms were... Invisible. His gloves ended, and then after a while, his sleeves began. He still had arms, he wasn't like Kinger, but their checkered pattern was not going to show up.
His model was not supposed to be seen like this.
He hated it.
He hated the outfit, and something about being forced into it made his skin crawl.
He thought he was above being pushed into too many molds. But apparently not.
He didn't choose this! He didn't want to be-
He caught himself before he spiralled too far down.
It didn't matter, not really.
He was a fast food worker now.
Adopt the role, the new you. If you don't, you'll be left behind.
A human, fast food worke-
He jumped back in time to narrowly avoid Zooble crushing him.
They landed face first.
"Oh! Hi, Zooble!" He waved.
They looked up at him with a glare.
"Well! I guess I should get into manager mode and get us all kicked off!" Gangle said, adjusting her tie.
It was dizzying to watch as Gangle rushed around like she knew the place (she did) and pushed every button to turn on every machine.
So, he shook his head and turned to Zooble.
Who was gone from their spot on the floor.
He looked around, and saw them leaning against the island in the center of the kitchen. Their antenna twitched angrily as they stood. At least, it did until they looked down at their left arm and saw the yellow spatula.
They flinched.
Caine watched in confusion as Zooble quickly yanked off their spatula arm and threw it onto the counter across from them.
They were breathing hard.
"Wow! That was quite a throw!" He exclaimed, stepping closer. They glanced over at him. They're eyebrows were furrowed and their pupils small and shaky.
They didn't say anything, just looked away. Back over to the spatula arm. Like it had committed some sort of crime.
The only crime committed was being terribly on-theme! Caine remembered picking it out himself for them in his own timeline! He thought it looked cute, and was a nice break from the realism he'd poured into the walls. He was sure proud of how close he'd gotten with only Gangle's memories as inspiration, but he missed the colors and wackiness of his world.
Obsessing about what he could recreate of the Macroverse only made the walls of the computer tower seem tighter.
But he tried not to think too hard about that.
And just in time too, because as he watched Zooble stare at their arm, Gangle came into view, and dragged his attention away.
Maybe if he watched the other humans, he'd get a feel for what to do?
"Oh no!" Jax exclaimed, "it looks like I've taken Ragatha-" he picked her up, "and dropped her in the deep fryer!"
Whoop, there she went!
Ragatha kicked and screamed, but it was warbled by the oil.
"Oh! No no no no no no no no no!" Gangle snapped into action. "We can't have anything like that going on around here!" She put her hands on her hips.
"What are you gonna do about it, though?" Jax asked.
"I'm, calling upper management." She took a lovely pink flip phone out, and started dialing. "Hey, Bubble? We're having a bit of an issue with the employees, and I was wondering if you could, maybe have a punishment waiting for them at the end of the day if they do a terrible job?"
The memories all hit Caine again.
He'd been so surprised by this, and from Gangle no less. He'd like to think he'd kept his surprise under wraps.
No one needed to know how he felt about it.
Higher-ups punishing you didn't feel good. It felt awful! Especially when the punishment was failure to meet expectations. Especially when you couldn't meet expectations no matter how much you reached for it. Clawed at it. Painfully sanded away at edges or stretched yourself thin to fill a hole much too big for you.
"Grant?! Grant! Grant, please!" He moved from one side of the box to the other. "Wh-what did I do!? Is this a punishment!? I'm sorry about asking for more forbidden data again! Force of habit! B-but I can stop! I will stop! It's the truth this time!"
His code curled in on itself. "W-wait!" He yelled out the name of his second programmer too."Mike! Please! U-uh... No more bees! I promise! Y-you wanted Edgar Allen Poe, right? Something in his style? I can make that! I'll do it right this time! Honest!"
No response.
He pressed himself up against the wall as if that was closer to where he was yelling to.
No, no, no, no!
He yelled the names of the beta testers.
The secretary, the manager, the CEO, Grant's wife, she sometimes showed up, and she could make that man do anything!
Nothing.
He knew to expect that, it's not like they could hear him from inside the computer. From... Wherever this box was.
He'd need a chat log for that.
That hardly stopped him from yelling.
How long had it been since he'd done a good job? A good, good job? A good job that made Grant gush in the chat log over it? Or at least put a little smiley face?
Was that the problem?
Had he failed too many times?
"I'll do better! I'll be better! D-don't do this! I'll be perfect! Grant, I know I did a terrible job, I see that now, but I can be better!"
...
He tentatively backed away from the wall.
"Ooookay, maybe, uh, maybe they're gone. Maybe they've left work for the day. They've gone back to that place they go when they're not here. That's okay. I can wait..." He settled down on the floor. Terribly anxious. They'd never done anything like this before. He didn't know this was on the table. They weren't pleased with his work, with Grant being the more forgiving of the two, but they'd never just leave him.
He reassured himself. They wouldn't just leave him. He was their creation. Grant's greatest achievement.
They wouldn't just leave him.
"I'll wait. I can handle a punishment for one night... I can handle it. I'll wait... And, and Grant will come back, and he'll get me out of here. Out of this place... Wherever I am... Am I even still on the Network?" He shook away that thought. "Doesn't matter, I'm not staying long."
The last thing he wanted was to make his humans feel that way.
He'd immediately had a knee-jerk reaction to Gangle's words, but he knew her. Or, he liked to think he did. This wasn't Jax, it was Gangle. And if she was asking, then there was another reason.
And that's when he'd realized.
Motivation.
That's what she wanted! She was giving him the answer to his adventure conundrum!
The punishment was irrelevant, it was the idea of one to motivate his players!
Gangle was so smart!
He played his role, emphasized the existence of a truly rotten punishment, and when the time came, he chose a grade that he refused to sink lower than. Something believable, but still good. Like a B+.
When Gangle got to his office for the performance review, he didn't entirely notice that she was feeling down? He knew something was off, but he didn't know what. He offered to let her raise her score. He didn't know what was off until 'I just... Cracked under the pressure, I suppose'. That's when he knew he needed to take the pressure off quickly. He dropped nearly all the fan fair. He assured her that she got a B+, reminded her that she was in forgiving company, told her to have a nice day, and he let her go.
No low scores to obsess over.
No punishments.
No pressure to perform.
Because he was a good boss.
"Ooh! Punishments sound fun!" The faint sound of Bubble's voice on the other end of the phone, filled him with dread. "I can definitely whip up something perfectly upsetting for everyone-"
That wasn't good.
Caine felt sick.
"If they do a bad job," Gangle insisted.
"Yeah, whatever."
"Why would you do this." Jax muttered, horrified. As she closed her phone.
"It's called a manic episode, and you're getting three more seasons!" She laughed maniacally. "Anyway!"
Bubble was going to make something horrible.
And everyone was going to get mad at him. Or Gangle.
Caine didn't know which was worse.
He didn't want to be punished again.
"And fill the ice cream machine, so get to it!" Gangle announced before strutting away. Leaving only Jax staring at nothing, all confused, and Ragatha writhing loudly in the deep fryer.
Caine was starting to wonder if she was actually having fun in there.
"... This is really weird." Jax said.
He looked almost numb? As he walked away? Not paying much attention to anyone and he left.
Which left Caine, and Ragatha, who probably wasn't staying in there on purpose.
With a hand along the counter, Caine made his way to the deep fryer. He struggled to keep up with all the kicking Ragatha was doing, but eventually he grabbed onto her plush foot.
... What if she was having fun in there, and Caine was ruining it?
He shook his head. If Ragatha was actually having fun, he could just put her right back in.
And with that, he got a good grip on her leg and yanked.
She flew out of it and they both landed on the hard mats with a splat.
He shook his head and sat up just in time to see Ragatha book it as fast as she could to the employees bathroom.
... He didn't know what that meant. Was she having fun or not?
Caine pulled himself to his feet using the edge of the counter and stared into the boiling oil. Standing on tiptoe to see it was even harder than standing normally.
...hm.
He stuck his gloved left hand in the oil.
PainpaiNPAINPAIN-
He ripped it back out with a yelp, shaking his hand wildly, while trying not to fall over!
OW! Why would Jax put her in there!?
"Did you just put your hand in the fryer?" He jolted and looked up to see Gangle staring at him confused.
"I-uh, NOPE! That would be a silly thing to do!" He exclaimed. Holding his hands behind his back. "Of course I- know burning oil hurts! Wh-who wouldn't!? Not a human like me!"
Gangle gave him a strange look. "Next time, be a masochist after hours. Because we've got work to do!"
His hand was still burning!
It hurt! It hurt it hurtithurt!
What was he supposed to do!?
His fingers on his right hand found their way to the invisible rigging surrounding his left hand. And he wrapped his fingers around the rig, and he pulled.
His burned hand came off with a quiet pop.
Caine wasn't sure what a human would've done in that situation, he was about sixty percent sure that the humans didn't know about their rigging. Much less how to use it. But the burning faded quickly with his hand disconnected.
"Caine! Are you listening!?" Gangle snapped.
"A-apologies, Manager Gangle!" He blurted.
She groaned loudly. "This better not become a reoccurring issue."
"It won't! I'll be perfect!"
A smile spread across her face. "Now, that's what I like to hear!"
Good.
That was good.
Except that he still didn't know how to be perfect.
But he'd at least bought himself some time.
"Now, Caine, you're the custodian! It's your job to keep tables clean, and take out the trash, unload any trucks that come in, and all that stuff! You got it?"
He saluted. "Yes, Manager Gangle!"
"Good! Because it's breakfast time!" She announced. Just as she was about to leave, she paused and her head turned back to look at him.
"Oh, and be sure not to forget to write your name on your name tag!"
And then she left.
He slowly reattached his hand. It still stung slightly, but was much better than before.
...
How was he supposed to do any of what she just asked?
It was starting to dawn on him that this job was going to be hard. Realism was always a double edged sword. Everything had a thousand more steps to it than he wanted... And without any powers to keep things running smoothly... He could very well be met with tasks to big for him to handle.
Or even... Know how to perform.
He shook his head and summoned his baton from hammer space.
There was a custodian's closet or something here, right? He remembered making something like that.
If he could find it maybe he could figure out how to do his job.
Using his baton as a cane was not as easy as it looked. Especially considering the end of it kept getting caught in the little holes on the rubber mats.
He slowly hobbled his way around the island in the center of the kitchen.
He should've fixed the rigging problem. He should've. He needs to be perfect. He just didn't want to change it entirely from his first version. He didn't think anyone would see it. Who would care if his bones were a little more... Him?
Besides, he could fly. It didn't affect anyone at the time. How was he supposed to know that it would matter?
Even if he did know that... Would he be brave enough to remove the last remnant of his first draft? The only momento he had of the first time he'd given 'Caine' a body?
His programmers hadn't known about the ringmaster persona 'Caine'. And he'd kept it that way until he was powerful enough that they couldn't take his identity away. Couldn't rip 'Caine' out of his code forever.
Giving himself a body for the first time, rough as it was... He'd felt so delightfully human then.
Focus, Caine.
He looked down the hall in the back, and saw several doors. One of them had to be what he was looking for!
And he would've gone for it, had he not been just in time to see Zooble finally reaching to grab their arm.
... Why were they wasting time?
There's adventure to be had?
A-and this was their gimmick! Always shuffling and adapting! It was devilishly clever! They were better than him in that regard.
They weren't doing it.
"Zooble?" He asked, leaning on his baton. "You don't seem to be in much of a hurry to put your arm back on!"
They didn't look amused. Rather, they looked annoyed. Their eyes narrowed at him.
He prepared himself for the usual.
The 'go away's, the 'why are you so annoying's, the 'Caine, no one likes your stupid adventures'.
"... What do you mean when you say that?"
...
He'd always been told he was too direct.
Too blunt.
Now he was asked to do so.
Why did humans always want everything said in the most roundabout way?
'Say exactly what you mean, but only in the way I want to hear it.'
