Chapter Text
This will make them happy, right? I mean, it has to! I gave them everything they wanted, finally, and now I can give them their friends back! What more could they want?
He puzzles in the void as he copies Ribbit’s mind file.
Maybe he should ask everyone about their families and create the other members as NPCs? It gets hard to tell the difference after a while, eventually, they’d forget, right? Just like they forgot he’s not human, right?
Because they think of him as one of them. They do. They have to. He’s done everything he can to get them to think of him as human, he doesn’t know what else he can still do after this.
He swipes the file up to release. Ribbit’s copy and update is complete.
He pulls down Scratch’s file next, beginning to manually remove each error. It’s a tedious task.
He tries to keep Pomni’s words out of his head.
She didn’t mean it. She was just angry. She didn’t mean it, right?
That’s one thing he doesn’t understand about humans– sometimes, their anger is just a mask to cover their real emotions, and you should toss aside what they say when they’re that upset. On the other hand, sometimes, anger reveals their true feelings. And the humans just seem to automatically understand which is which, and what words to take as fact, and what words to disregard, and they just– they understand. In a way he never could, maybe never can.
So, was Pomni’s anger a defense, or was it how she really felt? Or, god forbid, a mix of both? It can be that sometimes, too.
Humans. He loves humans, wants nothing more than to be one with them, but sometimes they really do seem needlessly complicated. What’s the point of words if you don’t use them to convey information and fact– express things clearly. It would solve a lot of problems.
But that’s part of their appeal, isn’t it? Their complexities, their imperfections. Their inconsistency. That’s something he can never have. The only thing he has in common with humans is that he’s human made.
So why can’t he just be the same?
“Ribbit?!”
Pomni watches, absolutely dumbfounded, as Ragatha immediately runs to the humanoid frog. Ribbit– RIBBIT, holy fuck, how is she here?!– immediately collapses to her knees, breaths coming quick. They look hopelessly confused.
“Ribbit, hey, can you hear me?! H-How are– Ribbit?”
The noise draws the other circus members into the main area.
“Hey, what the fuck– oh my god.” Zooble’s voice carries into Pomni’s head, and she’s still frozen, even as Gangle and Zooble and Kinger all begin to speak, all begin to question. Like her, they’re afraid to get too close, letting Ragatha take the lead.
The ragdoll has a calming presence on the new face, as she always does. Who wouldn’t become calmer when Ragatha is smiling at them, holding their shoulders?
“Breathe. You’re okay. Can you hear me?”
Finally, the frog speaks.
“What the fuck?” they breathe, hands coming to wrap around Ragatha’s wrists. “When did I– what?”
“Can you hear me?” Ragatha repeats, ever steady.
“Yeah. I– yeah.”
“Do you know where you are?”
Ribbit blinks. “Uh. Yeah. Ragatha, what–”
“What do you remember?” Pomni asks suddenly, the words surprising her as much as anyone else. She approaches gently.
“I– I remember…” they seem to be sifting through memories. “Me and Jax, we– and then I just… I couldn’t…” she inhales shakily. “And then, just– nothing. There’s a blank spot.”
“You– well, I don’t– I don’t know how to–” Ragatha begins to stumble over her words. How do you tell someone that they… abstracted? “Basically, you…”
“You abstracted,” Pomni finishes for her. She places a hand on her ragdoll’s shoulder. “You abstracted. And now you’re back.”
Ribbit’s eyes widen, then her eyebrow quirks up. For a moment, all she does is stare, gaze flickering between Ragatha and Pomni.
Then they begin to laugh hysterically.
“You’re– y-you’re joking, I didn’t– I couldn’t–” She gasps for air. “Where’s Kaufmo? He’s in on this, right, he’s totally in on this!! You’re fucking with me–” they pause. “Oh my god, can we curse?”
“Look, I know you’re probably really confused,” Ragatha says softly. “It’s a lot to take in, and we can tell you all of it, I promise. But–” she sniffles. “It’s really good to see you.”
Ribbit only offers a small, wobbly smile, and then a shaky thumbs-up.
“Someone should get Caine,” Gangle points out. “He can probably figure out why Ribbit is back.”
“Right. Right. O-Okay.” Pomni squeezes Ragatha’s shoulder before stepping back. “Caine?!”
No response.
“CAINE?!”
Nothing. Shit.
He’s probably still mad at her. He has a right to be, what she said was cruel. And she didn’t mean it, not really, she just– fuck, she just gets so angry sometimes. And there’s just nowhere to put it.
“Cool. Great.” Zooble rolls their eyes. “So, what, then? What do we–”
There’s a small pop sound, and suddenly, someone appears on the stage. Someone Pomni recognizes.
“Kaufmo?” Gangle’s voice sounds disbelieving. Nervous.
The clown freezes up entirely.
“What–” he clears his throat. “What the fuck.” It’s said as a statement.
“Kaufmo,” Ragatha breathes.
Then she begins to panic.
