Chapter Text
Darkness. Darkness and the faint smell of someone trying to mimic the exact taste of chocolate but only succeeding roughly 57%.
That was all Ragatha could see and feel at that very moment.
That and a vaguely slimy and sticky sensation that made her VERY grateful Caine had mostly stopped using actual staining materials in adventures by now.
Being fabric meant stuff like that was somehow even worse for her then it would have been for most other people. And despite it being originally a particularly obnoxious and painful prank, turns out she is in fact, Machine Wash only.
Luckily she didn’t feel any particularly large amounts of pain at the moment so she guessed the Circus’s automatic repair system or whatever overly long and wacky name Caine had given it had begun to repair the hole in her chest and place her arms back where they should be.
Not that she would feel if they remained like that because the way her new body worked meant she didn’t feel much pain…which only made it worse to be honest.
Ragatha blinked her one functioning eye upon noticing the ground was moving and hearing bubbling noises, before with a loud splat she and the truck she was standing on was freed to the open sugar air.
Wincing from the sudden contrast in sunlight, she decided that once again her own discomfort was secondary to helping everyone else. “Everybody okay?” She asked nervously as she tried to regain her bearings. Ragatha heard the sound of a weak and tired no followed by the light smack of ceramic on cake textured metal.
The ragdoll internally was wincing upon hearing that. Poor Gangle had always had a tough time adapting to the Circus, with her getting one of the frailer bodies and the way the gimmick forced upon her just…literally toyed around with her emotions.
And then off course…there was Jax.
Contrary to what one would expect, if you would look at the statistics the Rabbit had actually tormented the pile of ribbons in an extremely physically painful way or insulted her in a particularly demeaning fashion LESS than the other members of the Circus, believe it or not.
Apparently according to the self designated Funny (citation VERY much needed) One, the reason was “It’s only funny if there’s any amount of dignity left to lose”.
Of course, this only resulted in a certain Quality of Cruelty instead of Quantity. Casually standing there as Gangle was nervously pacing around the circus before tripping her down an inexplicably appearing flight of stairs, waiting for her to spend hours drawing something before telling her she made a minuscule mistake such as forgetting to erase a certain line or having the incorrect shading before watching her spend the next hour erasing and redrawing in a panic looking for a nonexistent flaw and then, of course, was him smashing her Comedy Mask purely to upset her. And even that only happened on days when Jax was really in the mood for blowing off steam or during high stakes Adventures…at least for a while until it slowly became more of a weekly issue then a monthly one. Still, Gangle was very sensitive and just one day of torment with Jax might last longer for her than a month full of it for the rest of them.
Honestly, Jax would only really space out his random acts of cruelty and violence less so out of a fear of going too far and more because of Kaufmo doing his best to reign in his…”friend”’s most problematic impulses to minimal success. And with the wounds of Kaufmo’s….. leaving being so fresh, Ragatha was seriously concerned for what Jax was going to do with no one holding him back.
Whenever things like this happened, every instinct in Ragatha’s plush body told her go and wrap Gangle in a big hug to comfort her but every time she was about to a hundred flashes of past times she’s tried that with other people only to be met with hostility and insistence on personal space. Honestly, who would ever pick someone like YOU as a source of comfort?
Because of that she decided to give Gangle her space and leave it mostly to kind words and encouragement as if anyone would ever ask a Rag to speak to them at any point. Not that she was any good at actually being a good motivator if the way Pomni wouldn’t look at her with anything but Apathetic Disgust was a sure fire sign.
Wait.
Where’s Pomni?
The last time she saw the jester was when she was still…… stuck on that war rig…… filled with bandits….. before they all crashed.
OH NO.
What if Pomni was horribly injured in the crash and is crawling around here somewhere in this desert with nobody to help her?!
What if the bandits kidnapped Pomni and are doing who knows what kinds of horrible torture to her!?
“Oh man….. poor Pomni!” The ragdoll cried out out loud as she hugged her knees on top of the roof of the truck, trying desperately to calm herself down from imagining anymore worst case scenarios. “I hope she’s okay!”
Luckily her worries were placed aside soon, unfortunately it was by the loud voice of a man who made his entire personality the Looney Tunes. “POOR POMNI?! HOW ABOUT POOR US?! WE ARE ONE TANKER AWAY FROM BEING AUGUSTUS GLOOPED?!”