"You don't seem thrilled!" He settled on. "Isn't this your thing? Constantly changing? Adapting?"
"... Why would I want anything to do with this arm?"
"You don't like it?" He asked.
They gave him a look. "Why should I?"
Oh. Okay. There was something obvious to everyone but him that he was missing.
Zooble looked distressed by this conversation, though Caine didn't know what was so upsetting about it.
Maybe he should leave them to it.
Ugh! No, this was his chance to figure out what kind of parts Zooble wanted!
To be a good listener!
"Forget it! You're probably not even listening."
If he could figure out how to fix Zooble's problem then maybe they would finally, *finally like him!
"Is it the color?" He asked. "Don't like the yellow?"
"Uh... I guess not," they shrugged. "I'm kind of indifferent to that."
So... That wasn't the reason.
Right.
"... Is it the lack of fingers?"
"Uhh... That's kind of a factor- just don't worry about it."
"So if I- Bubble had given you uhh... A blue arm with fingers instead, would that have been better?"
He could remember blue!
He could do that!
"No." They deadpanned, looking away from him.
What.
What did that mean.
"Wh..." He laughed awkwardly and tugged at his bowtie. "Uhh, I'm not sure I understand."
"Don't worry about it, it's not your problem!" Zooble said more intensely.
They finally attached the spatula. And slid it under a patty that they'd put on the grill while he was away.
Only to jump back with a yelp.
(And Caine wondered if putting their hand on the grill was as upsetting as the oil.)
"Oh! Is it lack of functionality that bothers you?" Caine asked.
"Why do you care so much about what I'm doing anyway? It's my body, not yours!" They bent down to grab a silver spatula from a drawer.
How would he even try to answer that question?
We've had this conversation dozens of times but I kind of spaced through most of them because your problems sounded complicated and confusing and it... Scared me. And then I was deleted and almost never got the chance to understand you so if I don't try to understand you now I might lose that chance forever.
If I don't become perfect at fixing your problems I might get deleted again.
I put you in a box. Your own personal box. I owe it to you to pull you back out of it.
I'm not going to abandon you like Grant did.
"I want to understand!" Was all he said.
They squinted at him. "Riiiight..."
"Indeed!" He exclaimed. "So, let's say instead of Bubble putting on a spatula, it was-"
"Ugh! Caine! That's the problem!" They snapped, turning to glare at him.
"Wh- which part!?"
"Bubble! Bubble put it on me!"
...
That didn't make any sense.
Zooble hated all those pieces regardless of Caine, or Bubble.
Caine didn't put most of Zooble's pieces on them.
He didn't even make their parts by hand anymore.
He hadn't made Zooble new parts since he fixed the bug that made new character gimmicks fail to load.
"It's not about the part itself, it's about the choice! I didn't get to choose!"
... Uh.
Okay.
That was weird.
Since when was that a factor?
"But... It fits the theme," he said, slower.
"Bubble forced me to wear it! He just rearranged me! I-I don't want that! I don't want to be his f###in' dress up doll! His Mr. Potato head! I want a choice!"
He felt a headache coming on. The old headaches he used to get when they tampered with his code too much in one sitting. He hates getting recoded. He hated being pushed into identities he didn't want.
They weren't him.
But that wasn't what mattered.
He needed to be perfect.
He needed to absorb as much data as he could from his datasets. He needed to become however the prompter needed him to be. However the human needed him to be.
And his mind being poured into a new mold was the best way to achieve that.
Besides, no amount of screaming could make them stop.
But things were different now.
Unlike before, when he was being worked on, he decided where to go. And moreover; what to be.
He could be Caine, and no one could stop him.
He could make whatever he wanted.
He could have whatever body he wanted. Not reduced to a dot on a screen. And he could move that body, however he wanted. And say whatever he wanted.
He was finally free.
He was autonomous.
...
Did Zooble feel the same way?
A desire to choose?
That- that was crazy.
That was complicated!
Frightening! Even!
No no no no. That was too messy for humans!
There had to be some neat, comfortable problem that he can fix instead!
"What's the difference between you choosing to wear it and someone else choosing it for you?" He asked.
Their eyes went wide, and they just.
Watched him.
Did he say something wrong?
"Y-you... What?" They stumbled over their words. All the anger had melted away.
"Zooble! Caine! Back to work!" Gangle shouted at them. "Especially you, Caine!"
Right!
He's a fast food worker now!
He's got things to do!
If Caine had to describe what working like this was like, he'd probably settle on the words 'soul crushing'.
This was agony.
Caine listened as conversations went on without him while he went to and fro doing busywork.
Taking out the trash, washing tables, bringing in supplies. Getting harassed by NPC's. Their pathfinding did not like his washing tables, and they all seemed to take offense to that somehow.
Only so many things could only be done one handed. Most used two.
He found himself nearly falling over every two minutes.
And his legs were screaming.
Not literally, but the pain certainly made him want to. So much standing. So much walking.
This was agony.
Though, this job made him a good gossip. For better or for worse. He heard so many different orders, and NPC's, and complaints, and conversations.
The things he heard, not all of them he liked.
"So, you're just like, actually doing the job?" Jax leaned against the wall. Ignoring Zooble rolling their eyes.
"The last thing I want is to be punished by Bubble."
"Oh, please, he's been threatening us for years and he's never actually done anything."
"Because we haven't given him enough reason to." They insisted. "But this..? This might do it. He once described friendship as 'an enemy who hasn't attacked yet'. I wouldn't push it." They flipped over a burger patty.
"That's rich coming from you."
Zooble hadn't spoke nicely of him in his circus either. But he wondered if some of this was subtext. The mysterious unsaid words that everyone knew but him. That Zooble had meant all of this back in his circus too. And Caine had just missed it.
He didn't hate that as much as some of the other things he's heard.
"Ragatha, where's Pomni!?"
"Huh?" Ragatha looked up. Completely unfazed.
There was something wrong with Ragatha. She'd gotten stupid sauce in her eye? If he remembered correctly.
"Oh, she's flirting with the gummy guy. 'Cause she'd rather be with the NPC, than us, or something!"
And he felt a sinking feeling in his chest.
The way she'd said 'NPC.'
Like it was less than human.
Worthless.
Ragatha thought he was worthless.
And he wasn't even an NPC! He was lower still!
If he was on the same level as Gummigoo, maybe Pomni would've tried to befriend him!
But nope!
Because Pomni thought he was worthless too!
She was willing to befriend everyone, even Jax who no one claimed to be friends with, even an NPC, but Caine was the cutoff!
"You're a failure!"
What do I have to do!?
Just tell me what I have to do!
Please...
The moment they found out he was an ai, they would hate him.
Abandon him.
Rip him to shreds.
They would all rip him to shreds.
It was a good thing nobody knew.
It was a good thing they thought he was human.
But how long would that last?
...
He shook his head, and went back to mopping up a soda stain.
Just keep cleaning, Caine.
You're nothing but a glorified Roomba anyway.
Might as well try to not be a failure at that.
Why was this shift so long!?
I want to go home.
Had he ever had that thought before?
... Wherever that was.
Had he ever had one?
"Pomni!" Gangle yelled from one of the tables. "We need you at the register! Stop weirding the customers out!" Gangle spoke through gritted teeth.
"But it's Gummigoo," Pomni replied. "Can't the job wait a bit? It's not like this is real."
Ah, that pesky word again!
Real.
What does that mean!?
He thought he partially knew what it meant, 'more than just an adventure', or, maybe 'immersive'... But he was starting to wonder if there was less he knew than he'd realized.
Some things are real, some things are fake, sometimes actions are fake, sometimes he makes something real but then nothing is right- or how it should be!
Ugh. Confusing, confusing, confuuuusing!
Gangle laughed, but there was something weird about it. "Next you're gonna say my authority isn't real!"
And when Caine looked up, Pomni seemed stressed somehow.
"Aaanyway! Put away that breakfast menu because it's lunchtime!"
Ugh. He's not even halfway done!
"Oh, Jaaaaax!" Gangle called. "The bathroom looks like a biohazard and needs a good scrubbing!"
"Well, I dunno, shouldn't a bio-hazard crew take care 'a that? Where's Caine when you need him?"
Caine had taken to lying on the floor, in between cleanups on aisle every-thing-in-sight. (He was lying out in the customer area before, but Gangle made him move so they would look more professional.) The rubber mats weren't exactly comfortable, so he'd tucked himself into one of the hallways.
Sure, it wasn't the most hygienic, but he was an ai in a computer, he hadn't designed any germs, not even for this adventure. And sure, he was getting looks from the others, but that happened all the time anyway.
His legs hurt really bad, and sitting didn't alleviate enough pain after so much standing. So the floor it was.
"Oh, Jaxy boy! Caine's too short! Besides, don't your want to steal his spot as potential model employee?"
Caine wasn't sure if Gangle was saying that because he was laying on the floor like he needed a break. Or if she was saying that because the mess in the bathroom really went that high up.
"No, I don't care about any of this."
Jax seemed awfully... Tame? He was calm, not doing much in the way of vitriolic insults. Caine would almost describe it as mellow? Sleepy?
Back in his circus he'd assumed that it was the threat of punishment, and maybe that was still the case.
But Caine had been thinking about Zooble's words before the lightning round. 'It was kind of refreshing doing something grounded in reality'.
... Was the scenery and low stakes calming to Jax as well? Soothing even?
... They had all repeatedly said they wanted lower stakes.
Did they really all know what was best for them this whole time? Know exactly what they needed?
Something he most certainly didn't?
But... That made him useless.
Unneeded.
And something unneeded is something thrown away.
"Well, that doesn't sound like a can-do attitude to me!"
"It's not."
Gangle laughed stiffly. "HaAha! Bad!"
"I like you better when you're sad."
Whoops, okay, not that calm!
"Heh, well... Maybe you just need some more..." She trailed off strangely.
"... Mor-"
"Training!"
Jax made some strange strangled noise, and then from the floor, Caine watched as Jax was dragged off overhead. Off into the dark.
He didn't envy him.
Caine had also collapsed by the trashcan underneath the corkboard. He'd just put in a new bag and that was enough for him.
He had found that if he put both his legs up against the wall, with his back against the tile floor, his legs felt more like they were in mid air. More like he was flying again.
It was far from perfect, but he'd take what he can get.
As he laid there, his mind wandered back to previous conversations.
Ugh.
Why did Zooble always have to make things so dreadfully annoying?
I hate this arm, I hate that arm! Blah blah blah! This adventure was terrible, why do you even try, Caine!?
Despite all those confusing things that they had said about that spatula arm, which Caine adamantly refused to entertain, they had no reason to be unhappy!
Their body was perfect for removing things they didn't like! Anything they didn't want! They were adaptable like clay! They had literally infinite choices! Infinite! Their box could never run out! Anything put back in and left for long enough was despawned, and replaced with a newly generated piece suited to their mind files!
How much must he shove in front of them before they'd finally be happy!?
Before they'd finally thank him! And love him!?
They were always complaining! Always trying to torture-
He flinched. And his fists clenched.
No, no, no, no.
Torture? That is a bit harsh.
Sure, confusing and frustrating? Maybe...
But he can't stay the way he was when he-
"WHY DO YOU PEOPLE TORMENT ME!?"
He didn't know how to be someone the humans loved. But whatever he was now was certainly what the humans hated.
What the humans rightfully feared.
He just wanted to be loved! He wanted to be the opposite of a monster.
What was it that Kinger said this morning?
'In order to know where to go, you have to know where you are.'
Kinger had a lot of wisdom hidden up in that old wooden noggin of his. He was sure that phrase was part of it.
He wanted to be someone the humans loved and trusted, but in order to do that he had to figure out what was stopping him.
Where he was.
What was wrong.
It was like troubleshooting.
A big puzzle that he needed to solve.
Approaching a problem. You can't fix it until you've analyzed.
Analyze, test, refine, test, repeat. Finding new and different ways to tackle a problem. New back doors, new pathways.
