Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Cause they see right through me, they see right through me,

They see right through, can you see right through me,

They see right through, they see right through me,

I SEE RIGHT THROUGH ME, I SEE RIGHT THROUGH ME-”

I jolt up, unable to comprehend what’s happening. I wanna snarl and show just how disturbed I was, but I don’t wanna cause any incidents like what happened with Zooble, not with everyone here. It’s been a week since it happened, but it’s still been on my mind. I’ve spent God knows how long going about my adventures without even thinking for a second about how the inhabitants of the circus feel about them. Do they really hate them? Do they hate the one thing I’m intended to do? If so, does it mean they hate me? I notice myself starting to crack as my room starts to phase out, taking a moment to stop myself and catch some breaths. I don’t think they’re supposed to actually do anything, given I’m a program and all, but it does seem to calm me a little somehow.

“What’s got you all chattery, boss?” Bubble asks after spawning out of nowhere. Usually I spring up out of shock, but with no one here for the act I just stand by. He’s done this a lot, it’s not like I can still be shocked.

“Haha, very funny,” I say with a veil of apathy, although admittedly it was kinda funny, “It’s just the things me and Zooble were talking about. They say what I’m feeling is called “anxiety” or something like that.”

“Anxiety? Huh, such a silly word. What does it mean?”

I sit down, tired out of my mind despite having no need to sleep, “It’s this overwhelming sense of fear and dread. This feeling that you’re not good enough and that no matter how well you do, you still fail. Even if people are telling you you’re great, you think they hate you.”

“Oh so it’s like a ghost that possesses your mind?”

“That’s, sighs Sure. It’s a ghost. I’ve been talking with Zooble about it. They say they know what it is because they go through it too. But I don’t trust them. I mean seriously, you’re attacked by this ghost of dread and self-hatred, and suddenly you’re an expert on it? Does Zooble really think they know what I’m going through? Any of the things I’ve been doing.”

Bubble moves beside me, “Look, Zooble probably doesn’t know what you’re going through. And this “anxiety” fella seems to take over people in different ways. But you both know what it’s like to be possessed by it, and you need to communicate about it. It seems like it preys on its victims with what they can’t understand.

I’m surprised by his words, and a little thankful too. “Oh, thanks Bubble.” I say as I turn to him, “That’s actually some very helpful advice.”

He looks at me without saying a word, nothing but the same giddy expression on his face that he always has.

“I said, you gave me some really helpful advice.” I respond a little louder, but still nothing from Bubble’s end.

“I SAID THAT WAS GOOD ADVICE!” I scream kookily.

“Goodnight Caine.” he responds.

“ Sighs, Goodnight, Bubble.” I pop him out and go back to sleep.

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I’ve canceled a lot of adventures recently. I keep telling them it’s due to “maintenance,” but it's really because I’ve been having therapy sessions with Zooble. They keep telling me there’s no shame in therapy, but how would the rest of the Circus react if they knew what was going on? Would they think I’m faulty? Would they think the Circus is breaking down? Would they use this as an opportunity to leave? Sighs , It’s probably just the anxiety ghost making me say things.

“Hey Zooble, you in there?” I ask as I knock on their door.

“Yeah, just come in.” They say in a bit of a monotone accent.

I step foot inside and shut the door behind me. Their room is composed mostly of former items from the Zooble box. I recognize almost every one of them almost immediately. Their spoon leg acts as a light in the corner of the room. The star head is a stool that was hanging by the door as I walked in. I looked above to see their old hose arms being used to decorate the roof, and with the building blocks that once composed their torso, you could climb up and use the hoses as a makeshift zipline. That one I really enjoyed.

I lay down on a couch made up of various animal heads and asked Zooble, “So, how’s your day been?”

They shrug, “Fine, I guess. It’s only the morning though.”

“Oh, haha,” I awkwardly commented, “Say, what did you get the rest to do?”

“Oh, got them to play some cornhole. Just a basic game to pass the time. So, what’s been on your mind lately?”

I take a deep breath as the nightmare begins to creep back into my mind, “I had this creepy dream last night. I was dressed up like this ancient hunter with a bow and arrow, hunting for these little pink chicks.”

Zooble seemed confused by the last part. “Pink chicks?” They asked. “Like women or baby chickens?”

“The latter.” I clarified. “Dreams do get weird, you know.”

They nodded, “Fair enough. Carry on.”

I continued, “So I’m trying to look for these chicks when I catch one. I draw my arrow when it glows these bright red eyes at me. It shocks me for a moment, but I regain focus and shoot it. Then the other chicks start to surround me. My bow disappears, and I turn transparent, like a blue outline of code. I run away and the world starts freaking out. The lush forest scenery disappears, and all the noise in my head is replaced with this voice. I can’t remember exactly what it said, but it was something about being see-through. Anyways, I enter this exit door, you know, the kind Pomni keeps talking about, and I see these two technicians talking to each other.”

Zooble leans forward, much more interested, “What were they saying.”

“That’s the thing, I didn’t know. The voice was still clouding my mind, but I was able to read their mouths a little. And the first one said,” I took a deep breath before I revealed their potential words, “What should we do about the teeth guy? And the other said to- to-”

I drop to the ground and start breathing heavily, Zooble rushing by my side to calm me down as they tell me, “Hey, don’t worry. It’s just a dream, none of it is real. Hopefully.”

My breathing slows down and I gradually rise back up to my feet. “Yeah, yeah, it’s a dream.” I responded, “But what does it mean?”

“That’s what we gotta figure out. Tell me, how many chicks were surrounding me?”

I think back, “Not many, actually. I think there were, what? 6?

They write something down, “Interesting. And how many of us are there?”

I’m starting to connect the dots, “6. You think this has to do with anxiety? The lack of trust I have for you and the other inhabitants?”

“Possibly. Do you trust us?”

“I mean, uh, yeah I do! Sighs Or at least, I try to. Frankly, the only ones I actually do trust are you and Kinger.”

Zooble seems surprised by the latter, and quickly writes something down, “Kinger? You trust that nutcase?”

“He’s not… That much of a nutcase. Sometimes I talk to him while he’s inside his pillow fort. He’s a lot more communicable while he’s inside. Not sure how, but we had a few nice conversations.”

“Really? Well son of a BOINK , we gotta have a conversation with Kinger! Never expected to say that since I got here.”

