Chapter Text
Pain.
That’s all there was.
There was no end to it; it was the only thing that existed.
It slowly clawed away at Jax, destroying him digital piece by piece.
He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak, couldn’t move.
Until suddenly it stopped.
The world turned white.
“Good morning, my cadaverous chandeliers!”
Zooble blinked their eyes as they adjusted to the bright light. Was it really already time for a new adventure?
“What is it this time, Pomni?” Zooble asked in annoyance, looking at the little ringmaster. Not that they were going to go on this adventure.
“I have decided on a splendid adventure for you all today!” Pomni said, doing a little flip in the air. “You will be taste testers for King Camembert today, to make sure that his food is not poisoned!”
“Pomni?” Ragatha asked in a shaky voice. “What are you doing?”
Zooble glanced at the rag doll, confused, before she noticed that Jax and Gangle also looked petrified with fear. Only Kinger looked like his usual self.
Pomni tilted her head, also seemingly confused at their current state. “I’m sending you on an adventure,” she said. “Like always?”
“What–What happened to Caine?” Gangle asked, trembling slightly.
“Caine? Who’s that?” Pomni asked. “Ooh! Is it a new human? Where are they?”
“N-no!” Gangle said quickly. “Nothing like that. Nevermind.”
Pomni glanced at Ragatha, Gangle, and Jax, who looked terrified. And that was something to see, for Jax at least.
“I think this calls for a change of plans,” Pomni said, clapping her hands.
“I now present to you the Amazing Digital Spa Day! I should have known you’d be tired from yesterday’s adventure, which was…”
Pomni trailed off, lost in thought. “Hmm. I can’t seem to remember. Maybe I should give myself a spa adventure too! Off you go!”
And suddenly, they were all teleported to a sunny beach with lots of beach chairs and cucumbers.
This wasn’t too bad, Zooble supposed. If they had to be here, at least they could still relax.
Zooble glanced over at Gangle, Ragatha, and Jax, who stood stock still, looking shocked.
“Okay, Jax is normally weird, but not like this. What’s up with you guys?” Zooble asked. “Why are you three acting so weird today?”
Ragatha slowly raised her head to look at Zooble. “You-you mean you don’t know what happened?”
Zooble looked at her. “What do you mean?” they asked. “Nothing happened.”
“But-but, Pomni–and Caine–” Ragatha spun to look at Jax and Gangle. “You remember, don’t you?”
“Of course,” Gangle said.
Jax stiffly nodded.
Ragatha turned to look at Kinger. “What-what about you, Kinger?” she asked hesitantly.
“The butterflies think you have hit your head.” Kinger said.
Ragatha wrung her hands in frustration. “I don’t understand, why do we remember, but not them?”
Gangle met Ragatha’s eyes, confusion and fear flickering in them.
“We look different.”
Gangle and Ragatha turned to look at Jax in surprise.
“Haven’t you noticed?” Jax said, not meeting their eyes. “Parts of us are different colors, different designs than they were before.”
Zooble was confused. Hadn’t they all looked like this before? What was going on?
Ragatha and Gangle seemed to understand, though. “And the parts of Zooble and Kinger that are different…” She said, looking as if all the puzzle pieces were coming together.
“Are their heads.”
“Would someone please explain to me what’s going on?”
Ragatha sighed as she turned to Zooble. She really didn’t want to talk about this more than she had too, and she still didn’t know how Pomni…Well, she’d think about that later.
“You know Pomni,” Ragatha said.
“Of course I do,” Zooble said. “She’s our resident AI.”
“Well, Pomni was…a human.”
Zooble just stared at Ragatha. “What?”
“I know it sounds crazy, but it’s true,” Ragatha said.
Zooble still looked skeptical, so Gangle spoke up. “She’s telling the truth, Zooble.”
“...Okay, then. Let’s say that this is true,” Zooble said. “How did human Pomni turn into AI Pomni?”
Gangle and Ragatha glanced at each other, neither knowing what to say.
Ragatha glanced at Jax out of the corner of her eye, but he looked lost in his own head, as well as dangerously close to abstraction.
“We…don’t know.” Ragatha said. “All I know is that we came back from our adventure, and she stabbed Caine, and then…”
“We started deleting,” Gangle finished for her.
“Exactly,” Ragatha said. “That must be why we look different, Pomni must have repaired us somehow, but not known what we looked like before.”
“And because Kinger’s head and part of Zooble’s were deleted, Pomni repaired those parts,” Gangle said. “Which meant that they forgot.”
“Exactly,” Ragatha said.
Just then, Pomni appeared in their midst. “Why are you all not enjoying your spa day?” she said, looking a bit sad.
It was so eerie to see how similar Pomni still looked to her old self.
And how different.
“Would you prefer a more adventurous adventure?” Pomni asked. “We could do a maze adventure where you work in pairs and one of you is blind and the other–”
“–No, no,” Ragatha hurriedly interrupted. “It’s fine. We were just getting settled in.”
“Oh, okay!” Pomni said, easily accepting her answer. “I’ll see you in a bit, make sure you’re resting up!”
With that, she disappeared, leaving the humans alone.
Ragatha sighed. They couldn’t risk talking now, not when Pomni might come back any moment.
She was sure there would be time to talk later.
To figure out this whole mess.