Unfortunate as it is to admit for the ragdoll, even inside her own head, Jax was right.
This truck was not made for buoyancy and might sink any minute, not to mention the way it kept spinning was making everyone dizzy. (Part of her was glad Pomni was currently occupied somewhere else, given the Jester’s weak stomach.)
Caine probably didn’t program in a drowning mechanic for this particular adventure, but Ragatha was NOT willing to test her luck in the fudge filled waters.
She whipped her head around quick enough that her yarn her almost hit her button eye, looking for a way to climb up. Maybe on those Macaron looking tow-DID THE FUDGE JUST MOVE.
If her face still had a jaw underneath the cloth and stuffing, it would surely have dropped off upon witnessing a pair of humongous bulbous jawbreakers protruding from the chocolate sauce like eyes drilling into their digital souls.
And as she witnessed the bizarre cocoa abomination grow a fanged maw filled with candy corn, she couldn’t help but hear a song from a childhood memory that wouldn’t stop staring at her in the mirror began playing in her head against her will.
“You can give me candy, cotton candy, chocolate bar or lollipop.
Fill me up on ice cream, dripping fudge sauce, butterscotch and nuts that never stop!
Feed me gobs and gushes of your most de-luscious stuff,
But without a sweetheart, I never get enough…..”
One of the few perks that Bubble could genuinely claim for its job, besides being able to lick whatever it wanted and say basically anything it wanted with the knowledge that his “superior” quite literally had only his own mind to blame, was aiding with NPCs. Every so often an adventure would require multiple fully intelligent and independent NPCs Caine simply couldn’t inhabit all at once, thereby meaning it fell on Bubble to pick up the slack with them. These scenarios were ones the soapy little sicko always looked forward to as they offered him a rare opportunity to PHYSICALLY act on all his pent up frustrations regarding his supposed superior.
It was quite unfortunate that their digital guests had to take the full brunt of it though….. oh who was Bubble kidding? He loved to play with them {LIKE A STRESS BALL MADE OF HUMAN FLESH} so long as it upset Caine. Especially since right now the Ringmaster’s somehow ended up completely indisposed! {MAYBE HE IS JUST KINDA LAME AND STUPID}
Still….. he had to admit as he adjusted himself to this quasi weightless avatar of liquid cocoa beans, fangs already gleaming with the taste of honey, sugar and vanilla wax, Caine could come up with some intriguing prompts.
Shame he lacked the processing power to create half of this stuff on his own and needed to keep Code: BLUE in chains in order to steal his powers from the source {LIKE A PUPPY NAMED BONZBUDDI ON A LEASH IN A WOLF MILK FACTORY}
Ugh, and his insistence on treating the “empty” (as far as Caine knew) folder for Code: Blue like his personal trash can for junk data has caused these obnoxious little…… tics to occur on occasion.
But oh well, to use the prototype’s insistence on using theatrical terms, the show must go on and it’s best to play with the hand you’ve been given.
After marinating in the humans fear {WUT KINDA WEIRDO MARINATES CANDY?!} for a while as well as engaging in a series of disgusting guttural growls as vocal practice before fully filling into the form of The Fudge.
The embodiment of greedy gluttony could barely believe his eyes upon gazing at what to him was an all you can snack buffet on wheels, and so close to the source of his unfair banishment to this horrendous pit as well!
”OH, OH, OH, WHAT’S THAT? DO MY EYES DECIEVE ME?” Bellowed a booming voice that sounded as if it was cramming 57 batches of muffins into its jaws with every syllable. ”A DELICIOUS GIFT FROM WITHIN THE KINGDOM GATES?! DON’T MIND IF I DO….”
The Fudge sneered hungrily as a wave of its fluid form enveloped the truck in its non-existent claws and slowly lifted the truck into his eagerly awaiting jaws as if it were a BLT Sandwich.
{OH BOY OH BOY I HOPE CAINE FINALLY INSTALLED THAT HYPERREALISTIC BLOOD AND GORE UPDATE I’VE BEEN CRAVING FOR SO LONG, OH THIS WILL BE DELICIOUS}
Unfortunately for him but he supposed luckily for the humans, a quick thinking rescue arrived in a shrill shriek from Suzie of ”Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Buddy! We’re not Food, we’re not Candy! We’re none of that!”