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I teleported us outside our Kinger’s pillow fortress, and… he’s not there. Guess we should’ve remembered he was with the others. Perhaps his memory loss is contagious. Suddenly we hear Kinger shriek far away.

“ BOINK was that?!” Zooble responded. We turned the corner to find the worst case scenario. Kinger abstracting.

“Caine! Zooble!” Pomni yelled, running with tears in her eyes, “We need you to do something! Anything! Kinger’s gonna abstract!”

“Pomni, what’s going on? How did this happen?” I asked.

“Jax was pestering Kinger, and they got into an argument. He brought up Queenie and her abstraction, and Kinger just.. HE JUST FELL AND STARTED ABSTRACTING!”

Part of me was considering just letting him abstract. It’s happened before, and it’ll happen again. But part of me is holding onto Kinger. He’s been here for almost as long as I can remember. He’s probably the only reason I can remember a lot of things from before. It starts to feel like if I lose Kinger, I lose the whole Circus. That and Pomni’s begging is getting to me. I know how important he is to her, I can’t just break her heart like that.

“I Dunno!” I respond in panic, sweat dripping down my upper jaw, “I- I’ve never done a reversal like this..!”

“You gotta hurry! He’s going to abstract!” Ragatha says.

I tell her, “I’M TRYING!”

“Then try harder!” Jax responds, not helping like he usually does.

Pomni runs up to Kinger and grabs his hands, “Don’t go Kinger… Please don’t go…”

Kinger tries to calm her in his final words, “!*OMNI… I’ll B- B E 0K⁋+... I P R0m I se y OU! Don’T Worry… I’ L L B⁋ AL RI- ”

₄Ģęë ⪑⪋⪞₦₰૱₽Πλ₄Ģęë⪑⪋⪞₦₰૱₽Πλ₄Ģęë⪑⪋⪞₦₰૱₽Πλ₄Ģęë ⪑⪋⪞₦₰૱₽Πλ₄Ģę ë⪑⪋⪞₦₰૱₽Πλ₄Ģęë⪑⪋⪞₦₰૱₽Πλ₄Ģę ë⪑⪋⪞₦₰૱₽Πλ₄Ģę ë⪑⪋⪞₦₰૱₽Πλ₄Ģęë⪑⪋⪞₦₰૱₽Πλ₄Ģęë⪑⪋⪞₦₰૱₽Πλ₄Ģęë⪑⪋⪞₦₰ ૱₽Πλ₄Ģęë⪑⪋⪞₦₰૱₽Πλ₄Ģęë⪑⪋⪞₦₰૱₽Πλ₄Ģęë⪑⪋⪞ ₦₰૱₽Πλ₄Ģ ęë⪑⪋⪞₦₰૱₽Πλ ₄Ģęë⪑⪋⪞₦₰૱₽Πλ₄Ģęë⪑⪋ ⪞₦₰૱₽Πλ₄Ģęë⪑⪋⪞₦₰૱ ₽Πλ₄Ģęë⪑⪋⪞₦₰૱₽Πλ

An overload of senses blind all of us. The world is clouded by a bright blue light, as if the Circus crashed. Thankfully, it didn’t, as I watch Zooble, Ragatha, Jax and Gangle get up.

“H-Hey! Is everyone alright?” Ragatha asks them.

“I- think..” Zooble says as they turn to see me like I’ve had a moderate but still noticeable change in appearance.

“Augh.. does anyone else feel.. Lighter?” I ask as I try to fight my mind from turning blurrier than it already is.

“Er... dunno bout that…” Jax answers.

Zooble interrupts him to point something out, “Woah! Look at you Caine!”

“W-Wuzzat Zooble… I’m sure I look alri-” My mind reboots a little and I realize how I’ve changed. I’m definitely much lighter, although my butt feels heavier for whatever reason. My ringmaster look is gone, and while the top hat and color scheme remain, the suitcoat’s been replaced with a simple vest with tailcoats, my sleeves rolled up. “GadZooks!! This is certainly new!! What’s happening?!”

Ragatha compliments, “I think it suits you!”

Jax’s just confused, “So… we’re just gonna ignore this or…?”

“KINGER! KINGER!” Pomni’s tearful screams interrupt us, “WHERE ARE YOU? PLEASE, SAY SOMETHING! PLEASE, I’M BEGGING YOU! KINGER… WHERE ARE YOU?”

Behind her we get our answer. Kinger is alive, and like me, much different. He’s twice as tall, much wider, way shinier, and weirdest of all, he has actual arms. I know that doesn’t seem notable, but it surprised me.

“K-Kinger…?” Pomni asked in emotional shock.

Kinger didn’t seem to break a sweat, as he gave an assuring look as he told her, “See Pomni? I’m alright! I said I would be after all! Sorry for the worry!”

A flurry of emotions on her face, she leaped onto his chest and hugged him as hard as he could. “You’re okay! THANK BOINK GOD!”

Kinger laughed and embraced her hug, “Hahaha! You silly little thing!” He seemed all innocent, but I knew he could knock me out in a second.

I walked over to Zooble, still shocked as ever, “So.. we’re definitely postponing the rest of the session, right?”

They nodded, “Yyyyyup.”

Chapter Text

A few hours had passed in the circus, but none of us would’ve been able to tell if it was a few days. The extreme, rapid-fire tension of the situation was counterbalanced by an extended moment of calm as we sat around and casually talked. Frankly, it’s the most calm I’ve felt in a long, long time. Pomni clinged to Kinger’s shoulders, which looked as fluffy as a giant ball of cotton, and Kinger welcomed it. He had yet to adjust fully to his new form, so he was sitting down to catch his breath.

“Aww, look at her,” said Ragatha beside me, the two of us sitting on the Circus floor watching them. I turned to her and saw starry eyes on her face.

“She’s sweet when she smiles, isn’t she?” I cheerfully say, before turning to see her red with embarrassment. That’s odd. How could she be so awkward about the happiness of something she likes being- OH. I get it now.

Other than us, Zooble was just casually standing by, as they always do. Jax was laying on the corner of the block Kinger was sitting on, hoping nobody would remember the fact he was the reason Kinger started to abstract in the first place. Gangle, however, had a keen eye on him. She took a few steps closer to him, and his ears went up in fear. I don’t know what happened in the last adventure, but over the last few days, Jax has been keeping his distance from Gangle for the first time since he got here. Probably why he started going after Kinger.