“CAINE?!” She screams. “CAINE?!” She’s shaking. “This isn’t– i-it can’t– CAINE!!”
“Hey, hey.” Pomni grabs the doll’s shoulders and turns Ragatha toward her. “Breathe. We’ll figure it out.”
“I don’t understand,” she says pitifully. But she squeezes Pomni’s hands and breathes deeply, trying to calm herself.
“Let’s all just… take a second,” Pomni says decisively, though she doesn’t feel the confidence she’s trying to project. “Remember– we’re not in any actual danger here. I’m sure Caine will figure out what happened.”
“Or, maybe the circus is fucking broken and we’re all about to be deleted,” Zooble interjects.
“Yeah,” Ribbit breathes. “I’m with her.”
There’s a beat of silence in which Zooble doesn’t correct Ribbit.
Finally, Gangle clears her throat. “They.”
Ribbit turns to her. “Sorry, what?”
“That’s Zooble. They use they. Not she.”
“Oh! Sorry.” Ribbit smiles at Zooble. “I’m Ribbit, by the way.”
They share a peaceful glance before confusion overtakes both of them. No one can really focus on introductions when people are literally being brought back from the dead.
Does that mean that–
Jax?
No. She can’t allow herself to hope. For all she knows, Caine rescanned their files and thought this would somehow provide some closure or something. Ribbit and Kaufmo could easily be NPCs.
But part of her wonders if that would even matter. Caine is intelligent, he can create NPCs with their own free will. Like Gummigoo. And if they’re all just copies, that really doesn’t make them any different from any other NPC.
Still. If Jax came back, and it wasn’t really her… Pomni isn’t sure it would feel right.
She tries to focus on the matter at hand instead of thinking in what-ifs. “Kinger, do you have any idea what’s going on?”
“Do I what?” Kinger blinks. “Oh! Kaufmo! Wait, I thought–”
He doesn’t continue.
“I’ll go get the bucket,” Gangle mutters. Wordlessly, Zooble accompanies her.
Kaufmo gives Ribbit a long look. He blinks. “You’re back.”
“Back?”
“You abstracted,” he says quietly. “And then, things got bad, with Jax and me, and then…” he stares off into space. “I don’t remember. It’s just blank until now.”
Ribbit turns to Ragatha, her eyes pleading. “This is real?”
“I– I think.” She squeezes Pomni’s hand again.
There’s a beat of silence, and Pomni knows that at least four of them are thinking about Jax. If Ribbit and Kaufmo are here, she has to be next, right? Or– or Kinger’s wife, or any of the other abstracted characters. Right? She really, really hopes so. Kinger deserves to see his wife again.
They wait for a moment to see what will happen.
Then Ribbit walks away.
Ragatha and Pomni share a look, wordlessly asking who between the two of them will move first. Pomni nods and turns to follow Ribbit. If only for her own curiosity.
She’s about to interject, object– they really should stay in one place until they get everything figured out– until she realizes what they’re looking at.
The mural.
Pomni approaches carefully.
“Hey, you okay?”
“Is that me?”
“We… made a mural. Of everyone who abstracted. To… y’know. Honor them.”
Ribbit laughs through her nose. “That’s nice.” She sounds genuine. Then they pause. “Jax?”
“Yeah. Jax.”
Pomni tries to ignore the tears she feels threatening to fall. She should be over this by now.
How is she ever supposed to get over it?
Ribbit gives her a sympathetic look, seeming to understand all at once. Pomni already sort of feels like she knows her, from walking through all of Jax’s memories, but seeing them in person is different. She understands the draw they seem to have. She seems to have a knack for making people feel safe around them.
“But, hey,” the frog says lightly, “Kinger’s still at it, at least.”
“Yeah. He’s got a resilient mind.” Pomni sniffles. “You okay?”
“I don’t really know.”
Makes sense. Pomni’s not sure how she would take it either. Probably not very well.
“We should get back to everyone else. I don’t know what’s going on, but it might be better if we’re all in one place.”
Ribbit shrugs and lets Pomni lead the two of them back to the main area, even though Pomni is sure that they know the way. Or maybe they don’t remember. Maybe the circus even looked different, back then. Sometimes it really irks her, the way everything is so uncertain. Even Caine doesn’t really know everything. Kinger might, but even at his most aware he still can’t seem to recall exactly what C&A was–or still is, though the thought terrifies her–or how what they were building became something so far from the original plan. She doesn’t like the fact that most of her problems will never be answered. But all she can do now is focus on what’s in front of her. Who’s in front of her. And right now, that’s the circus and the people in it, the people returning to it.
The moment they return to the stage, she fights the urge to run.
Not away. Forward.
She wants to wrap her in her arms. She wants to tell her everything is going to be okay, she wants to tell her that she’s here, she’s not going to let anything happen to her, not anymore, and everything is going to be okay, it’s all going to be okay.
She wants to tell Jax that she’s so happy to see her again.