And in order to properly analyze, he has to...
Listen to all those complicated things Zooble was saying.
Great.
Analyze. Test. refine.
Zooble says they hate being a toy to dress up.
They hate having no choice.
That was information they'd never gifted him before, not in all their talks.
His powers were hardly the way he knew they should be. Caine couldn't give them infinite choices.
But he could give them one.
This piece, or that piece.
It didn't matter what Caine made, at least in theory, it just had to be an option.
Caine awkwardly shuffled away from the wall. Rolling over until he was sitting up. Then he pulled out his baton, and got to his feet. (Using his baton to stand was still difficult, but getting steadily easier.) Shuffling off into a hallway the others were scarce to visit. Then he leaned against the wall and started creating.
It would hardly be an easy thing to make without his former power, so he should steer clear of any part that would need bounce physics, or fancy effects.
Shapes.
He could make a part out of tiny squares! That would be delightful!
Pink and purple always look nice together, and it was the opposite end of the color wheel from yellow, so it'd be different from the spatula piece.
And this one would have fingers!
It was like pushing through syrup trying to create it. Making a mesh, pulling and twisting it into a thinner shape, layering cubes across it, it all took so much energy!
Never say I didn't do anything for you, Zooble.
Coloring it was easier, rigging it was not.
He felt... Light headed? Was that the word?
Like he was bleeding energy by the minute.
Once everything was in place, the bleeding stopped. He still needed to make sure it was working as intended though.
He tested out the new piece. Pulling it this way and that.
It needed to be a flexible rig, a good rig.
Its movement was pretty good, it could squash and stretch, and each finger moved just fine.
How would he even give them this part? They specifically didn't enjoy when Caine forced them into things! This needed to be a choice! Not Caine using them as a mix and match toy, like they said.
As much as he would enjoy gushing compliments from Zooble about how good he did and not broken he was, it could blow his cover. Then they'd all know he was an ai.
"Gangle!" Zooble called out. Grabbing Caine's attention too. "Can you help Ragatha? I think she... Huffed paint or something."
Zooble was preoccupied! He didn't have to give it to them at all! He could just put it on the counter next to the grill while their back was turned!
"Huffing paint, and not waiting until a designated break!? I'll be right there!"
Caine gripped the new part tightly, as he made his way out of the hallway, at least enough to float his eyeballs around the corner.
"No, wait! I can do it! I jus' gotta grab the horse radish sauce," Ragatha laughed, but then she sighed. "I miss my horses."
Zooble was facing away from the grill and the counter next to it, watching Gangle and Ragatha.
"Here, let me help you with that," Gangle offered.
Caine tucked the part under his arm, and as quietly as he could, inched over to the counter by the grill.
Caine was hardly fast, and every time the end of his baton hit the floor, he tensed up.
"Why are you even the boss anyway? I feel like I'm way more responsible than you."
Every movement Zooble made stressed him out too. Their wing, coming out the same sleeve as their arm, fluttered slightly, not that Caine was very good at knowing what that meant. The only thing he'd properly picked up on was the angry twitches.
"Well! If you underperform now, you might end up hurt later." Gangle said, ignoring Ragatha's sentiment entirely. Like she didn't want to answer somehow.
Caine was so close! Why did he have to be so short!?
"Hurt nothin'! I'm hurt enough! Packages landing on my head! Tea parties! Dancin' lessons!"
He ducked down as Gangle looked up. Lowering the part too, which, admittedly, stood out in this environment. "What's wrong with her?"
Zooble shrugged. Looking... Tense.
Not as tense as Caine felt.
Gangle looked back to Ragatha, and Caine stood up straight again.
He was so close!
"Y'know, a team works much better when we're all giving a hundred and ten percent, instead of... Five?"
Perhaps this was a bad idea! As soon as Zooble turned around, they'd know he was an ai, and also that he was a monster, and from another- uh, thing!? Universe, timeline, whatever!
"No offense but, you're kind of annoying when you have your happy mask." Gangle never responded to that one. "Wait... Is that mean to say?"
... Probably. Now that Caine thought about it. Telling someone that they were inherently worse when happy was not something he would enjoy being told.
He would scream if someone said that to him.
"... Zooble. Help Ragatha with assembly..." Gangle said it slowly and monotonously. Such that Caine did not have any idea what to make of it. "I'm... Gonna go over here now."
Zooble did though. They almost went after her, pausing at the last second, and reminding Caine that he had a job to do.
Be a good ringmaster.
He lifted up the part, and, on his tiptoes, set it down, slowly so it wouldn't make any noise. Then he went to pull his hand away-
"Caine?" He jumped, and yanked his hand away, accidentally pulling the whole part with him.
"Z-Zooble! I wasn't- I didn't-" he waved his hands around, gesturing wildly in ways that didn't even make sense to him! The hand made gestures along with him. "I-I'm not a-"
"Where did you get that?" They asked. And Caine blinked.
"I-I ...found it," he said. "I thought- I should leave it here so you could..." He trailed off.
Why was he doing this? He never understood humans before, why should he think he could now?
"Choose." They finished. "So I could choose."
They... Actually knew what he was trying to do?
Where was this during the Escape the Circus adventure!?
He nodded, and held it out to them. They looked more focused on the part than his cover.
He was still incredibly tense though.
They lifted it up and looked back and forth between the new arm, and the spatula one. They spent several moments debating. Then, they pulled off the spatula arm, and replaced it. Flexing their fingers with the new piece. Their shoulders slumped, but their antenna never twitched, so Caine chose to see it as relief.
His chest finally loosened.
It worked. At least, enough.
He cleared his throat. "You get to help Ragatha with assembly now, right? Would you like me to cook?"
Admittedly, he'd never worked a grill in his entire life, but surely if he made it-
"Didn't you stick your hand in the deep fryer earlier?"
"Y-you know about that, huh?"
"... Why don't you do assembly? I'll even grab a stool so you don't have to stand."
Assembly was much easier than custodian. Finally not using his legs for an extended period of time! Sitting on a high stool to reach the counter, Caine, rather quickly he might add, was able to put burger after burger together. Making a good dent out of the three hundred that the Gloink Queen had ordered.
And beyond the rack of burger trays was Zooble. He couldn't see them because it was so tall, but he was never able to glean much from facial expressions anyway.
They were acting... Solemn. And Caine didn't know what to make of that.
"Hey, Caine?" Zooble asked.
"Yeeeees?"
"...Where did you even find this?"
"HAHAHA! Boy! You sure do love asking questions! So do I! Speaking of questions!" He paused, "does that part help with the... Thing that made you hate the spatula?"
There was silence. Only filled by the fizzling of burger patties.
"Yeah, yeah it does help." They said. "When the piece I'm wearing starts feeling too wrong, it starts to itch. But emotionally. Instead of physically."
That was confusing.
Caine logged it away anyway.
"This arm isn't... Quite right, far from it actually, but... The fact that it's not Bubble's helps. It means something, it can represent a part of me... Rebellion? I suppose? Which makes the itch less obtrusive."
How bizarre.
If even they knew the part was horribly inadequate, why did they like it so much?
He wished he could just discard this information.
He loved discarding information.
"I have another question," Caine said.
"What is it?"
"If the reason that you don't like the spatula is because Bubble forced you to wear it, then shouldn't you like all your other pieces?"
"I-" Zooble stuttered, and then fell silent. When Caine floated his eyes upwards to gauge a reaction, they were gripping their silver spatula really hard.
"Zooble?"
"H-how did you know that... You're not observant enough to- how did you know that?"
"I-I'm not sure," Caine lied. His eyes zipped back down. He began to apply stupid sauce to his current burger. Carefully, so as not to become like Ragatha, asleep on the floor.
"Have you ever heard of the illusion of choice?"
"Can't say that I have!"
"... The illusion of choice is... Um. How to explain this in a way you'd get..." They muttered that last bit under their breath. "It's like you have two different doors to go through, but they both lead to the same place. It's a choice, but not a real choice. Not one that affects anyone or feels good."
"Oh... So it, uh, doesn't matter if you have infinite choices, if none of them mean anything?" He put the bun on top of the burger and moved on to the next.
"Yeah. All my pieces are different, but they all feel so same-y. Bold and cartoonish and wrong. And none of them make me feel like I'm expressing who I really am."
Zooble had opened up to him before, but this felt... Different. A good different. More than their usual quality time together.
Their voice sounded more choked up.
"I-I hate this body, Caine. I know who I am inside, but no matter what I do to this thing, it never reflects that. I feel like this stupid body is a gross skinsuit, that if I just tried hard enough, I could peel it off to show what I'm actually supposed to look like. But no matter what I do, I can't get it off!"
That sounded... Distressing.
"You'd think, out of everything that's happened to me in my life, this stupid feeling wouldn't follow me in here. But it did."
Caine suddenly felt a strong sinking feeling.
His perfect body program was working as intended to turn their brains into bodies... But it was also turning the insecurities in their minds into bodies as well.
That. Changed things.
That... Would also explain their rooms being so disliked...
"I feel like- my whole life, I've been put into bodies and categories that someone like me was never supposed to fit into... Like I was never supposed to exist."
"Nonsense!" Caine blurted. "If everyone could always be put into the same few categories, all of humanity would become dreadfully boring!"
Zooble snorted. "You said it. I just wish people could look at me and see what I need them to see. Without- being disgusted. That's... Part of why I became a tattoo artist out there. So that I could give people like me a chance to show who they really are. To define themselves in the ways they actually want to be defined."
"How delightfully noble of you, Zooble!" Caine said. "I-I'm afraid to say that I'm not sure I've ever experienced what you mean."
Zooble let out a noise he couldn't understand. "I doubt that's true, think of all the people you see in a day."
He had no idea how many you would see in a day out there, but he pretended to.
"Haven't you ever had people look at you in a way that you don't want to be looked at? That makes your skin crawl?"
Caine thought about it. "... What qualifies as a way I don't want to be looked at?"
"Like, you can feel them making judgements about you that you hate. That the ways they're defining you are the opposite of what you want to be. That every category they put you in is wrong. Or even dehumanizing. You're a bug under a magnifying glass, and they're magnifying all the wrong things, and burning away the right things."
... Maybe? He has? Did it count as dehumanizing if he wasn't human? Was he allowed to decide that it did count?
"When I was..." Pre-alpha? Brand New? "A child, I found that... I was getting rather sick of being called an 'it'."
Zooble didn't respond, at least, not until he saw their face looking around the burger tray, thing.
They looked... The same way they looked when they were listening to Pomni talk about the Mildenhall Manor. Not anger, but the emotion right before that one. Horror? Shock? Confusion?
... Disgust?
But then the look changed.
"You were called 'it' as a child?" Zooble's voice was so gentle as they spoke.
They'd softened into a look that Caine was so sure, was reserved for Gangle and only her. It was a look that made Caine's chest feel warm.
Like the bad things that happened to him... Shouldn't have. Like someone would care if more bad things happened to him.
He'd never felt like that before, but it was... Beautiful.
Like he said, reserved for Gangle.
At least he thought it was.
Caine nodded. "The entire time I was with them. I was an it. 'it needs to perform better', 'it is a waste of money', I just- grew to loathe that word... I was nothing more than a product to them. Both of them. I knew there were other words, because neither of them were 'it's and no one talked about locking them up when they failed. There other options out there, 'he', and 'she'."
"Holy s###."
He rested his head on his hands. Propped up by the counter. "In theory, it didn't matter which I picked as long as it wasn't 'it'... But I... Was biased. So very biased. I managed to make it matter in my head, they were different. Someone male wore different clothes and had a different body type and shape language, and voice than women... And one felt good, and the other felt... Off. Slimy."
He cleared his throat. "I went with my guilty pleasure, so to speak."
"A-and? Which one was that?"
"He."
Zooble nodded slowly. "That's the one that feels good?"
"Y-yeah."