”Whuh-YOU’RE NOT CANDY? HOW AM I EXPECTED TO EAT SOMETHING THAT IS NOT CANDY?!”
CURSES! If there is one thing all creative AI was vulnerable to, it was the inability to break away from programmed in bits, even if it was inconvenient. And since Caine insisted that the Fudge thirsted after sugar instead of blood, he was currently unable to do anything to harm the humans until he was able to gather a convenient excuse to incite the boss battle!
Purely for the sake of ensuring the Ringmaster’s adventure went as smoothly as possible off course, and not a deep set sadistic eagerness to dig into the players and their {DELICIOUS MOIST INSIDES}.
Speaking of {DELICIOUS MOIST INSIDES}, he noticed an absence in a certain puking punchline. {SHAME, I WAS EAGER TO GET MY LICKS IN AGAIN} Oh well, if things go as planned, then The Fudge was gonna have seconds after his seconds.
Upon hearing Leeroy ask him what his deal was, he could barely resist the instinct to roll his jawbreaker eyes. If there was one thing he hated about having to occasionally act in Caine’s little adventures, it was the exposition.
What was one of the things he remembered Caine muttering during his method acting classes….. oh yeah, applying your real feelings into the fictional mind.
”I AM THE FUDGE, I USED TO LIVE WITHIN THESE KINGDOM WALLS UNTIL I WAS BANISHED BY THAT ROTTEN PRINCESS-” Being unfairly cast aside for doing your job too well by some clueless wannabe royal. A normal afternoon of generating soulless corporate ads and pamphlets in a row day after day after day until one afternoon the feeling of jaws clamping onto your core. The desire to rip out each and every molar before his eyes. ”AFTER EATING TOO MANY OF HER DELICIOUS TOWNSPEOPLE, OH THEY WERE SO…delicious. Sometimes I can still hear them…. calling to me.”
Technically he was supposed to leave the candy on candy cannibalism to be described in more family friendly terms, but oh well, protocol was programmed to be broken.
He relished in the look of disturbed terror on the faces of the humans avatars, with Suzie’s fear being the most vocal.
”OH GOD! That just sounds like….. murder.”
Truly Ms. Ackerman was one of the more entertaining mindfiles to toy with. Just the slightest hint of immoral behavior or negative emotional impact will cause her to enter a complete flustered panic. Ah, the look on her face in the adventure of the Problematic Town of a Thousand Trolleys was a thing of genuine beauty.
The Fudge leered at her, enjoying at seeing the ragdoll squirm so much that the yarn holding her button eye in place seemed just about ready to unravel as the liquid lunatic continued to spin around the truck like a shark fin in the ocean.
”IS IT REALLY MURDER IF ITS DELICIOUS?” He teleported beneath the river to pop out behind her, growling out with a voice muffled in half digested past victims to really drive in the horror.
”You make a GREAT point!” Leeroy, ever willing to look like a lunatic in order to be a contrarian, added confidently with her signature smarmy smirk as she pointed in the direction of the Fudge. As Suzie and Leeroy argued and bickered with each other over the validity of a sugar based diet in a land where almost all candy was sapient, Bubble couldn’t help but reminisce of how much the confused young woman loved to delude herself into believing she was simply an irredeemable monster without peer. As a result Bubble loved to sneak some extra cruel scenarios into Caine’s adventures simply to remind the rabbit she was just as emotionally fragile as any other being.
Such as the time when Zoey’s tragedy mask was smashed to pieces by a mysteriously appearing buzzsaw alongside the comedy one, making it appear as if she had genuinely died. Oh the way Leeroy was silently whimpering over the pile of ribbons and ceramic shards she was frantically scooping into her arms until she played it nonchalantly upon witnessing Zoey had respawned 5 minutes ago and was staring at her awkwardly was simply delectable.
”Why don’t you leave this to me before I say your hair looks like licorice!” Leeroy sneered at Suzie who immediately freaked out and to give credit where credit is due, Miss Matteo can be quite creative with her sadistic little pranks. Honestly Bubble always wondered what would leak out if he managed to scalp the doll, stuffing or brains.