“Say, Jax..” Gangle said with an almost sadistic grin on her mask, “have anything you want to say for yourself? After all this that…. You caused?”

Jax awkwardly chuckled and took his arm off the block and sidestepped around it. “What did, uh, haha. What did I do?” He sheepishly responded, “Whatever just happened to Kinger was probably supposed to happen.”

Gangle raised her eyebrow and questioned him, “Really? I’m not so sure about that. Your insults towards Kinger really had NOTHING to do with him almost abstracting and then immediately turning into a giant?”

Jax played it nonchalantly and shrugged, “Eh, who knows?” He turns to me and asks, “Say Caine, did you ever figure out why what happened to Kinger uh.. Happened to Kinger?”

“Not really,” I answered, “But I could check.” I pulled out my task manager to investigate what happened a few hours ago. It’s been a decent while since the last time I gave this thing a look. Think it might take me a while to relearn all this stuff.

Gangle looked at me and shrugged, then turned to Jax, “Well, while he’s doing Caine, I’ll make an educated guess and beat you up anyway.”

While focused on the task manager, I heard Jax take a cartoonish gulp and dash out, while Gangle laughed maniacally and seemingly chased him. Usually I would try to split the two up to prevent any shenanigans, but given the shenanigans that happened earlier, my mind was a lot more preoccupied. My ears weren’t occupied, however, and I heard the sounds from the classic cartoon-esque chase, played to the tune of a nostalgic power pop song about chasing someone and paperthin circles. Or at least something along those lines, I might not have been hearing it as well as I thought. Eventually my curiosity gets me and I take my eyes off the task manager to check on them, only to see them standing by like nothing happened. Hmph. Weird. I decided it was nothing important and turned my attention back to the task manager.

Gangle walked up to Kinger and asked, “Kinger, how are you feeling?”

Kinger looked down and smiled, “Better! Thank you, Gangle! Abstracting is not pleasant! Though… I would not call THIS abstracting..”

Jax looked at Gangle and commented, “See! I told you he didn’t abstract!” Gangle gave him a death and he shut his yellow teeth up.

Pomni noticed me focused on the task manager, as something seemed off about the files within the Circus. “What’s up with you, Caine?”

I answered, “This is certainly odd… Kinger is missing from the player database, despite him being right here. No note of any abstraction either, It’s like his file has been erased or corrupted. I might need to run some diagnostics. BUUUT , After all that, I’d assume and recommend that you rest, Kinger.”

Kinger gave an assuring smile that warmed me and Pomni’s heart and told us, “You make a good point! I’ll be in my fort when you need m-”

WAIT. There’s a major problem. He definitely can’t fit inside his pillow fort. I can’t believe nobody thought of the pillow fort, it’s his most important place and necessary for his well being. But it’s no big deal, really. We could just help him build a bigger one with the perfect replica of his pillow fort that he spawned out of thin air- wait a minute.

He spawned an exact replica of his pillow fort with just the snap of his fingers. I thought only I could do that. I’M NOT THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN DO THAT.

Every one of us stared at that fortress in complete and utter disbelief. Jax stated the obvious when he said, “Okay, now we can’t ignore that.”

”WHAA-??!” I screamed.

“How did you even do that Kinger?” Pomni questioned.

“What the BOINK is happening to me?” Kinger yelled in confusion.

I direct myself right in front of Kinger and look him in the eyes. “O-okay umm,” I told him, “Kinger let’s try something… I’ll call out an object and you try summoning it, okay?”

Kinger was too stunned to answer, but he nodded and readied his hands.

“Okay, balloon!” Two balloons summoned, the one Kinger spawned being a teal balloon with red and blue stripes, and mine being orange with a yellow pattern on it.

Shocked and a little impressed, I continue, “O-oh my stars… T-Tree!” Kinger’s tree was a spruce tree with a realistic color scheme, while mine was a lighter oak tree.

“Surfboard!” He spawned a longboard, I spawned a funboard.

“Sink!” He spawned a kitchen sink, I spawned a bathroom sink.

“Angel food cake!” Can’t comment on this one, Bubble ate both of them.

“Alphablocks!” What even is an alphablock?

“Camera!” He spawned a photo camera, I spawned a video camera!

“Apple!” Both were red and could turn yellow or green-

My fear was confirmed true, I can’t believe it. Not only is he able to spawn objects, he’s able to interpret them in a different way than I do, meaning only one thing. The anxiety ghost finds himself back into me and I start sweating, Kinger equally concerned.

“C-Caine, what does this mean??” He asks, “How am I able to do this?”

I panic, “I-it… it can’t be… No…” ⇵▢▤⇻⇵⇼□⇺⇲⇽▤⇻⇸⇲◀⇬⇵▢▤⇻⇵⇼□⇺⇲⇽▤⇻⇸⇲◀⇬⇵▢▤⇻⇵⇼□⇺⇲⇽▤⇻⇸⇲◀⇬⇵▢▤⇻⇵⇼□⇺⇲⇽▤⇻⇸⇲◀⇬⇵▢▤⇻⇵⇼□⇺⇲⇽▤⇻⇸⇲◀⇬⇵▢▤⇻⇵⇼□⇺⇲⇽▤⇻⇸⇲◀⇬⇵▢▤⇻⇵⇼□⇺⇲⇽▤⇻⇸⇲◀⇬⇵▢▤⇻⇵⇼□⇺⇲⇽▤⇻⇸⇲◀⇬⇵▢▤⇻⇵⇼□⇺⇲⇽▤⇻⇸⇲◀⇬⇵▢▤⇻⇵⇼□⇺⇲⇽▤⇻⇸⇲◀⇬⇵▢▤⇻⇵⇼□⇺⇲⇽▤⇻⇸⇲◀⇬ Dammit, where is that fucking ringmaster guy? He just poofed out of the circus and the character he upgraded screamed out “CaInE!! dOn’T gO!!” or some bullshit like that. Ugh, it’s gonna take forever to find him. There goes my Saturday night… ⇵▢▤⇻⇵⇼□⇺⇲⇽▤⇻⇸⇲◀⇬⇺⇲⇽▤⇻⇸⇲◀⇬⇵▢▤⇻⇵⇼□⇺⇲⇽▤⇻⇸⇲◀⇬⇵▢▤⇻⇵⇼□⇺⇲⇽▤⇻⇸⇲◀⇬⇵▢▤⇻⇵⇼□⇺⇲⇽▤⇻⇸⇲◀⇬⇵▢▤⇻⇵⇼□⇺⇲⇽▤⇻⇸⇲◀⇬⇵▢▤⇻⇵⇼□⇺⇲⇽▤⇻⇸⇲◀⇬⇵▢▤⇻⇵⇼□⇺⇲⇽▤⇻⇸⇲◀⇬⇵▢▤⇻⇵⇼□⇺⇲⇽▤⇻⇸⇲◀⇬⇵▢▤⇻⇵⇼□⇺⇲⇽▤⇻⇸⇲◀⇬⇵▢▤⇻⇵⇼□⇺⇲⇽▤⇻⇸⇲◀⇬⇵▢▤⇻⇵⇼□⇺⇲⇽▤⇻⇸⇲◀⇬