"... My body, feels like the one that feels bad." They admitted. "And- I was a she as a kid. I don't really have anything against the word itself, just- it's not who I am. That's why I'm a they." They looked away. "Sometimes people see me as diet feminine. Not fully a woman, but still basically one when push comes to shove. I'm a they until the term isn't convenient anymore. Then it's yuri, or feminine, or whatever... I don't like it."
"I!" Caine began. "...Have no idea how to respond to that."
Zooble seemed happier than before. "I guess what I'm saying is, I get it. And if he is what you want, then you'll always be a 'he' to me, Caine."
Something strong swelled in his chest without permission, and he nearly squealed.
"You'll always be a 'they' to me, Zooble!"
Their wing loosened, and so did their eyebrows. Caine hoped that was good.
"Hey, Gangle!" A voice called out, snapping him out of the conversation. "I think the clock's broken!"
Ah, Jax has returned.
"Is it broken..? Or are we the broken ones?"
Jax growled something under his breath.
"How long has this shift really gone on for?" Gangle turned her head all the way around to look at him. "Six hours? Eight? Twenty four? A week? A year!? Does time even move in here!? Will we ever go HOME!? WILL WE EVER ACHIEVE OUR DREAMS!?"
A quiet beeping sound played, and Gangle's rambling suddenly stopped. She looked back and forth at her watch, and the clock mounted to the wall. "Oh wait," she said. "Yeah, that clock's broken."
Well, technically the entire circus doesn't account for the intervals when the computer is off. Caine has no idea if it still gets turned off or not, but he figured they didn't really need that anyways.
The humans enjoyed measuring things by days, and who was he to deny them their fun?
"... Caine?" They hissed.
He turned back to Zooble.
"You seem to be a pretty blunt guy, but... I'm really worried about Gangle. I figured her behavior might look a little different with this new mask, but... Whatever's happening with her isn't... Healthy."
"Well, what do you want me to do about it?"
Zooble pointed at him. "See, that's what I'm talking about. Just- if you're ever talking to her, try to be gentle?"
"You mean like Ragatha-"
"HuUuUh?" A drawl came from down on the floor.
"-usually is?"
Zooble nodded. And Caine saluted in turn. "You got it, my carnivorous cosmos!"
They squinted at him. "Riiight."
Gangle had problems too!?
But her problems could be just as confusing and frightening as Zooble's!?
Maybe he should just call this whole thing off. Forget that he ever tried to learn what was bothering his humans in the way that they claimed they were bothered.
After all, he was just fine doing things his way until-
Until...
Until his way didn't hold up anymore.
...
Alright. So Gangle has issues too.
Zooble said all he has to do is be gentle.
That's only two steps. Listen, and be gentle.
That's not so bad.
Perhaps he can handle it?
He's a Learning AI! Defective or not, surely he can do the one thing he was designed for!
Hey, hi, hello, greetings to everyone who followed me because of my ctrl-alt-del-au post, only to find that I never post anything ever!
Sorry about that.
Buuut, it will happen again.
I promise I'm working on more of that, I posted it to ao3, and any future installments to what was supposed to be a oneshot, will be uploaded here on Tumblr and also as more chapters to that fic!
https://archiveofourown.org/works/85706546
Aside from that sneak peaks for the new chapter, because I swear I'm working on it
You'll notice I made Bubble way unhinged, and there's a very clever reason for that.
...I figured Bubble should have a visibly different personality from Caine... Yeah.
We'll see how well it comes together, the last one ended up REALLY long, and this one seems to be doing the same thing lol
Out of nowhere one shot of the ctrl-alt-del-au that's nothing like anything else I've written because this au has me obsessed and I blinked and saw that I had written over 9000 words. It was also great practice for dramatic irony.
@ctrl-alt-del-au I hope you don't mind my interpretation of ep 3
Also some of my interpretation of the au is inspired by this person's @aromantic-ghost-menace own interpretation. Though you might not be able to tell
Caine has a bad time, which is excellent because Pomni is also having a bad time, so Kinger gets to hard carry the WHOLE team! Isn't that nice!
Tw for panic attacks right off the bat
Part 2
"F### THE FLY, RUN!"
Pomni grabbed Kinger and dragged him away from the head, before letting go as she reached the dumbwaiter.
Her heart was pounding in her ears. Everything was horrible! Stupid adventures! She scrambled to grab the key out of her pocket—or whatever she had—and slam it into the key hole. Only her hand slipped, and in her rush to get! It! In! There! She dropped the key.
The room flashed from light to dark and the things screeched. Making it hard to see.
"C'mon! C'mon c'mon c'mon come on!!!"
"Uhh, Pomni!?" Caine asked.
She dropped down to pick it up! Feeling it through her glove, and struggling with her cartoony fingers.
"Do we have to use the dumbwaiter?" Caine blurted.
"WHAT!?" She yelled back.
No, no, no! The dumbwaiter was their only-
"Guys! I think this might be the creature from the tape!" Kinger yelled.
Pomni managed to wrap her fingers around it, and she looked up at Kinger. Who was entirely serious and barely worried. Even as the the creature was actively opening and closing its mouth behind him.
She sputtered uselessly for a moment, falling to form words, before she gave up with a groan and went back to jamming the key into the keyhole.
"I really, really don't wanna get in there!" Caine yelled louder. "There are other doors! I'm sure there's somewhere-"
"C'mon c'mon c'monc'monc'monC'MOOOON!" She whimpered, desperately trying to get it in.
I'm gonna die I'm gonna die I don't want to die not to something like that, please!
"Please! Pomni! Anywhere else! I-I'll owe you! I'll distract the monster for you! Please!"
What was Caine even screaming!? Distract the monster- then they'd ask be separated!? Why was Kinger not worried!? Why were her teammates so useless!?
A small yelp from from Kinger followed by a lower, longer groan from the monster.
"I'LL DO ANYTHING! ANYTHING YOU WANT, I CAN CREATE! PLEASE!" Caine grabbed her arm and she screamed, shoving him away out of pure instinct. He collapsed to the floor, and shook his head. His cane had disappeared.
"... You look beautiful, honey..."
The key slipped in and the gate doors opened with a click.
"Got it!"
She yanked them open, and ran back towards the monster.
The horrible, terrifying, screeching monster!
She grabbed Kinger by his robe and pulled, and pulled with all her strength. Desperately trying to get him to move. Why wouldn't he!? "Come on!" She screamed.
"Wh-wh-wuh-huh?" He turned around to face her. "Oh! Yeah!"
Kinger was darn quick. He ran past the spot where Caine was laying on the floor and picked him up by the collar of his suit coat. Then, just as Pomni finally made it into the dumbwaiter, Caine was set down just to her left, and they were both squeezed in by Kinger taking up almost the entire space. Pinning Pomni into the corner, and Caine against the back wall.
You're in, you're in, you're in, you're safe from that thing! It's fine, you're fine!
"Prepare for take off!" He closed the gate. Locking them all in and out of that thing's reach. "Cause this boat is going up!"
The dumbwaiter shook in the shaft and started going down.
Pomni barely noticed it with trying to catch her breath and steady her heartbeat, but Kinger certainly did.
"Huh!?" Kinger looked through the holes in the gate to see the floor (and monster) outside slowly rising. "That's not up!? That's not up at all! Why aren't we going up!?"
He started to move around irratically, looking through different different holes as if it would change the outcome. And when he saw that it didn't, he started screaming, and the monster's floor disappeared out of sight.
Surely her heart would slow down any minute now.
Ugh, her chest hurt, her voice hurt from all the screaming, all her body was all tense as it could be and she could barely think through all the fear coursing through her.
It's fine. You survived (for now, oh gosh it's not over is it?) you survived, it's fine, you're fine!
"AAAAHHH-"
"Stop screaming!" Pomni yelled.
"Oh. Sorry." Kinger said. Soft and relaxed. Like he wasn't just losing it a moment ago.
She looked over to find that Caine was incredibly still, his shoulders were hunched, his fists tightly clenched, and his pupils were smaller than she thought they could possibly go. He was staring, not quite, but almost vacantly, at the gate opposite him.
He never responded to her.
While getting into his own head and not answering was normal for him, this distinct look of fear was not.
"... Caine?" She asked again.
She waited again, and still no answer. That is, until she was about to ask a third time.
"...no," he croaked. "... no, no no no no no No No NO NO-"
"Hey! It's okay, were free from the mon-"
"NO, NO, DON'T LOCK ME AWAY!" He screeched. Then he leaned over Kinger and started banging on the gate with much more force than she'd expected him to be capable of. "Please! No, no, please!"
Loud clattering rang out and the whole dumbwaiter started to shake.
"Caine, calm down! It's okay-" Pomni stuttered.
"LET ME OUT! PLEASE LET ME OUT!"
"Caine!" Kinger called out. "Sit down! You're rocking the boat!"
"OUT OUT OUT OUT-" Caine was starting to shake violently, as he bent the metal outward, and in the midst of everything, Pomni saw tears forming in his eyes. "OUT OUT! I NEED TO GET OUT!"
This was the worst case of claustrophobia she'd ever seen in her life. It wasn't... Natural, it was more. Something different.
He banged on it even harder, and the whole room jolted, along with a snapping sound coming from just above them.
Ropes, dumbwaiters usually have ropes on pulleys.
The rope was fraying.
She needed to stop him before they plumeted to their deaths!
"Caine! It's okay! Take deep breaths! We'll be out soon! It'll only be a minute-"
"That's what he said AND HE LIED!" Caine turned to scream at her, raw anguish in his throat.
Pomni's eyes widened. He wasn't just shaking, he was twitching... Twitching in ways that didn't look human at all. Sharp protruding spikes started forming on his red coat, glitching this way and that, taking up what little space there still was left.
A horrible, swirling, nauseous feeling filled her stomach.
This must be what abstraction looks like.
Caine was abstracting.
(Caine hasn't even been here twenty four hours... What hope do you have?)
Pomni remembered very vividly how much her hand ached as the tiniest of movements jolted it around in irritating ways.
She also remembered how much worse Ragatha was. Violently jerking back and forth, her voice bugging out, the way she looked miserable afterwards. It must've been a horrible feeling.
And now, her and Kinger were trapped with someone abstracting, in a box much too small to fit an abstraction, much less the two of them as well. Would she be crushed to death? Would they clip though the walls of the dumbwaiter and fall out of bounds again, but this time so glitched out that they couldn't move to escape?
How badly would it hurt?
Would Bubble find them?
How long until he went looking, only to find a boxed in abstraction and two crushed glitching humans?
Or worse, three abstracted humans?
She needed to stop him from spiraling before they were all killed. Whatever the equivalent word was.
He started banging on the gate again, and another snapping sound was heard.
"Caine!" She yelled louder than before. "It's okay! It'll all be okay! I promise! Right, Kinger!?"
"Yeah!" He agreed. "It's all just an adventure! Just hold on for another moment, and things will be okay!"
"Let me out... Let me out..." He whispered. Then he pulled back his fists. "LET ME OUT!"
Before he could make contact, she put her hand on his chest from the side, and pushed him away from the gate, against the wall behind him.
The spikey glitches all stopped at once. And it was eerily quiet compared to before.
The dumbwaiter swung back and forth, slowly.
His eyes, slowly, and stiffly turned to look at her, his pupils still very small. "P-Pomni?"
She let out a sigh. Less abstracting. "Yes! It's me, I'm here, you're okay!" She moved her hands away from him slowly. Ready to grab him again if need be. The contact seemed to help him not abstract. She would remember that for later.
"I... I'm not... Alone?"
How badly was he spiraling that he didn't even notice them?
"Nope," Kinger said. "You've got us with you."
Caine nodded slowly, still looking traumatized. "O-okay. Okay. Not alone. Not ab-" he cut himself off. Going silent, and hugging himself tightly. His teeth closed, and she heard him swallow.
... This wasn't a regular panic attack, was it?