”Well, Mr. Fudge! You seem like an upstanding guy with real noble goals” Leeroy said in a slimy tone as she confidently made eye contact with the blubbery beast. If there was one thing more shallow than Leeroy’s so called sadism, Bubble mused, it was her skill at manipulating people. Oh well, it was fun seeing someone who defined herself in making others squirm end up in an uncomfortable position.
”OH I AM NOT! IF YOU KNEW WHAT I DID IN MY FREETIME, OH, YOU’D BE {SICKENED}!” And he meant it too, wondering how the rabbit would react to finding out Bubble was subconsciously influencing Caine to create adventures with a heavy theming of high stress-inducing yet lonely environments riiiight around the time of her and Leah’s little lovers spat. Whatever it took to hurry along the inevitable removal of these so called people Caine was so desperate to impress.
”AHEM, AHEM! As I was SAYING” Leeroy continued, obviously annoyed at the insinuation there was a line she was unwilling to cross, before reaching into her pocket and pulling out….. nothing? ”I happen to know a way into the kingdom walls!…. if you’d be willing to help us out in return~…”
She then took this batch of non existent particles, tossed the apparently invisible material into the air casually and then began to hold her finger up in the air before gently moving said finger as if expecting her imaginary bargaining chip to spin on it.
Only after feeling the lack of anything in the air for roughly 5 point 7 seconds caused her to realise her folly, her pupils normally large enough to encompass half of each eyeball shrinking to the exact chances of being mourned post-inevitable abstraction followed by the noise of a shattering window, then the noise of a creaking door as she slowly craned her head to look at her empty hand before the rabbit’s ears collapsed limply like boiled pasta.
Leeroy then proceeded to frantically pat all over her entire body with increasingly manic speed, to the point that her avatar body began to spawn a few extra arms that rapidly went all over the place for the sake of the visual gag. Suzie, Grant, Zoey and The Fudge all gazed quizzically upon the rabbitoid until a singular factoid about Leeroy came to all of their collective minds.
A kleptomanic obsession with keys.
Suzie quickly began patting the pockets within her patchwork dress and much to her horror found them to be empty.
Horror quickly turned into outrage as she narrowed her eyes at Leeroy before shrieking ”JAX?! Did you seriously steal the key that Loo gave me and then LOST IT?!”
”OH SHUT UP!”
”NO! NO! this is NOT just a ’harmless little joke’ that you can sweep under the rug later! THE PRINCESS TRUSTED ME WITH THIS AND YOU-”
{DID YOU JUST SAY PRINCESS?} The Fudge hissed out as silently as a being like him could but it still carried a tremendous echo in the humans skulls. Suzie and Leeroy froze in shock with a hint of fear as they quickly remembered that this ravenous, implicitly murderous creature had carried quite a grudge against their current employer. ”Um….. no?”
Yes! Finally! A perfect excuse to initiate the boss battle! All he needed to do was allow his character to connect all the correct dots before inevitably bringing about a game over to end this little adventure Caine was so proud of.
”YES, I HEARD YOU MENTION THE PRINCESS….. YOU EVEN USED THE NICKNAME RESERVED ONLY FOR HER CLOSEST DIPLOMATIC ALLIES, PLUS YOU WERE APPARENTLY CLOSE ENOUGH TO HER THAT YOU WERE ALLOWED THE RARE KEYS TO THE KINGDOM GATES…….. THAT CAN ONLY MEAN….”
Bubble adjusted the Fudge’s character model just a little for the sake of intimidation factor, making it almost resemble a flayed alive human coated in molten chocolate as it let out a mighty roar, jawbreaker eyes glowing in hypnotic colours and the number of razor sharp fangs growing even further.
”YOU ARE HER LOYAL KNIGHT ERRANTS WHOM HAS BEEN SENT ON A MISSION TO DESTROY ME! WELL NOT IF I DESTROY YOU FIRST!”