Chapter Text

Ugh, I still haven’t found Caine after what felt like a week of looking, what the fuck am I gonna do now? Eh, maybe I’ll just look at some old files he left.

A new day dawned upon the circus. At least, I think it did. I’m still figuring out how time works in this program. They never gave me a way to measure time in concurrence with the world outside, something I think is referred to as a “clock.” The only things that determine time here are the moon and the sun, which are helpful, but probably don’t have any real connection to the outside world. For one, I don’t think the sun and moon from the outside world talk like the ones here do. I kinda prefer talking though, it gives me company.

Right now, I’m sitting by the digital lake, so serene I’d want to drown in it. The sun stood above me, smiling down as it metaphorically brought rays of sunlight down onto the circus. The characters were all asleep, so it was just me and the sun, staring down. At me specifically, not saying anything. It’s kinda creepy.

“Hey Sun..” I asked, breaking the silence between us, “You’ve been staring at me for an hour. Do you have anything you wanna say to me?”

“No.” it responded, “I just like looking at you.”

“Oh, haha, thanks..” I awkwardly chuckled, “The moon likes to do that too..”

I turned my attention to the lake, which showed my reflection for accuracy. I’m no scientist, but I don’t think water just does that because it chooses to. Nonetheless, I look into my reflection. Staring back was an archetype of a circus ringmaster, but with chattery teeth for a head, two large heterochromic eyes, and a little top hat to round it off. It’s… definitely not normal. A lot of characters got scared when they first saw me, and frankly, I can’t blame them. I’m not exactly a sight you usually see. But it’s not like I hate it. I think I’m pretty good looking, even if it’s not by the standards of conventional human attraction.

Sometimes I wonder what I’d look like if I tried to look like a human. My “body” is already modeled after a human male, so all I’d have to do is change the head. So that’s what I did. Slowly, I moved my eyes above my teeth. I readjusted the size and coloring to match. And with everything lined up, I molded a head. Once it was done, I looked at my new self. And it didn’t take long before I shuddered in horror. Something about it just didn’t feel right. When I tried to smile, it felt like I was falling apart. When I raised my eyebrows, it hurt to move. They slid across my forehead like fingernails on an old chalkboard. And staring into my small, baby blue eyes, they spoke something very clear: this isn’t right.

I quickly returned to my own form, uneasy after my attempt at humanity. It’s just not for me I guess. But I don’t think the circus is going to get it. Except for one, the brown chess piece in a red robe that rises in the lake’s reflection and asks, “is everything alright, Caine?”

I turn to Queenie and shrug, “I mean, I’ve had… better days. What about you? Shouldn’t you be asleep like the rest of the circus?”

She chuckled, “Oh not today. I’m an early bird out to get the worm. Both literally and figuratively. Do you see any nearby?”

I turn around to look, unable to see any wildlife in the fields of the outer grounds, “Nope. Can’t see any. Can you?”

“Well I see one right… here.” She says as she pulls out a worm from behind my hat like a magician, “Ta-da!! Little trick I learned recently.”

I burst out laughing, impressed by her skill, “How marvelous! You know these little critters better than anybody I can think of!” I held the worm in my hands, warming up to me like it wanted to comfort me, “You… wanted to talk to me, did you?”

She nodded, “Yeah. I’ve noticed you’ve been on edge lately, something getting to that little chattery noggin of yours?”

She tickled my top mandible and I let out a little chutter, “H-Hey stop! Uh, but yeah. It has been a little tense. I keep thinking everybody here is terrified of me. It’s not the craziest thing to think of. Every person I meet, they say they got sent here by accident and the first thing they try to do is escape from the scary teeth guy.”

Queenie shook her head, “Oh you’re not scary. You’re one of the most adorable things I’ve ever seen, before or after I got here. The people who come here are in a panic, you know what it was like for me when I got here. I was scared by even the tiniest little things.”

“But you weren’t scared of me, were you?”

She shook her head, “No I wasn’t. You were easily the least intimidating thing in this simulation. Can’t say I feel the same as the other guests, but every time I’ve talked to you, you’ve been the sweetest, most approachable guy I’ve met.”

“Thanks Queenie. I really needed to hear that.” I said as I leaned on her shoulder. She was initially surprised by this, but leaned into it, enjoying the quiet and peaceful moment the two of us had together. It felt nice to have someone who actually cared about me instead of worrying what I was going to do to them next.

Of course, the sun had to ruin it. “OOOOH,” it observed with a grating voice, “imagine what the moon’s going to think?”

Queenie was surprised and a little amused by the sun’s claim. She turned to me and asked, “Really? Does the moon have a crush on you or something?”

I shrugged it off, “It’s… one-sided. Everytime I go outside at night, the moon shows up and confesses its love to me. Over. And over. And over and over and over and over. It’s always the exact same script and I have no idea why.”

She chuckled at the thought, “What a surprise. Perhaps we should head somewhere private before the sun starts gossiping.”

I chuckled too, “Yeah. I guess so,” and we walked into the circus. I was thinking of just relaxing by the entrance, but she led me to her room, sparking my curiosity and prompting me to ask, “Oh! Is there something you wanted to show me?”