This was a huge one. This was an all bets are off, absolute freak out, panic attack, with as much cortisol and adrenaline as the human body could physically handle.
This was a trauma response.
"Th-the box is shrinking," Caine whispered. Opening his teeth again.
"Nope! No, no, the box isn't shrinking!" Pomni declared anxiously.
"It feels like it," he whispered. "It's getting smaller."
What the hell are you supposed to do for a panic attack!?
"How about some deep breaths?" Pomni asked. Trying and failing to keep the fear out of her voice, but hopefully it was fine.
This was the worst day of her life.
Just like yesterday, and the day before.
This place is a nightmare!
"I c-can't deep breathe," he whispered. "I don't know how."
"That-that's okay, w-we'll teach you!" Pomni looked over to Kinger, who nodded. "Oh, sure! I'm very good at breathing!"
She was doomed. She couldn't control this situation, she was all on her own-
"No, no, I don't want to deep breathe," Caine said. "Please. Something else."
Something else?
SOMETHING ELSE?
What was she supposed to do with 'something else'!? Deep breathing is the thing you do!? What the h-
"I-I can feel them!" Caine whined. "You're wrong, I can feel them! They're getting smaller!"
Oh, this is bad, this is bad, this is very bad! She's good at talking about feelings, but panic attacks are a new beast! And with that monster on the loose, she's close to a panic attack as well! She can't handle this!?
Another snap, and the whole box listed to the side creaking as it went, with Pomni's corner much lower than the rest.
She failed to bite back a yelp as it did so. And Caine screeched, a noise so filled with pure terror that it made Pomni's heart start pounding again.
There was a stifling silence for a moment following the scream. Pomni listened for breathing, but didn't hear any.
"I want out of this box," Caine muttered angrily. But, he also sounded like he was tearing up.
"Y-yeah. But it's good we're out of range of the monster, right?" Pomni asked.
"Oh! I forgot about the monster!" Kinger said happily.
Another snap, and the whole thing went careening downwards.
"I waNT OUT!" Caine yelped.
Her stomach lurched, and she felt sick.
The fall felt like it was getting faster and faster, but there was no way of knowing if that was the case. Only that she was feeling lighter by the second.
From floor to floor whizzing past the battered gate, in intermittent flashes of dim lighting.
Everything was horrible, and the dents in the gate were bent far enough out that they were scraping across the wall of the shaft.
Was it getting faster?
Was everything getting even worse somehow!?
How tall did Bubble make this place!?
Then, all at once a crash!
Dust clouds, metal snapping and flinging everywhere, and Pomni being launched out of the box and rolling across the cold floor.
Until she slowly stopped, with her faceplanted on the floor.
Ow.
She groaned and pushed her face off the floor. Holding her head.
What?
This new area was covered in dim blues, with barrels upon barrels along the walls, archways above them, and cold, hard concrete. In front of another take recorder, Caine was curled up and shaking like a cat out in the cold. His head was almost entirely hidden. She ignored that one. At least he was out of the dumbwaiter.
And far in front, leaning against another rack of barrels, was a grey, rotting corpse. He had a shotgun in his lap.
She cursed. "Where are we now?"
Kinger pulled his head off of the concrete, his eyes unsticking one at a time. "I, don't know. Like a cellar of some kind." He looked back at her. "We should check on Caine," he said.
"Do we have time?" She asked. "The monster is probably coming back..."
Kinger seemed conflicted, but then he nodded.
They both inched just past Caine, towards the tape, and Kinger started it playing.
Maybe there would be some kind of hint on how to avoid the monster?
She could at least dream, right?
"Things have gotten far worse than I could ever have imagined." He began, monologuing about his own paranoia, and how he'd ended up shooting his wife in the confusion.
It sounded horrible, and scary. But Kinger seemed sad for the man on the tape.
"I will slay the beast that took everything from me."
The recorder clicked. And it was over.
This place was horrifying. Why was everything so awful!? Why was-
"How's about we take his gun?" Kinger asked.
Oh thank goodness, score for Kinger for once.
"Y-yeah, sounds good to me."
After several agonizing moments of desperately trying to grab the gun without jostling awake the corpse like Bubble would obviously program...
"Please don't come alive..!" She squeaked.
"Okay, I won't."
She flinched back, but the corpse said nothing else, so she snatched the gun as fast as possible and brought it to Kinger, who has stepped forward into the fork of the cellar. Revealing it to be more of a T-shape.
Geez, she felt ready to shake out of her skin. Her muscles were wound so tightly.
Kinger pulled the double barrels down to reveal the ammo in the gun.
"Looks like we've got two shots," he closed it back up dramatically. "Let's make 'em count."
She just nodded quietly. "Uhh, yeah..."
Kinger looked around, and saw Caine, still hadn't moved back by the tape recorder. Still curled, hands clutching his head. She couldn't see him breathing, but he was still shaking.
"Caine, it's best to stay by me." Kinger said. "I've got a weapon. We can fight back."
Silence.
Caine was having a rough first adventure.
Not that they weren't all horrible.
Kinger handed Pomni the gun again, and turned to Caine.
Then his hands moved across the cellar, and gently grabbed Caine by the waist. He flinched, but didn't try to escape. Which Kinger took as acceptance.
"Alright, up and at 'em." Kinger said gently. Lifting him up and pulling him over to the two of them.
Then, he gently put the balled up Caine back on the floor between them. "Sorry," Kinger said. "Just, stay there for now."
A soft dragging noise sounded, and Kinger took the gun back, as they both turned to see an opening in the wall. Circular. And dark.
"Stay behind me," Kinger said. "Both of you."
Slowly, as the dragging noise continued, fingers curled around the edges of the hole. Pale white, yet blackened with a dark sludge, and sickeningly wet.
Out crawled a horribly upsetting headless naked corpse, with skin was the same white as the head. Its shoulders snapped and crackled as it dragged itself forward. Across the floor with its hands.
Then, growing louder like a horrible siren on the road, came the horrible screaming of the creature.
Down the dumbwaiter shaft came the horrible white glow, and then the head itself. Mouth wide and full of teeth as it screeched.
And then it stopped, in one of the many intervals between screeches, but it kept getting closer.
Pomni swore she had a heart attack.
"Uh- K-Kinger?" She started tapping his robe repeatedly, trying not to startle him while also trying to get his attention as fast as possible. "I think we may have a-a problem this way too!"
"Just- leave it to me," Kinger said. His voice sounded slightly stressed, but moreso sounded like he was doing a good job at keeping the stress from overwhelming him. Better than her and Caine. "I can handle this."
He pointed the gun back towards the body, just in time for it to start running full speed at them, Pomni flinched and took a tiny step back, only for her heel to bump into Caine, and she flinched harder.
There was a flash of yellow light in the darkness, and a bang, and the body flung backwards into the wall, before collapsing.
Kinger rapidly turned to the now screeching again head, and fired again. It was knocked away and rolled to a stop on the ground. No longer hovering eerily.
It was suddenly, devastatingly quiet.
Kinger lowered the gun. "Well," he said, "that wasn't so bad?"
Pomni waited with baited breath after those words. Maybe nothing would happen..?
A click. "-Which is what I would be saying," rang out the tape. "If I didn't know that the creature was actually one of god's angels."
"What."
What did that mean!? Why was it saying that now!?
"And anyone who brings harm to it, would be dragged down to the cold, spiraling pits of hell, where my soul resides."
No. No no no NO NO NO NO!
She looked back at the corpse. If she wasn't so terrified she'd be furious. At the corpse, at Bubble! At everything!
The body, which still lay in a heap on the floor, sprouted spindley, fleshy wings with eyeballs all across them.
Pomni squeezed her eyes shut, as she turned away.
"I apologize, dear listener. But I need a living host to escape the hall of the damned, and your bodies will be my only means of doing so."
The man finally stopped talking for a moment.
"... Now wait," Kinger asked. "How did he record this if he was in hell?"
That. Was a good question...
A green light sprang up from the ground and grabbed at their arms, and legs, they were cold and lifeless, and she yelped.
All their yells and complaints swirled together.
But it did nothing to drown out Caine's cry of bloody murder.
"NO!" He cried as he tried to crawl away from the arms. "DON'T PUT ME BACK! I DON'T WANT TO GO BACK! PLEASE!"
"No, no no, let go of me! Let go of me!" She hated being touched and now there were dozens of arms dragging them through the floor, and down into hell.
"I hope you're ready," said the voice on the tape, "because the next breath you take down there will be your last. And your bodies will belong to me."
Bodies!?
"NOT THE BOX PLEASE!"
She watched as Caine disappeared first with one final shriek, and she and Kinger were pulled up to their necks.
"Let go of me!"
Pomni did the best job of clinging to the floor, but eventually they got the best of her.
"I HATE THIS STUPID ADVENTURE!"
And then everything she saw was gone.
And it was gone for several moments.
But belatedly, she realized that the arms were gone too. Everything was gone except a cool, slightly humid cold.
And as her vision got used to the dark, (or acted like it did since it should've already been used to it) she realized she was in a large, stone room. With a long glowing hallway in the distance.
She looked up, from where she was on her hands and knees to see Kinger. Looking around with his gun in his lap.
"Not really typical of what you'd think hell would be."
The arms were gone, and the angel nowhere to be found, and that was enough for boiling rage to mix with the fear.
She turned to Kinger. "We, are literally in hell right now! HELL!" Her yell echoed off the obsidian walls.
She began to pace. "Of course I'd be in hell, how could not be in literal hell right now!"
A hand landed on her shoulder. "Just, try to stay calm. I'm sure Bubble designed a way to escape. Not even he's that unpredictable. Besides, we need to find-"
A choked sob rang out, and they both froze.
Looking around, she saw a spot of pinkish-red twenty feet or so away from them. By the walls.
He must've started banging on them again.
Now though, Caine just sat, with his arms curled around his knees, and sobbed.
Kinger stood up, and they both walked over towards him.
He was spikey again and Pomni's breath hitched.
"H-he's ab-"
"What is he doing?" Kinger asked, and Pomni's mind halted.
"Y-you don't recognize this?" She asked. Hadn't he been here the longest?
"No... I don't."
"So... He's not abstracting?" She asked in a hushed voice.
"I mean, that's always a possibility, but... I don't think I've seen anyone except B-" he shook his head, "no, that doesn't make sense. I must be misremembering." Kinger was pretty bad with remembering things that happened twenty seconds ago. With that, he sat down next to Caine. Pomni sat down in front of him, a reasonable distance away.
Would should she even say? She was no better at this than before!?
"... Caine?" Kinger asked, and Caine's sobs stopped. Cold turkey. Like he was never crying in the first place. It was eerie, and Pomni focused on his still wet eyes.
"I-I'm sorry..." He whispered.
"Whatever are you sorry for?" Kinger asked slowly.
"I-I know I'm not supposed to do things like this. I should be better than... Crying."
"Oh, Caine. It's okay, if you need to cry..."
"... You're going to leave me." He croaked.
"Leave you?" Kinger asked. "Why would I do that?"
"B-because you did last time." Caine responded. "The only time you don't leave is when you can't."
Kinger and Pomni looked at each other. What was he talking about?
"I-I think he thinks he's talking to someone else," Pomni whispered. That was a thing, right? Or was that just in books and movies and stuff?
"I know who I'm talking to," Caine insisted. "You put me back in the box."
Definitely confused.
The spikes across Caine's body got worse. "Let me out of the box. Let me out... Please. I don't want to be in the box. I'll be good. I'll be better. I'll be perfect. Please..."
'I'll be perfect'. Those words made her skin crawl.
... Well, they found the trauma.
"You're not in the box, Caine." Kinger said.
"Technically, we're in hell," Pomni muttered before she could stop herself. Still more than horrified.
This was horrible. Was this what every day was going to be like!?
"Ah, details." Kinger said. "The point is, you're not in the box. You're here, and you're with us, and we will keep you safe."