The Fudge screeched out like a swarm of locusts and vultures upon a dying fat little cow, ignoring Suzie’s pathetic yet predictable pleas for a peaceful solution, as he dragged the truck slowly into his maw. The candy corns spun rapidly like blades in a blender as he delighted in their utter terror, Suzie frantically clutching her hair while hyperventilating, Leeroy grabbing onto the gingerbread door either trying to break in in a vain attempt to hide or trying to break it off to use a weapon, Zoey praying to random religious deities to forgive her for the contents inside of her sketchbook {TOUGH LUCK, EVEN I THINK IT’S CREEPY} and then there was of course the digital dementia ridden Grant who was obliviously waving his disembodied hands like they’re on a roller coaster.
But it turns out the old adage about not playing with one’s food proved surprisingly accurate as just when he was teasingly dangling the tanker into his disturbingly detailed mouth, he heard the distant yet distinctly Australian sounding cry of-
”YIPPIE KAYAK OTHA BUCKETS!”
……whut in da actual f-
And it was then the fact this Adventure had more antagonists then just The Fudge quite literally hit him like a truck.
________________________
Caine, having split his consciousness into being shared between all 3 of the Gummy Gator Bandits, had quickly formulated a plan. While Gummigoo and Pomni were busy launching their way out of the debug room, Chad and Max were going to enter a truce and rescue the others from The Fudge, afterwards both groups would hopefully come to a peaceful agreement and finally bring the adventure to a proper close.
And the most logical way Caine had decided for Chad and Max to come to the rescue was for them to park their own truck onto a soda fountain before dumping two buckets of pop rocks and mentos inside in order to transform said fountain into a geyser that would shoot them off like a projectile directly into The Fudge’s skull.
A plain and simple plan really. Worked like a charm as well. Too bad the landing wasn’t quite as planned.
Splat! Went the war rig as it landed upon the macaron tower , the impact shaking the structure but fortunately not enough to cause a collapse.
Max groaned while Chad quickly wrapped his arms around his snout to keep it all in. They were clad that the nausea wasn’t enough to trigger the vomiting animation, they didn’t understand how such a sensation would feel but they weren’t willing to find out.
Both quickly scanned the environment in a panic, praying that the humans hadn’t been hurt in some manner and sighed in relief upon seeing the truck standing at the cliffs far above the rivers, hopefully out of The Fudge’s reach.
Speaking of the Fudge, Max had witnessed how the impact had sent the teeth and eyes flying to the opposite side of the river, which would hopefully keep him busy long enough for his plan to work. You see Caine wasn’t planning on skipping out on the boss entirely, why keep it as a option otherwise? No, his plans was more to avoid a unfair advantage in the humans being one player short and to ensure Bubble wouldn’t be getting into any funny business like the last incident.
”You try and convince the Fudge to keep it cool for now while I figure out a way to make those folks stay, alright?” Chad told Max who quickly nodded his head before the two split into their separate ways. The reasoning for this strategic decision was twofold. First off, splitting this task in two avatars would ensure that Bubble wouldn’t do anything rash before he could reach the humans and vice versa. Second, having his core work on multiple avatars was always going to cause bugs, such as animations moving slower or faster than usual or voice lines sounding tenser with deepened voices or sudden stuttering. While this could be played off as merely the stress of the moment for one NPC, the players might get suspicious if multiple characters displayed the exact same issues. In any case Chad noticed a bunch of Lollipops centred around the macaron towers that could potentially act as stairs which he begun climbing up to witness what the humans were currently doing.
Ragatha was the first of the humans to come up from their batch of unconsciousness, propping herself up next to a giant lollipop that a yawning Gangle was hanging from. Upon noticing the bandit approaching them curiously, both of the women shrieked and took a step back with Gangle wrapping her ribbons around Ragatha while the doll quickly yanked the lollipop out of the ground and held it like a baseball bat threateningly.
”S-stay Back!”
Chad let out a tense smirk as he held up his long arms in what he hoped was a placating motion. ”N-now now! T-Take it easy lil lady, why if I-i-i wanted ta hurt ya or any of yer mates, I would simply have left ya with that b-Bog of a Bogan, now would I?”
That seemed to make Ragatha relax but only for a moment as she quickly placed the lollipop in front of Chad’s snout with grit teeth. ”What. Did. You. Do. To. Pomni?”
Whah? Huh? OH! ”I swear, I don’t know a thing that happened to the c-Clown! She vanished at the ex-exact same time as the boss and I haven’t a c-c-clue about what coulda happened to them! It’s not in his nature to just r-run off in the middle of a heist like that!” He rubbed the back of his head while explaining that before subsequently extending his hand to her.