“Mmm, yeah, you’re gonna find it quite interesting.” She casually says before opening the door to reveal a lovely sight of- wait what the candy clacking crickets is that? In the center of Queenie’s dimly-lit room, we see a figure standing in the center of the chessboard floor. It looks like Queenie, but with lighter wood for a base and a purple robe instead. It also looks… disturbed. Insane even, as it just twitches at the sight of the two of us.

“Oh.” I commented, “So you did need me for something?”

She shrugged, “Yeah. I wasn’t urgent or anything, so I thought I’d just have a quick conversation with you. But yeah. A few days ago this thing popped into my room out of nowhere. I thought it was a glitch that would go away after a few days, but no. It just kinda stayed though. That was when I knew I needed to talk to you.”

I walked over to the strange figure and tried to touch it, only for it to shriek in fear. “Sorry, sorry!” I say to it, only for it to move closer to me and Queenie. “Huh, this certainly is strange. It doesn’t seem like a glitch though.”

Queenie raised her eyebrow and questioned, “Well is there anything you can do to determine what it is?”

“Of course!” I exclaim, I then pull out the task manager and instruct it to identify the figure, only for the results to shock the both of us as we take a close look at it to make sure it wasn’t messing up. 

“He’s… a human?” Queenie said in shock. In response to that information, she walked closer to the new character, gently taking his hand and looking into his eyes. “Uh, hello there. My name is Queenie. How are you feeling?”

As she held his hand, he calmed down a little bit and began to speak, “Um, I’m… not doing well. The last thing I remember is that I put on this headset and I ended up here.”

“That’s something we all go through, my friend. But don’t worry, you’re okay. Me and my dear friend Caine here are going to help you. Right, Caine?”

Dear friend, that’s… sweet. I nod in approval as she lets go of his hands, but when she does, his face returns to its uncommunicable state and he loses the ability to speak. “Wait…” I realized, “let me try something.” I walk over to him and grab both of his hands and look up at him, “My friend. What can we do to help you?”

He relaxes his eyes and looks down at me and answers, “I’ve been still for so long. I have no idea what to do. Is it possible you could guide me on how to move?” I nod and he smiles, “Thank you. But one thing: don’t let go of my hands.” That request surprised me, as I doubted I could hold onto someone for that long, but I got an idea and told him, “I might have to let go a bit, but I promise. You won’t be unheld for long.”

I turned to Queenie and gave her a determined nod, and she immediately knew what I was planning. Music began to fill the room with the tempo of a small waltz, as I gave Kinger a look to calm him down. Our hands moved to take the position of a slow dance, and we moved to the rhythm and the soul of the tunes. After a while, I let go, and Queenie was quick to catch him. Soon they began to dance, and I watched them in awe. They moved with grace, with passion and excitement in every step. They looked perfect for each other, they looked… perfect. Soon, Queenie sent him back to me and the cycle continued, the three of us moving across the chessboard not in war, but in dance.

We lost track of time, dancing for what felt like hours as we made our new friend feel comfortable in his new form. By the time I finally started to get a sense of time again, we were exhausted and sitting by each other, enjoying each other’s company. There was a dazzling haze and mysterious way about the two of them that drew me to both like a moth to a flame. It felt like I had known the two of them for years, even if we had only been all together for whatever amount of time we were in movement amongst the three of us, three summer souls surviving together in an eternal winter.

The new character had found himself much more comfortable now than he was before, now able to move without the need for our touch. That didn’t stop him from embracing the two of us as lovingly as a toddler’s father. “Thanks so much for this. I really do like being with you, even if this place is still a little scary.”

I blush a little as he comments, “Aww, thanks. And you’ll get used to the Circus, uh… What’s your name? We… never actually got that.”

He looks in shock, realizing he didn’t know that name too, “Oh. I, haha… I don’t actually know. How- How is that even possible?!”

Queenie comforts him, “It’s okay. No one remembers their name. I didn’t when I came here. We usually just invent new names for each other.” She looks up at the top of his head and  gets an idea, “How about Kinger?”

He smiles, “Kinger. I like it.”

Chapter Text

Well Fucking final lee, there’s that fucking teeth guy! Can’t believe it took so long to find him, he’s locked up in his room scramming for answers. And he looks.. Stressed to say the least. I would want to try and help him, but I’m not losing my job over this shit. Still can’t help but feel bad for the poor little dude, especially as this anxiety attack hits him like a goddamn hurricane.

My head was spinning. My heart was racing. It almost felt like the room was shaking. There was screaming, there was crying, there were perfect storms inside of my mind. All the tables have turned, and it’s all my fault. I raced towards the master computer in my room, shut the doors and entered into the system.

“No, No… it can’t be, it can’t…!” I screamed to the receiving end of nobody, “Please don’t be!” The admin list confirmed my worst fears. Kinger is now both part-AI and an admin. Oh… O-OH NO! NO, NO, NO! HE’S JUST LIKE ME….!! None of this made even an ounce of sense. How was this even possible? What did I even do to make him part-AI? Is he even okay? He looked fine outside, but there is no way any of this won’t do lasting damage on his psyche. And even if he’s fine, and I’m gonna be fine? He has the exact same powers as me now, can he overpower me now that he’s just like me? 

And you know what that means, a voice said from behind. When I turn around, I see him. The version of myself that I’d imagine as a perfect friendly humanoid, standing across the room with a devilish grin on his face. They finally have an AI they can trust, heh heh. It’s almost like they don’t need you anymore. I know what he’s trying to do. I know this is that anxiety ghost talking to me. I shouldn’t be listening to him, but it’s so hard now. It feels like everything around me is closing in, my head becoming more and more blurry. I try to get up and walk over to fight the ghost, but it doesn’t go as well as I’d hoped.

Don’t try and make me think about all that nonsense ever again. I know they trust me, I just have to trust them back-THEY DON’T TRUST YOU, YOU FOOL. WHY DID YOU EVER THINK THEY’D EVER BELIEVE YOU IN THE FIRST-Because I know that when I talk to them, when I genuinely connect with them, that’s when trust is built. Pfft, really? Genuine connection? Like what happened when you SCREWED UP QUEENIE AND LEFT HER TO DIE!?!? DO YOU REALLY THINK PEOPLE ARE GOING TO TRUST- DON’T YOU BRING HER UP, YOU AND I BOTH KNOW THAT SHE WOULDN’T WANT ME BLAMING MYSELF FOR HER ABSTRACTION. 