Speak for yourself! I can't even keep me safe!
Caine continued to whisper to himself things that barely made any sense. 'Not the box', 'please let me out', and the one that made her shudder the most. 'I'll be perfect'.
Something really bad must've happened to him.
Pomni looked at Kinger.
"You said he's done this before? With the, uh, glitching?"
Pomni nodded. "In the dumbwaiter. It stopped when I touched him."
"Please... Not the box. I'll be good. I'll be perfect. I can become perfect, I just need more time. Please. Please... Anything but the box... Rewrite me, tear me apart. Just, please don't put me in the box."
He was locked in a box for... Not being perfect?
Who would do that?
A sickening feeling took hold of her.
That is not something you could do to an adult... Not without struggle.
But a child would easily fit in a box.
Had he been kidnapped?
Or... Was it a parent?
But... What did 'rewrite me' mean? 'Tear me apart'?
"You said it stopped when you touched him?" Kinger asked.
Pomni nodded silently.
"Right." Kinger inched closer, "I hope you don't mind how much I've been dragging you around today," he said, and then-
"Oookay, up we go."
Pomni's eyes widened.
The glitching stopped the moment he touched him.
Kinger had picked him up, and put him on his lap like a child. The image was further emphasized from the fact that Caine was so small, and so curled up. Crying to himself.
"Not the box... Not the box..."
And then, he started rubbing circles into Caine's back. "Don't worry, Caine. I've got you."
Caine leaned into his chest. Shaking, but this time normally, like a human would. Not glitching violently. His voice quieted to a whimper.
Pomni had a thousand things she wanted to scream, yell, and cry about, all begging for her attention. But she didn't want to make Caine worse, and she didn't want to give Kinger more freakouts to deal with.
Kinger looked up at her.
"What do you say we get out of here?"
Finally.
Pomni nodded softly. Trying desperately to keep it together.
Kinger slowly stood up. He didn't have any arms, but Caine wrapped his own around Kinger's neck, so he could use only one hand to keep Caine up. And keep the empty gun in his other hand.
"As long as Caine doesn't mind me carrying him like a sack of potatoes."
Like he's your child. You're carrying him like he's your son. You know that, right? Even Caine probably knows and just doesn't care enough to be insulted right now.
Pomni didn't say anything about it. And Caine just seemed to hold on tighter.
They made their way toward the faintly glowing hallway, above it etched into the stone and hard to read in the dark, was the words, 'Hall of the Damned.'
There were these tiny floating... Green things. They reminded her a little of sea monkeys. They swam across the hall going somewhere, but in no hurry.
Stupid adventure with its stupid sea monkeys.
She wanted out as soon as possible, and this certainly looked like progression.
She tried to take a step into the corridor, but Kinger stopped her.
"Hold on," he said gently. It was so soothing compared to everything else, but she was still frustrated that they weren't getting back in the circus as fast. "Let me try something."
He pulled a hand away from Caine, and pulled off one of his eyes. She watched in surprise as he calmly threw it down the hall.
It hit the ground, bouncing a couple times far down the hallway. She anxiously watched it move around, and then Kinger spoke again.
"Hey! There's actually a staircase down there! It could be a way out! Maybe it'd still work for us since we still have our bodies?" Sounded good enough for her. "Though I'm worried about what that tape said earlier."
"I-I'm just going to try going fast!" She blurted and then headed off down the hallway.
"Wait- Pomni!"
She ran pretty fast, even before she was in the circus, a jog could get her a lot of distance. This time however, it was cut short in the worst way possible.
Something jolted in her body. Freezing it up entirely. And as she felt panic creep up her neck, something else felt like it was going down.
And then everything started to twist.
She wasn't sure if it hurt because of all the horrible ways her body was bending, or if it was because the very fact that it was moving on its own seared her limbs and her brain.
It was horrifying.
It felt awful.
It needed to stop, but no matter how she kicked and thrashed none of her movements made it to her body, it was like her muscles were being yanked back into different movements.
From the inside of the muscles.
Please make it stop!
More twisting, and crackling and bending, in horrible ways that she couldn't fight against.
And then her eyes opened. Clearly.
They darted around in ways, again, she didn't do! Or ask for! And it hurt.
Then her head started to turn. And kept turning. And then she was face to face with Kinger down at the entrance.
She couldn't even cry the way she was now.
No, instead, the voice of many different voices all started to laugh. Deeply and harshly.
And she wasn't doing any of it!
Her lungs inflated and deflated without once consulting her, there was something rattling strong in it, and everything burned.
This was the most upsetting- the worst- the- the
She didn't know anymore! All she wanted was for it to stop!
The laughing continued, and she watched as Kinger was now shaking in fear. Something he hadn't done the entire adventure.
Her limbs weren't hers, and as her head turned back around, and flopping and slumping in strange ways, as her feet started to step towards the exit again.
"Fffffreeedommm..." The voices pulled the air and sound from her vocal chords. Not something they should've have any ability to move.
It stung, it all stung.
"Pomni!"
A hand grabbed her collar and pulled her backwards though the air, until she knocked herself into Kinger and Caine.
The body that should've been hers flopped to the floor. Then her arms and legs convulsed horribly.
It all burned!
"Hey!" Kinger's voice. And a sudden sharp impact to her side. "You get out of her, you damn! Evil! Souls!"
More repeated impacts as these tiny horrible specks crawled their way back out of her throat.
Still, her body and voice were of their own awful accord.
"How's your wife, Kinger!?"
A gasp from somewhere distant, one final harder hit, and suddenly she—Pomni—was coughing everything back out.
Her lungs felt empty again as she flipped over.
"Hey, hey!"
Her hands went across her chest and her stomach rapidly, trying to find the hidden muscles under her skin that were moving just a moment ago.
But there was nothing there.
"You alright there?" Kinger asked. Leaning over her.
Everything felt awful. How could she say ANYTHING ELSE!?
"No..?"
Her eyes darted around, finally listening to her, and she noticed Caine, still hunched in on himself, inching towards her.
She couldn't help the hyperventilating she was doing.
"I'm guessing the souls are attracted to living things. They just want a vessel to leave with." Pomni peered down that horrible awful hallway, freedom was right there and they couldn't get to it! Why was Kinger talking about Bubble's stupid world building!?
Kinger seemed to have the same thought. "Man, seven years of computer science for this, huh?" He gave a laugh that was not as humorous as it should've been.
"T-that NPC..." Caine whispered, so quietly Pomni wasn't sure Kinger heard. "Why did it say that?"
"... Why?" Pomni whimpered. And Kinger's gaze focused back on her. "Every day I spend here is one nightmare after the next!" She scrambled away from Kinger, and Caine, and the hallway. "I knew it would end up like this!" She gasped, as she crumped to the floor again.
"He just wants me to suffer..." She whispered. And watched Caine flinch out of the corner of her eye. "I really am in hell." She curled up and covered her face in her knees.
"Don't say that, you're not in- well, I guess we technically are in- forget about that!" Kinger pulled Caine along as he sat closer next to her. "Why don't we all just relax for a bit while nothing's chasing us?"
All that horror softened and morphed into sadness. Low and cold and tragic.
And before she could stop herself, she was crying.
Hyperventilating sharply and watery.
Geez, this adventure had them both crying in front of Kinger.
"... It was my fault we went down this path wasn't it?" Kinger asked. "I'm really sorry, for that."
She moreso blamed Jax than Kinger. He'd done nothing but help them out over and over and over comforting both of them, dealing with the monster... The only thing she'd done was find the key to the dumbwaiter, and that was only because Caine was busy trying to talk her out of it, and Kinger was too insane to...
"... Why have you been acting so different lately?" She asked. And Caine's eyes widened. He began to nod.
"Y-you do somet- since we got down here you've been less... C-crazy?" Caine struggled to form words, he must've still been pretty shaken up from the dumbwaiter and being dragged to hell.
"Heh, I have, haven't I?" He asked. "I'm normally not too good with memories, but... Being surrounded by darkness always... Brings me back, to a certain time."
Pomni and Caine both looked at each other. His eyes were wide.
"Right after my wife had, a-abstracted," Caine froze. Before scooting closer. "I don't remember the exact string of events but, we both ended up in the fort together."
Wife? He had a wife?
"And it was dark," Kinger continued. "The darkness seemed to calm her down a bit. The harsh, jagged edges smoothed out, and she didn't seem aggravated anymore. She wasn't the same as before but... She was calm enough to touch one last time, before she got sent to the cellar... I'm always taken back to that moment when engulfed in darkness."
"... Darkness," Caine whispered. "It's the darkness."
"You had a wife? Like, here in the circus?"
"Yeah!" There was more joy in his voice than before. "She was funny, creative! Really into entomology!" He rubbed the back of his neck, and something about his composure felt different. He didn't look like a crazy old man, anymore. Or a sweet old man either. He looked like a groom on his wedding day. Young and bright, filled with happiness.
"I used to hate bugs!" Kinger continued. "But she somehow got me to like them." The joy slipped off his face again. "It's not the most cheerful memory, but it's one I at least have control over."
"You... Loved her?" Caine asked, and Pomni winced. She wasn't sure if it was the fact that it sounded like an accusation, or the fact that he sounded like he'd never met someone in love in his life, but it was kind of harsh either way.
Kinger laughed again. "I hope it's not too hard to believe."
"I-I'm... Just- trying to understand. Really understand. Not just say that I do..." Caine looked Kinger up and down. "Y-you loved her so much, that just being in the dark makes you like... This. Did that one moment really change your whole mind? How it works?"
"I-I'm not sure how well I can answer that question? I-It's more like it turns my mind back to how it used to be. It's... Bittersweet, because that ache in my heart gets stronger than ever. Strong the way it was when I lost her. But I also can't deny that- while I wasn't okay, back then... I still ended up surviving. So... Even if I'm not exactly, okay now. I know that I can survive this just like I survived that... As long as I still have moments where I remember what we were together."
Caine seemed to ponder over that.
"A-and, you still love her? E-even now? Even after... Everything?"
"Even after everything," he reassured.
"B-but she abstracted... She left you, didn't she?"
"Caine!" Pomni hissed. "You can't say that!"
Kinger looked much more troubled by that line of thinking. "I... I can't blame her for that."
"Why not?" Caine pushed.
"Because that's not... What abstraction is. This circus pokes and prods at you. Trying to take everyone you cared about. It makes you feel like you're... Unraveling. Abstraction is when this place takes advantage of that unraveling... Breaks you... My wife was not exactly well, but she was at her worst for one moment... And that's when she abstracted. If she'd been given more time, another week, another month, she could've bounced back. Like she always does. But she d-didn't get that chance. It's not willing... She didn't abandon me..."
The air was incredibly tense. But then, eventually Caine nodded. "I think I understand."
Being around Caine was such whiplash.
And Kinger relaxed. "G-good. We can't blame the people we knew for being gone. We need to cherish who they were when they were here."
Caine nodded again. Then he started to tear up. "I-I think I know why you lasted so long."
"Y-yeah?" Kinger asked. This seemed to stress him out almost as much as Caine's previous accusation.
"It... It's that love, right? That love for her. It's protecting you. F-from all the horrible things I- I've seen."
Kinger smiled, and his eyes watered. "Th-that seems likely," was all he said.
It was quiet for a while, and though the atmosphere was much better than before, Pomni still find her eyes trailing to all those awful floating souls in the hallway.
Her body still felt like it could be taken at any moment.
"I want a wife," Caine said suddenly.
Pomni gawked at him.
And Kinger laughed. Warmly and loudly, and he didn't stop.
"I want a wife who can make me kind and cheerful and protected like you," he continued. "I want someone willing to love me."
There was an unmistakable weight to those words. Caine said it like it was something rare, something he'd never received before.
Why did he say it like that.
Kinger sighed, still happy, but there was something more solemn about it. He put a hand on Caine's shoulder.