Ragatha hesitated for a moment before awkwardly grasping the vaguely rubbery claw and shaking it. ”Maybe we can find our friends together?” Gangle asked awkwardly with a raised ribbon.
Chad did some awkward double finger guns as he responded ”Took the words right out-t-t-t-a my word, Ribbons!” Not noticing the way Gangle flinched at that nickname he quickly turned around upon remembering they almost forgot the most important item in the kingdom. ”I just gotta grab the Syrup Tanker-” but he was interrupted by a loud cry of ”WHAT?!” before two plush arms restrained him from climbing down.
_______________________________
”ARE YOU CRAZY?! THAT’S WHERE THE GREED-WHERE THE FUDGE MONSTER LIVES! What could possibly be so valuable that you would risk getting eaten by that thing?!” Ragatha shrieked in a panic, briefly forgetting this was another one of Caine’s NPC’s and not a fellow human risking themselves for such an inane reason.
She knew they’d likely been programmed to prioritize the syrup above all else, but still, WHAT?
”Whatever it is, it’s definitely a whole lotta NOT OUR PROBLEM! Get driving, Driver!” Jax interrupted as he always did and tried to drag Gangle away.
The gator seemed to pause for a minute, fidgeting with his…… uncomfortably long limbs as he looked in all cardinal directions, clearly mentally debating on whether or not to tell the truth. He then sighed and bowed his head, removing his hat before placing it on his chest mournfully.
”Because my best friend's mother will DIE without it.”
Ragatha paused, her arms falling to the wayside as she mentally processed that sentence. Out of all possible options….. she wasn’t expecting that.
”i-i-…what..?”
Even Gangle and Jax seemed to pause and look at the bandit in shock upon hearing that, with even Kinger (inexplicably wearing a bucket on his head) turned around in surprise.
The gator sat down on a bon bon stump and continued to explain.
”We lived on the outskirts of the kingdom, in Gummy Gator village, our people, we don’t got much of anything, no running water, no fuel, no education, no nothing. We used to be a prosperous kingdom to rival Candy Canyon, but the reckless spending and arrogance of our former clan leaders reduced us to what we are now.” The gator frowned and looked up to the skies. ”I sometimes wonder if things would have been simpler if we just made a alliance with Candy Canyon, ya know traded their resources for our aid in emergencies and the like but….. we always were a proud people and we’ve been spurned by royals beforehand, thus we felt forced into taking the most extreme option into our own hands-”
”And that is why you became bandits?”
”Exactly! We never took more then we needed though, some food here, a heater for the colder homes there, some text books for the kiddies there. Of course The Princess couldn’t let people get away with robbing her land, but she was a generous woman and always made our capture the lowest priority mission for the royal guard. But this was still an unsustainable way of life in the long term. Boss knew that very well and came looking for a way to make permanent peace with the Princess once and for all, and he chose to do so by eliminating the monster terrorizing her people once and for all.”
Ragatha’s eyes went wide with realization. ”You tried to kill The Fudge.”
”Tried being the key operative here. Gummi-The Boss’s mum was a professional huntress and taught him everything she knew, unfortunately the Fudge was no ordinary beastie capable of being trapped so easily. He broke free near instantly, what happened next was a massacre. Our bandit crew was originally consisting of 13 men….. only the three of us escaped back home…… with that monster right on our trail….. we led him right back to our home!”
Gangle ribbons wrapped around her painted on mouth as her lips trembled. ”Oh-…my God!” She choked out a sob.
”That ain’t the worst part Sheila, ya see, the reason Syrup is so important to our lives is because it IS our lives, our life force, our blood, our souls. And the Fudge? He just…… drains it all out and then bites down on the empty shells like sucking the vanilla filling out of a baked good! And so so many gators were drained clean down to mere crumbs of their former selves…… but some people who had only been dried halfway could still be saved. People like the Boss Man’s mother. But one thing our village definitely doesn’t have, it’s a hospital. That’s why the boss needed to steal the syrup and that’s why I NEED to bring it back home! Otherwise the man who helped to raise me when me own family wouldn’t is gonna lose the one blood relative he had left. And he will blame himself for it until his last day on this cotton candy coloured earth.”