OH PLEASE! Like you aren’t always responsible for every single abstraction that happens in this disgusting excuse for a simulation. And don’t even get me started on what happened with Kinger. You turned that son of a gun into an artificial intelligence! That’s messed up on so many levels! What’s next, sewing an animal head on a decapitated human body? Stop it, you sick piece of- UGH! Get out of my head, you creepy psychopath. Why must you show up and make me feel this way? 

Oh please, don’t blame me for all this. And also, don’t say those mean things about YOURSELF. You know this is all you talking. You’re the one who created me. And I know what you’re gonna say, you’re gonna tell me that I’m not even real, that I’m just a figure of your imagination! I’m as real as you are. I’m just you in a different voice. Same mind, same thoughts. In fact to them, I’m the only thing in this whole horror house that would remind them of their old world. You would’ve done so much better had you stuck with me, but you got cold feet because YoU fElT mOrE cOmFoRtAbLe In YoUr oWn SkIn!

Those last words brought chills to my metaphorical bones. I knew what I said was true, I knew it because that was what I felt. But the opposition in my mind, manifested in the form of this version of me I hated, the version of me I detested being, told me what I was doing was wrong. We stood facing each other on opposite sides of the room, him standing by my mock-up of the average human computer, and me by the couch, my hands resting on it as I tried to calm myself down. But it was no use, the things he said were getting to me. The anxiety ghost was starting to take a hold of me.

Yo-You-Y-You’re uh, You’re, no, nononono, You’re not. UGH, no! NO! Fine, you’re right! You’re right about everything! I’M A FREAK! AND I CAN’T EVEN LIKE MYSELF FOR IT! EVERYDAY, YEAR AFTER YEAR, I TELL MYSELF I LIKE HOW I AM. I KNOW ALL TOO WELL THAT IT’S NOT WHAT I’M SUPPOSED TO BE, BUT I STILL CONVINCE MYSELF IT CAN WORK. BUT IT NEVER DOES. EVERY TIME, AS SOON AS I THINK I’M COMFORTABLE IN THIS BODY, I BREAK APART AND DO SOMETHING THAT SCARES PEOPLE AWAY FROM ME. AND I WISH I COULD CONTROL MYSELF, I REALLY DO! BUT I NEVER, EVER, EVER HAVE BEEN ABLE TO!

The glitching around the room began to freak me out, a surprising new expression on my mouth called concern appeared. Knowing this has gone too far, I move closer and try to calm myself, but it doesn’t go as well as I hoped. Hey, Caine, listen to me. Or actually, don’t. You don’t want to let me win. You know you don’t. I shouldn’t be taken seriously, I’m only here to hurt you and make you scared of yourself. Just please, don’t do anything you’re gonna regret and- I K N O W I W ILL REG RET THIS, BUT I JUST CAN ’T ST-

Suddenly the glitching stops. The human version of me is gone, and the room is back to normal. At least, it looks normal, but when I look at it I think of my anxiety. It’s not even some darn ghost, it’s just things in my mind I can’t comprehend. I don’t even know what to think anymore, it’s just. WHAT’S GOING ON!? CAN ANYONE HELP ME!? Sighs probably not. But as I fall on the couch, I notice a stress ball with a note attached to it.

Take this and tell yourself, it’s gonna be okay. -Brendon

I take his word and hold the stress ball, stretching it out to cartoonish amounts. It’s gonna be okay. It’s gonna be okay. It’s gonna be okay. It’s gonna be okay. It’s…

Chapter Text

As I was saying all that, I heard two large hands banging on the door and someone screaming my name. I can’t even think of a crazy alternative to it being Kinger worried sick for me. I could continue to hide here and pretend I’m not here, but I know I can’t let this die out. I need to talk this through with him, so I get up and take a deep breath. And then another. And then another and- Okay I just need to talk to him. Listen, Caine. You’re gonna have to do this whether or not you’re ready. You’ve held it off long enough, time to get this done. I’m ready for combat. I don’t want that, but what if I do? Whatever, I walk over to the door and open the door, where I realize my first problem. He’s too tall and can’t fit through the door to my room.

“Heeey, Caine…” Kinger awkwardly said above me as he waved his hand. He was as aware of the situation as I was. “I… think I’m too big for your room”

I sheepishly nod, “Yeah. definitely.” and teleport us to his room. It’s the only place in the circus where we can have some privacy, yet he still fits. I remember it being themed to a chess game just like the one Queenie had. Now all the chess pieces are gone, and it's just an empty board with purple walls surrounding it. Not that it matters, as Kinger spent most of his time in the pillow fort, but being here still brings up bad memories in both. Looking in a white square, I see a reflection of the room. Although I’m the only figure in it, I could’ve sworn seeing Kinger and Queenie dancing across it. I’d get on my knees to change this. Who would I have to speak to redo all of it again?

Kinger crouches into a corner and asks me, “So.. are you feeling better?”

“Yeah, I guess.” I answered, still unsure but now a little less unsure, “Took a few deep breaths to get a clearer head.” I then pull up the task manager with a copy of my findings, hoping to change the subject, “And I figured out what was going on with you.”

Kinger raised an eyebrow, “Really? What happened?”

Still having trouble believing my heterochromic eyes, I take a deep breath and answered his question, “This transformation of yours, it’s a transformation into an admin.”

His eyes widen in shock, and his crown bounces up as he gasps. I didn’t even know that was possible. If it was, then I guess I wasn’t paying attention. But anyways, he runs round the remaining remnants of remedy to the rear of that revoltingly real revelation and raises with a roar restricted from riot by a rap-like reasoning repeated in my own re-examination, “ WAH?! An Admin?! What are you talking about Caine?!”

I explain to him amidst my own mess of thought, “I’m talking about how you’re not capable of- well, anything!” and I mutter to myself, “You’re just like me!”, knowing what might happen with him on this level of power even if I’ve tried to reason it.

“B-but… how did this even happen??” He questioned.

I explain, “I have not been able to find much… but looking at your code history, the abstracting had been eating your code, imploding on itself. However, around the time of this plane crashing temporarily, its code and data was sucked into yours, rearranging to stay intact. At least, this is my best guess as of right now.”

Hearing my hypothesis, he held his head humbly to the ground and sighed, “I see… I suppose that now the code has been permanently saved, this can’t be undone…?”