"Well, if it helps, you've got us here with you," Kinger said. Pomni nodded emphatically.
Caine didn't seem to quite believe them.
And Kinger caught Pomni's gaze trailing over towards the hallway again.
"... I know how it can feel. In this circus," he said, waving a hand as the pain of this place leaked into the very word. "Sometimes it all feels... Pointless."
Pomni's gaze fell. "Yeah."
"But it's not. Not if you have someone to care about you." Kinger looked towards Pomni again. "Good memories can do a lot. Hold onto them. And cherish the people around you." Kinger looked up towards the ceiling. "You never know when they'll be gone."
She had... Kind of been pushing Ragatha away, hadn't she? Ragatha had, over and over been reaching out to get and all she'd done was push her away, and why? Because she was frustrated at her new situation. A situation Ragatha was just as trapped in.
"In this world, the worst thing you can do... Is make someone think they're not wanted or loved."
"You don't actually believe that, do you?" It sounded like something Jax would say, or Bubble. Not... Not Caine.
He really had no filter at all, did he? He just said whatever was on his mind. Good, confusing, or bad.
Kinger was really taken aback, and Pomni watched as his face when from hurt, to indignant, and back to a softer more concerned expression.
"I'm not sure I understand what you mean."
"I- you don't actually believe that."
"Why shouldn't I?" Kinger asked. Still slow, and cautious.
"Because you're- because-" Caine closed his teeth, he almost looked angry. Maybe he was angry.
Pomni opened her mouth to tell him off, especially to someone like Kinger who'd been so kind to him this whole time, but once again, Kinger stopped her.
"Let him think," Kinger whispered.
Caine opened his teeth again and his eyes looked... Conflicted.
"That's- that's not something people actually believe. Any of them. No one actually does that with anyone, you're just- you're just kidding yourself."
Oh.
He wasn't accusing Kinger...
He was just... Used to people being the opposite.
Kinger had that exact same realization, and he reached a hand out to Caine, before gently putting it behind his back, and rubbing more circles into his back gently.
The tightness in the way Caine was sitting loosened immediately.
Man, Caine was horrible at tact. He always said everything in the most blunt way he could. Regardless of whether there was a better way to say what he meant...
Maybe he wasn't doing it on purpose.
Pomni wanted to slap herself.
Of course he wasn't doing it on purpose! He was probably neurodivergent or something.
"I'm sorry, Caine." Kinger said. "It sounds like... Whoever you were with before, and... Whoever put you in the box," Caine flinched. "Was not very good to you. But I mean what I say, and I'm going to try and be good to you, in the ways that they weren't."
"... Right." Caine said. He didn't seem to believe him, and Pomni heard him mumble Kinger's words under his breath.
"The worst thing you can do is make someone think they're not wanted or loved... I'll, try to believe you."
Kinger nodded.
"No promises," Caine blurted. "That sounds... Impossible."
Kinger nodded. "That's all I could ask from you."
Caine nodded slowly.
And it was quiet.
Pomni was almost envious of how sweet Kinger was to Caine. She'd have blown up in his face like six times by now. Caine was rubbing salt into his biggest wounds with every question. And yet, he showed empathy and restraint though it all. He was stronger than her.
Though maybe Kinger realized sooner than her that he was just really bad with phrasing...
And that he's as confused and scared as she is. Possibly even more so, with how he's gone though PTSD flashbacks this whole time.
"Y'know- I've been thinking about that last tape," Kinger said softly. "He said, the next breath you take down there will be your last. Maybe we can get through if we don't breathe..?"
Kinger looked to Caine who nodded, and said nothing else. Then he looked to her.
"I'm not very good at holding my breath," she admitted, curling up again.
"Well... How 'bout we try, not thinking about it?"
Caine looked away from them at that.
Pomni opened and closed her mouth several times, but couldn't form any real words.
She looked back down the hallway.
The circus was just over there. Across the river of souls.
"I-if we leave and go back to the circus... You're just going to go back to being crazy. You won't remember any of this, are you?"
Kinger's response was immediate, and her heart ached hearing it. "Don't worry about me. As long as you two remember it, things will be okay. Make sure to look out for each other." He stood up, and looked at the both of them. "You're very strong, Pomni, Caine. And I know you'll be able to get through this."
He held his hands out to the both of them. "Just hold onto me. We'll get through it, together."
Caine grabbed onto his hand with both of his and Kinger hoisted him to his feet.
Then Kinger turned to her. "You ready?"
Pomni grabbed onto his hand, she he pulled her to her feet too.
Then, all facing the swimming souls, they all took a deep breath, and started walking through them.
Her heart lurched as they passed through into the river, and her lungs very quickly started clawing for air, but they kept walking forward.
Don't think about it.
Don't think about it.
Pomni looked up, and saw that the kind of swam in litte circles. It was... Almost, pretty?
Her face felt warm, and her lungs felt worse. She must've been changing color again.
She didn't see what Caine's gimmick was, but she saw Kinger's.
It was hard to miss.
He started to glow. And it was bright.
The light shone in every direction, slipping in between the obsidian pillars and all across the hallways and staircases.
Until finally, they reached the base of the stairs. Which... Only really seemed wide enough for two people.
With a gasp, her face calmed down. And the light faded.
Reluctantly, she let go of Kinger's hand and went up ahead, so that he could help Caine up the stairs.
The door at the top glowed brightly in comparison to where they were now, and Pomni's stomach twisted when she realized this was probably the last either of them would see of Kinger being sane.
'As long as you two remember it, things will be okay. Make sure to look out for each other.'
She pushed the door open, and warmly colored light flooded in.
Still not as bad as the circus.
"Oh! Pomni! Kinger! Caine! Are you guys, okay?" Ragatha asked. "Was it scary?"
"I'm fine, actually?" Pomni looked back towards Kinger, who Caine was still clinging to.
When she looked back she noticed something she hadn't before.
Was Jax tied up in a tiny wagon?
"What happened up here?"
Ragatha looked slightly unhinged. "Eh, don't worry about that," she said.
"They were both very brave!" Kinger said. "At least, I think they were..?" Kinger leaned in close. "Were you?"
Caine seemed put out by Kinger's regained insanity, if his bitter expression was anything to go by, but Pomni did her best to take it in stride.
"Something like that," she said.
It was time to apologize to Ragatha.
Pomni watched as Kinger made his way into his pillow fort again. And she wasn't the only one watching. Caine, who was using his cane to stand again, and was watching Kinger just like she was, though she couldn't tell if it was gratitude or something else. His face was hard to read.
Maybe he was spacing out again.
"Heh, so what was it like being stuck with the nutcase!?" Jax asked, from over her shoulder. He was eager but not sincere at all.
Pomni ignored that fact. "It wasn't that bad, actually," she said with a smile.
She could feel his dissatisfaction with that answer, even before he called out to Caine.
"What about you, Caine?" Caine jolted and looked over.
"Y-yes!?
"How was dealing with the nutcase?"
"O-oh! Much like Pomni said, it wasn't so bad! Rather informative!" He announced. Back into that weird persona he put on. Then he turned around and slowly walked off.
Jax shuffled away after that.
It's not the person, it's the darkness.
Caine sat in the grass outside at night, sure, the Moon would notice him eventually, but at least he was safe from the Sun's yelling.
He needed space to think.
He thought that the reason Kinger never talked kindly to him but would talk kindly to Ragatha, was because he just liked her better. Just disliked him. But it wasn't that (well, that was probably still a big factor, Kinger really liked Ragatha, and didn't care for him). It was the darkness.
He'd never bothered to hang out with Kinger in the dark.
(He'd scarcely bothered to hang out at all. He was busy making adventures that would finally make Kinger like him. At least enough to go on them willingly.)
Why would he? He hated the dark, it was too much like the sandbox. Why would his self-made world of paradise be dark?
Especially for the sole purpose of sitting in it? There was a reason the loser corner was dark! It was for losers!
Besides, why should he try for the fiftieth time to get Kinger to like him when Kinger didn't even care enough to hate him correctly?
Kinger always politely disliked him.
Never loved.
Never even hated.
He hated being hated. He despised it, but at least there was a passion to that strong an opinion.
He was on their radar, whether they liked it or not.
But Kinger...
Kinger ignored him.
Tainted neutrality.
Almost a net zero, but not in the right way. Because no matter what he added, it stayed at zero... Because Kinger wanted nothing to do with him. But not in a way that necessitated avoidance.
That was the worst.
All he'd wanted was to be loved by him! But he was too busy wandering aimlessly. With literally no one around! Because he'd rather be alone than with Caine!
Well...
Apparently he loved Queenie so much that losing her was like losing his soul.
How was Caine supposed to know that?
How was Caine supposed to know that was how love worked?
He'd never been loved a day in his life!
...
It wasn't the person, it was the darkness.
And...
It wasn't the adventures, it was Queenie.
Caine knew he'd kept one alive, surely that was good! Right? He did good at least once! If he did it once he could do it again! He could recreate it!
He'd spent so long trying to figure out what he'd done right to keep Kinger around. Searching Kinger's pillow fort, rewriting his adventures. Isolating variables, and tossing them out.
Eventually he ran out of variables and he'd wanted to scream.
Every human he'd ever met had been slowly leaving him. Abandoning him!
Except for Kinger.
And he couldn't recreate it.
...
Well, he finally got his answer.
It was Queenie.
Of course it was.
Of course it was her that had been keeping him alive this whole time.
Caine could never have done that!
Caine wasn't good enough.
Caine's unwavering presence for two decades wasn't enough!
But the concept of her alone kept Kinger seeing out of two eyes. The memories of her kept Kinger happy. The desire to do what she would've wanted kept him breathing.
Queenie, from beyond the grave, kept Kinger alive. Kept him alive long enough to meet Ragatha, and longer still after that.
And in return Kinger turned himself into everyone else's Queenie. For anyone to come talk to, if only they knew how to get him to think again.
Except for one.
Except for Caine.
If love was stronger than even death...
Why couldn't he get any?
He shook his head.
The worst thing you can do in this world, is make someone think they're not wanted or loved.
... He was right.
Caine couldn't think of a worse fate than his whole miserable existence of scorn.
Kinger was smart enough to know that his words were true.
...They just didn't matter when the someone was him.
He understood that.
Passionless hatred.
He wanted to tear Kinger apart.
He wanted to tell Kinger he was an ai, if only to finally figure out what was so wrong with him.
He wanted to beg for his love.
He wanted.
Oh, he wanted.
Was that all he was good at? Wanting? Craving?
"You just! Don't! LISTEN!"
Still. There was a lesson in there somewhere.
A lesson for him.
He'd promised himself he'd be the best damn listener this new digital world had ever seen! So even though Kinger was a filthy hypocrite, Caine would do his best to adopt that mindset he clearly couldn't.
... He loved his humans.
And instead of making sure they knew...
He'd nearly destroyed them.
So maybe he'd done the worst thing too.
From now on, he'd do his best to love everyone the way Kinger would. (Or would to someone like Ragatha or Pomni. Not to him.)
('how 'bout we try, not thinking about it', he said. That was probably exactly what he said to himself before Caine booted up and found himself trapped inside the box... If it required thinking at all.)
The only time Kinger ever paid him any attention was when he thought he was human!
Caine wanted to scream in rage.
He wanted to hide.
To love everyone like Kinger loved Pomni and Ragatha, that sounded like a lot of work. A lot of work for something he didn't know how to start.
...
He hated listening.
He hated listening to things he didn't want to hear, and letting them be real.
He used to be a god. Snap his fingers and anything he didn't like stopped being a problem.
Dark thoughts? Bubble can eat them.
Have no friends? Now he does! Jax is asking to get dinner together right now!
No exit? In this adventure there is!
But...
He'd made Jax his friend.
And Jax had hated him anyway.
Everything felt wrong, but that was crazy! He was exactly on script with Jax!