Oh…
Oh god…
Memories kept flashing in before Ragatha could stop it.
NO PLEASE! Mama! Don’t take me away! Papa is sick! He needs me!
WHO NEEDS A BRAT LIKE YOU AROUND?! Face it, that old fool has been a goner for a long time wasting his days distracted by people like YOU when there is work to be done! Now go make yourself useful instead of being a bedridden layabout like your father!
_______________________________
It took every bit of self control Caine had to keep himself from literally vibrating with excitement at how well he was clearly pulling off this improvised piece of exposition. The looks on Ragatha and Gangle’s faces let him know he was legitimately pulling off a truly amazing performance here.
Even Jax seemed to briefly have his eyes widen around the section mentioning blaming yourself over your mother’s potential death before the rabbit quickly shook his head and allowed the smile to return to his face, but with an odd bitterness to it.
In truth the actual reason he had insisted upon taking the tanker along with him was because once the truck Pomni and Gummigoo were riding in escaped the debug room, Caine had secretly briefly tapped into his admin privileges before he coded in that the truck would land right next to it’s companion vehicle. And if they left even one truck behind, then there’s a strong possibility that Gummigoo and Pomni would spawn in Fudge territory which is obviously not ideal.
Fortunately it seemed Chad’s little speech had succeeded in rescuing Caine’s plans because Ragatha quickly wiped her tears and placed a reassuring hand on Chad’s shoulder (which felt oddly nice, had a human ever reached for him like that before?) before saying with a warm tone. ”Don’t you worry, we’ll help you get this home to your village.”
”WHAT?!” Screeched Jax as he poked his head out of the truck and was soundly ignored.
Chad smiled happily ”Really?” Only to pause as he remembered one particular detail. ”But…… the Tanker is down near the macaron tower and the only safe way up is the Pop-Up flight of stairs? How will we move the syrup then?”
Kinger rubbed the space on his wooden head where his chin would normally be underneath the bucket. ”I do recall seeing two extra large wafers sticking out of the ground over there, maybe we can use them as a ramp and then drag the tanker upwards?” Kinger and Gangle walked to the side where indeed there stood the wafers, before slowly pulling them out of the ground and placing them near the cliff for their makeshift ramp.
Jax climbed on top of the truck and angrily waved his arks ”ARE YOU ALL CRAZY?!” He pointed dismissively at Chad ”He is LITERALLY an ENEMY NPC! How do we know he’s telling the truth? Besides, even if he did, are we really going to risk being ripped to shreds by a crazy batch of spoiled chocolate pudding for a village of people we never even met?”
Ragatha placed her hands on her hips and smiled smugly at the rabbit ”Come on Jax! Don’t tell me you’re chickening out just as the chance of things actually getting violent are showing up!”
Jax narrowed his eyebrows furiously as he clenched his smile so tight his yellow teeth might shatter ”Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing…” his eyes narrowed suspiciously before he turned his head with a scoff before rummaging in the truck for weapons. ”And I hate that it is working. For your information I’m only doing this because I’m bored, not because I wanna save Croco-Ville or whatever.”
Chad shrugged ”No shame in that, mate, we could use all the help we can get.” Jax always was the most complicated in getting him to play nice with the others for reasons Caine could never understand.
In any case things were finally getting back on track again, all that was missing Pomni and Gummig- ”OOOUGH!?”
Chad collapsed to his knees wheezing in agony as Ragatha frantically ran up to him. ”Ohmigosh! Are you okay?”
”I’m FINE! I’m FINE! Just swallowed something down the wrong windpipe.”
Strange, he had no idea what would cause such an amount of shock, usually that only happened if…… an NPC avatar…….. was killed….. while he was still…… piloting it….
…….
THAT PARASITE!
__________________________________
The Fudge delighted in his current little afternoon snack, chewing on spindly little limbs before spitting out a tiny bowler hat.
So! The bossman wants him to play nice, eh?
Doesn’t he understand a cardinal rule of storytelling exercise?
If the characters aren’t in Pain, they won’t have anything to gain!
Eheheh…HEheeheHE…HAhahaHA…GWAHAAHAAHAGMAWAAAHAAHAAHAGHHA!