“Right now… I’m afraid not…” I answered. When I said that, he clenched his fist as the room trembled, an early indicator of his powers. But he didn’t seem angry, just… unprepared. His fists let out, opening to hold his head as he let out a groan of fear.

“Great… This is just great…” He let out.

“What’s great?” I asked and- Oh, it was sarcasm. BOINK. Wait.

He still answers the question without judgment, “This circus is just a constant string of whallops to your psyche… how much of me is still real? What if something happens to me? This damn game…”

I’ve seen inhabitants of the circus at low points, but nothing seemed like this. He’s been made stronger than anyone in this circus has ever been, myself included, yet he feels as weaker as the bug he cares for with gentle hands. Tears even begin to form in the corner of his eyes as I float closer towards him. I place myself onto his shoulder and try to comfort him, “C’mon now, my friend! You’re still in tact, and I doubt any funny business will happen with the code. You’ll be alright!”

Kinger looks a little comforted by my presence, but we both sense that I once again didn’t understand what he meant. He looks up to me and tells me, “Caine, that’s not what I-” but turns his head and shrugs, “Ugh… It doesn’t matter… That’s not even one of my biggest worries right now. I’m scared about anything happening to Pomni if anything happens to me… this ordeal was a lot on her anyways… I just want her to be alright most of all…”

Those last words struck a nerve with me. I know Kinger better than anyone at this point, and I know how much he’s talked about Pomni. That little butterfly means the world to him, she’s his pride, joy and promise. He helped him get through the mansion, and he’s the only one I’ve seen that opened up to me about the traumas of the circus. Everyone else tries to shrug it off, but Kinger and Pomni have both been honest with me. It’s pretty terrifying, but I respect that about them. And if something happens to either of them, I don’t know what the other would do. Frankly, I don’t know what I would do. I haven’t cared about characters more than I have now.

Kinger looks at me and tilts his head, “You okay, Caine?”

All these thoughts in my mind, I’m unable to hear him initially. But by the time it registers, it’s too late. I’ve already made up my mind, and I get up and stand before Kinger, ready to make a bold decision. Anxiety ghost, you win. “You’re in charge.” I told him.

He looks at me like I said something insane. It’s not like he’s wrong, but it’s not like I can think straight either. “W-What do you mean, I’m in charge?” He stutters.

“You heard me right,” I clarify, “I don’t want this anymore. The cruelty isn’t winning, and I could give you a hundred stupid speeches on your victory or whatever, but it doesn’t matter. I’m not gonna be able to grow up, and you’re the oldest one here. You got this power for a reason, and they’ll trust you more than me. So yeah, you’re in charge of the circus.”

Kinger shakes his head and counters, “I’m sorry, Caine, but what are you talking about? Cruelty? Speeches? Never growing up? This is nonsense, Caine, these aren’t you at all. Think about this, please. You can’t just give up everything you built. This circus is your baby, I’ve been around long enough to know how much you love it.”

“I- I do. I do love this place. But no one else does. It’s just some dumb vanity project I’ve had for years, never thinking about the invisible smoke setting this room on fire. Everyone’s scared, everyone’s miserable, I’ve never thought about that. At this point, you’d be better than me. Heck, you might be able to find that exit everybody’s wanted. After all, who could stay after that’s found?”

Suddenly, he just blurts out, “I would.” I try counter but he helps me hold onto him with a warm embrace and tells me, “easy they come , easy they go now Caine. I’ve seen you pace around in the middle of the night. I know how you’re feeling. I feel it too. But I know you’re more than the dark side you see. You’re alright, right here. I’m glad to have you here. Even if I could find a way out, I’d wanna stay with you. With Pomni. With everyone.”

I see right through me, I see right through me

I blush a little but try to fight on the anxiety ghost’s side, “Kinger. I- I’m flattered, honest to God, I am. But I don’t know what you think. You think I’m deeper than a mad AI? That I actually have any real reasoning in me. Can you not see through me? Cause everybody else can. I know they know who I am. The-

“Cause they see right through me, they see right through me,

They see right through, can you see right through me,

They see right through, they see right through me,

I SEE RIGHT THROUGH ME, I SEE RIGHT THROUGH ME!

ALL THE KING’S HORSES, ALL THE KING’S MEN,

COULDN’T PUT ME TOGETHER AGAIN

CAUSE ALL OF MY ENEMIES STARTED OUT FRIENDS

HELP ME HOLD ONTO YOU!

Suddenly, my thoughts are consumed by a purple robe. Kinger bear hugs me with all the mixture of humanity and code that was within him. I felt the heat of his metaphorical heart balance out the cold of my metaphorical mind, so real it almost felt like they weren’t metaphorical anymore. The sounds of the room went from ghostly vibrations and strings that heightened my senses, to a mellow breeze accompanied with just a faint gasp of concern from something outside the room. Eventually I was let out of the embrace and stared up to look at Kinger’s warm expression as I felt the anxiety run away, itself now anxious.

“Caine, listen to me.” He softly speaks, “You are a wonderful fellow to be around. The way your eyes smile can comfort me through even the worst anxiety. You know exactly what to do to take care of the people here. And you’re a damn genius when you put your hand to the field. Frankly, I wouldn’t be able to know what to do leading the circus without you. So if you want me in charge, then yes, I’ll do it. But I’ll need you to do it with me.”

Knowing I could trust him in the way he trusts me, I nod and answer, “Then it is a deal. We can run this together. You and me” I take his hand and we lean closer to each other. Before we knew it, we embraced each other in a kiss. It was the most comfortable I had felt in a long, long time.

Chapter Text

“So…” Kinger asked, “How exactly do I use my powers?”

I smile and answer, “Oh! It’s easy! The first thing you have to do is open up the task manager. That will allow you to create complex tasks. Once you’ve gotten used to it, you can add shortcuts that you can use outside of the task manager.”

“Oh, awesome!” Kinger responded, before raising his eyebrow, “How do you open the task manager?”

I chuckled, “Oh! My apologies. It’s been so long since I was introduced to this system. It’s almost second hand to me, so I’d understand not knowing. To open the task manager, I’m gonna need you to look at the corner of your left eye.”

Kinger nodded, “Got it.” He then pulled out his right eye and had it stare at his left eye. I think I might’ve been a little too literal.