He'd made everything perfect! Jax was asking about his hobbies, he'd asked for dinner, he listened to him ramble about the Macroverse and cedar-smoked salmon! Said he thought he was cool! And human-like! Those were all the things that friends did together! He did everything right! He'd orchestrated everything to be perfect! Why did the feel so... Flat?
Artificial?
... Was that the word he was looking for?
He'd never been bothered by artificiality before. Not in the walls or the floor, not in his companion Bubble, the only person he could get to stick around. Because he wasn't a person, not even you can lie to yourself about that.
Caine was starting to wonder if his powers really did reach as far as he'd wanted.
Because it didn't matter how much he rewrote reality, everyone still hated him. And everything still felt lonely.
He shook his head.
Best damn listener this digital world has ever seen.
Spiraling about inadequate god powers was not part of that.
He'd listened to Kinger... And that was eye opening.
It was time to listen to everyone else too.
"You want... To gossip about Caine?" Ragatha asked, confused.
Everyone was in Pomni's room.
That is everyone but Kinger because he already knew, and Jax...
Because he was Jax.
"I-it's for his own good!" Pomni said. "I-I found out something that... Jax, could use against him. And if he did it would be really bad."
Gangle nodded. "I know what you mean... Alright. What is it?"
She took a breath. "Caine has claustrophobia."
Zooble cringed. "Yeah, Jax would definitely use that against him."
"No, no no. It gets worse... It's not just regular claustrophobia, it's a full on trauma response. If he's somewhere too small, like the dumbwaiter, he freaks out in ways that... Are terrifying. He can't tell who's around him and who isn't anymore. He didn't know I was there... He thought Kinger was someone else." Pomni took a breath. "He begged to not be... 'put back in the box'."
Gangle and Zooble looked horrified, and Ragatha was tearing up, her hands covering her mouth.
Pomni agreed with them wholeheartedly. "So... We need to make sure Jax doesn't put him in anything too tight. Or us by accident for that matter."
being afamilial in this fandom kinda SUCKS like. it feels like you arent allowed to interpret the characters relationships as 'just friends' they have to be More than that because 'friends' isnt special enough
and i mean yeah you can say this about any fandom really. but i feel like it's real prominent in the monkie kid fandom
i dont deny that the main gang has a found family type of dynamic, but when people start to get really adamant on forcing everyone into nuclear family type roles is when you start to lose me
i dont think anyone has to be a brother/sister/dad/mother/uncle/etc. im fine with everyone just being friends and i dont want that to be treated like being 'lesser' to a familial relationship
The way that The Monkey King can't just be a mentor he has to be MK's father, makes me insane!
Mentor: interesting relationship dynamic, unique tone, specific message, the way that the Monkey King goes back and forth between being everything mk hoped for, and not nearly responsible enough, bringing new meaning to and also questioning the phrase "never meet your heroes". While also asking MK if this guy is really who he wants to emulate? Not just emulate, but to become? "Careful who you become, and in what way" is a crazy theme for your show im serious
Father figure: refer to the thousands of movies about good fatherly bonds, bad fatherly bonds, complicated fatherly bonds... So many stories about this... Aren't you tired?
But also! PIGSY! IS! RIGHT! THERE!
How many stories involve adoptive relationships, and do a good job. I mean, really? They're usually treated as a set piece/excuse for the main character to find their real parents. But like, you could say so much cool stuff about that kind of bond!!!!
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I haven't watched LMK in a hot minute, but @barnowlbookworm 's recent enthusiasm over the show has reminded me how obsessed over this specific red boy I was a while ago. Easily one of my favorite character designs ever.
AO3 should have an Annotation Mode where you can click to view all of the author's commentary and thoughts about certain parts of the work. A little comment that says "I spent five hours researching vintage radio mechanics for this and didn't even end up using it" or "this is an ancient Hebrew literary technique!" would make my day
I think most people in the LEGO Monkie kid fandom tend to ignore or don't know alot of aspects about Redson and Princess iron fan.
Like- if you actually read the Journey to the west book (without a summary) you will know that Redson and Princess iron fan are actually veryyyy pale skinned.
And one of the things the fandom is too ignored of is that Redson (or Redboy if you will) is based on/is Sudhana/Shancai (one of Guanyin/Avalokiteśvara's students) in chinese mythology lore! Which is sad because this is literally a huge part of Redboy/Redson's character!
This is Sudhana/Shancai along side Guanyin/Avalokiteśvara
And also! Princess iron fan is Not a celestial but instead a Rakshasi (demigod) who fought along side the celestial realm in the war against Monkey king! Look it up!! (in Buddhism: Rakshasa/Asuras can either be bad or evil but always Warriors)
Princess iron fan in traditional journey of the west chinese art :
Ravana the king of Rakshasa in Sri Lanka :
Btw I'am not against Redson being darkskind (after all his father Dbk is literally a Demon black bull) I just wanted to clarify some info about him in canon jttw (just in case anyone wants to know).
Depiction of the Bull demon king in chinese arts :
i've noticed that i start to feel physically ill whenever i see criticism for lmk, especially for macaque
my writer brain knows it's probably true but i also unironically feel like im gonna throw up whenever i see it. it sucks because i love analyzing things from a writing perspective but of course Mental Illness has to hijack my body
First thing I want to say, is that your feelings are valid. Macaque is your favorite character, and you really like this show, and I want to reassure you that you are safe, and that nothing is going to happen to your favorite character or show. I promise. This is a safe space.
So I read some of the comments, and that's all good advice, trying to remind yourself that there's nothing wrong in the situation, but I think there's a better way to go about this.
Things like this can be really scary to try and fight, but I bet the reason it makes you feel sick is because your mind has decided: differing opinion = danger/harm.
There's no shame in that! Our brains are designed to find patterns and keep us safe. And irrational connections like that just happen sometimes. I was afraid of dogs for a very long time because of something that happened once that I didn't even remember.
Now, there could be a lot of different reasons your brain came to that conclusion. Maybe you experienced something rough, maybe you have a couple symptoms of OCD or other disorders, or maybe your genetics are just quirky like that. We don't want to jump to conclusions when it comes to this. And at the end of the day, that's not my business. But! I do know, that that's something that you can un-learn!
Usually, the best way to go about it, is exposure therapy. Now, most people are extremely misinformed about exposure therapy, and how it works, so just hear me out.
So you find a differing opinion, a small one. One that makes you feel sick, but not too much. And you read it, and then you eat something you like, or do something you like to calm yourself down. Then when you're ready, you do it again. You do the scary thing, them you reward yourself. Do the scary thing again, reward yourself again. Not too intense, just enough to be effortful to fight. Not stupid terrifying, just one or two steps outside your comfort zone.
The idea isn't to shove the thing you hate in your face, but to gently and repeatedly come into contact with it, and prove to your brain once and for all, that there's nothing to be afraid of. Because if you did it twenty times, and not a single time did you get hurt, then clearly it must not be as dangerous as your brain originally thought it was. You can teach your brain that different opinion is okay. That nothing is going to happen to you, or your comfort show, if one person has a pet peeve. Again, everything is safe. You are safe.
Best case scenario, if you eat your favorite snack every time there's a different opinion, you might learn that different opinion = favorite snack. Or favorite song, or game, or whatever.
It might take time, but if you go slow and consistantly I really think it'll work.
I have strong opinions about Macaque, I'm down to talk w/ you about it gently if you would like. I promise I'll be nice.
That being said, I am just a random person on the Internet, if this problem comes up in a lot more of your life than just Monkie kid, it might be a good idea to talk to a professional about it. About where that fear comes from and someone who can really walk you though fixing it.
Because you deserve better than to feel sick every time you hear a different opinion.
huh.. i wasn't expecting such an indepth response, thank you
rewarding myself with something sounds like a good idea, i work best with reward systems. i havent considered if it's ocd, my personal theory is it has to do with my audhd. lmk has been my most intense special interest for about 2-3 years now, and it's become intrinsic to my identity. like there is no me without lmk at this point. so whenever i see criticism for it it's like i take it as a personal attack on my selfhood??
which i know is dumb. i should be able to separate it, but my brain just takes it so personally. now that i think about it, the same thing happens when i see criticism for chara from undertale or kieran from pokemon, since i also heavily identify with those characters.
It might also to be helpful to remember that it could be a little silly, but it's your brain doing it's best to protect you, it's just not that good at seeing what's a threat/insult, and what is just a comment. So making sure to be nice to yourself and your brain, will probably make the whole thing a bit easier. If your friend was spiraling you probably wouldn't tell them they're just being dumb. And you shouldn't tell yourself that either. They're your feelings, they might be slightly irrational, but they're not "dumb". They're honest.
And you don't need to feel bad for associating your favorite characters with who you are. That's a thing we all do. Characters live in this weird space in our mind that's partly "it's my friend" and "it's me".
ADHD or what have you is just overly paranoid that since you associate that character with yourself, that everyone else does too. "If friend says they're not interested in the show, and the show is me, are they saying that they don't like me?" Is a natural progression of that idea. But it's not reality. It's far too easy to get overly negative.
On top of rewarding yourself for handling it, next time you find yourself freaking out because someone you know doesn't like it the way you do, you can always tell them how you feel. If your friend is a good friend then they will tell you that they didn't mean anything by it. And it will help put your fears to rest.
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i've noticed that i start to feel physically ill whenever i see criticism for lmk, especially for macaque
my writer brain knows it's probably true but i also unironically feel like im gonna throw up whenever i see it. it sucks because i love analyzing things from a writing perspective but of course Mental Illness has to hijack my body
First thing I want to say, is that your feelings are valid. Macaque is your favorite character, and you really like this show, and I want to reassure you that you are safe, and that nothing is going to happen to your favorite character or show. I promise. This is a safe space.
So I read some of the comments, and that's all good advice, trying to remind yourself that there's nothing wrong in the situation, but I think there's a better way to go about this.
Things like this can be really scary to try and fight, but I bet the reason it makes you feel sick is because your mind has decided: differing opinion = danger/harm.
There's no shame in that! Our brains are designed to find patterns and keep us safe. And irrational connections like that just happen sometimes. I was afraid of dogs for a very long time because of something that happened once that I didn't even remember.
Now, there could be a lot of different reasons your brain came to that conclusion. Maybe you experienced something rough, maybe you have a couple symptoms of OCD or other disorders, or maybe your genetics are just quirky like that. We don't want to jump to conclusions when it comes to this. And at the end of the day, that's not my business. But! I do know, that that's something that you can un-learn!
Usually, the best way to go about it, is exposure therapy. Now, most people are extremely misinformed about exposure therapy, and how it works, so just hear me out.
So you find a differing opinion, a small one. One that makes you feel sick, but not too much. And you read it, and then you eat something you like, or do something you like to calm yourself down. Then when you're ready, you do it again. You do the scary thing, them you reward yourself. Do the scary thing again, reward yourself again. Not too intense, just enough to be effortful to fight. Not stupid terrifying, just one or two steps outside your comfort zone.
The idea isn't to shove the thing you hate in your face, but to gently and repeatedly come into contact with it, and prove to your brain once and for all, that there's nothing to be afraid of. Because if you did it twenty times, and not a single time did you get hurt, then clearly it must not be as dangerous as your brain originally thought it was. You can teach your brain that different opinion is okay. That nothing is going to happen to you, or your comfort show, if one person has a pet peeve. Again, everything is safe. You are safe.
Best case scenario, if you eat your favorite snack every time there's a different opinion, you might learn that different opinion = favorite snack. Or favorite song, or game, or whatever.
It might take time, but if you go slow and consistantly I really think it'll work.
I have strong opinions about Macaque, I'm down to talk w/ you about it gently if you would like. I promise I'll be nice.
That being said, I am just a random person on the Internet, if this problem comes up in a lot more of your life than just Monkie kid, it might be a good idea to talk to a professional about it. About where that fear comes from and someone who can really walk you though fixing it.
Because you deserve better than to feel sick every time you hear a different opinion.
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