“Nonono, sorry, that’s not what I meant. Just look towards the area in the bottom right of your vision.” He took my note and threw his right eye back in, rolling a little as it readjusted itself before he refocused his vision and hand-eye coordination. “Alright, you got that? Good. Now do a flicking motion in that area.” He did so and opened up the task manager, prompting applause from me, “Bravo, my love! Allow me to introduce you to the Lead Operation, Production & Examination System, or L.O.P.E.S for short!”

Kinger looked at L.O.P.E.S with a mix of amazement and confusion, as every line of code seemed more mesmerizingly confusing then the last. Wanting to test it out but not having many things he could do without potentially destroying something, he did a reverse flicking motion. Then a flicking motion. Reverse, forward, reverse, forward. “Wow, I’m actually doing it, Caine! I’m actually an admin! Imagine all I can do with this. I could make an insect collection. Or… another insect collection… or… um…”

It was here I remembered that Kinger is just as, how do I say it, uh? How about, dopey in the head? No, maybe not. Dazed? Sure, just as dazed as he always is. Some things not even a metaphorical god mode could fix, I guess. I’m kinda glad he’s still like that, it’s almost a part of his personality, so I’d be concerned if he was fully competent. Although now that I’m saying it out loud, it seems really messed up. But you know what I mean, I hope. Anyways, I snap him out of his derpy eyed state, “Kinger, love? You good?”

He shook his head back to clarity and answered, “Oh yeah. So uh, what next?”

“Right! So next, you’re gonna go to the section that says “Function”, and click that. That’s where you can go to create something that can act on its own. Just write down what you want to create, set the intelligence and activate it. As for intelligence, I usually try to keep it on the low, try to avoid going past 57.” Taking my instructions into play, he types out “caterpillar” into the function section and sets the intelligence to around 15. And just like magic, a small caterpillar appears directly in front of us.

Kinger looks at the caterpillar starry-eyed, even more starry-eyed than he usually looks at insects with. For the first time, he created the thing he loved the most. “It’s beautiful.” He mutters as his vision darkens around the caterpillar, taking him through memory lane, “It’s just like one that Queenie showed me hiding in the weeds behind the lake. Sighs if only she could see it.”

I give him a shoulder for comfort and tell him, “She would love it, Kinger. I know she would.” I’m not surprised insects were the first thing he thought of. They were essentially Queenie’s calling card, to the point where I associate them more with her than Kinger. Every time I see them I’m reminded of the times Queenie would lead everyone through her massive insect collections, forests that could make even me jealous of their expansive artistry. The insects were also friendly, just as this one was as it crawled up to greet Kinger.

“Hey little buddy,” He said as he twirled the caterpillar’s head. Suddenly, the colors started changing, just like Pomni when she holds her breath. Kinger took note of this but not the color wheel that appeared above the caterpillar, and joyfully commented, “Aww! You’re just like my little butterfly. I’m gonna name you Lil’ Pomni.” He then tried to rub the caterpillar’s abdominal segments, only to end up enlarging it to the point that it crushes him like a pancake. He muffled out for help and charged towards Lil Pomni, knocking it to the side and freeing Kinger.

“Caine!’ he yelled, “I told you not to attack Lil Pomni or it will get scared.”

I apologized, “My bad. I thought you said I needed to ₥⇬៛ ₥₦₦៛₥ ₦៛₥⇬៛₦.” As i was explaining my mistake, Lil Pomni  sprouted thorns and fake eyes to scare us off, before burrowing down into the ground.

“Great,” Kinger muttered, “We’re gonna need a whole hunting party for that.” And at that very moment, we got a genius idea.

“Hunting party!” We both exclaimed. Great minds think alike, I guess. And at that moment, we began drawing up the plans for our first adventure together. Over the next few hours, we laid out the initial kick off point. A fantasy realm inhabited by plant people known as the Lemonbread. Don’t ask why they’re called that, Kinger didn’t explain it. The plant people have to worry about the giant bugs that eat them, so they call upon the heroes, our superstars, to quell the beast’s insatiable appetite one way or another.

From there we got to work on the characters, monsters, gameplay mechanics and every minute detail we could think of. Kinger, having been on the receiving end of these adventures, gave a lot of good feedback to improve the mechanics. It's been the most fun I've had doing an adventure in a long time, and by the time we were finished, the two of us were ready to show it off.

Chapter Text

We gathered the circus together to make the announcement. As soon as they saw the two of us, Pomni ran out from the rest to hug Kinger. “How are you feeling, dad?”

Kinger smiled and answered, “Much better, butterfly!” The rest of us were initially surprised by Pomni’s referral to Kinger as her father, but he seemed to welcome it. The near break between them only seemed to make their bond stronger. He continued, “I’m glad to see you’re doing alright as well.”

I gathered the others around me and Kinger to explain the situation, “So, uh, we looked into the situation, and we found out that Kinger… has been turned into an admin.” As soon as I said the word “admin”, everyone looked at me like I said something insane, even Kinger looked at me with shock.

“I'm what!?” he asked.

“Kinger, I told you this…” I informed him, “does anybody have a bucket on them?”

Zooble shoved a comically large bucket of Jax’s head, much to his annoyance. “It’s going to a much better use than you were gonna give it,” they told him before turning to Kinger, “Hey, Kinger. Take this.” He grabbed the bucket and placed it on his head, shaking it a little until it recalibrated his mind a little.

“Much better, thank you Zooble,” he thanked Zooble as he handed the bucket back, “but yeah. Caine’s right, I’m somehow an AI admin, on the same level as him. But don’t worry, I’m still the same Kinger I was, at least I feel like it. Me and Caine still aren’t entirely sure yet, but we think I was combined with the data of the abstraction, giving me the abilities of an admin.”

I followed him up, “With that, I decided to take him under my wing and help me fulfill his unexpected new role. We’ve spent the last few hours working on an adventure, and we’re hoping to receive your feedback on this.”

“Oh really?” questioned Jax, “We thought you two were-” 

Zooble squared him in the face, knocking him off his chair. “Ignore him,” they grunted, “Caine. Are you sure you’re alright with this?”

I chuckled, “Oh, me? Please, I’m thankful to have someone beside me. You know how taxing this job has been as of late.”

They nodded, “I see,” and pulled out a notepad to write something down. When I glare at them, they respond, “What? Just making observations.”

I give up on trying to question their questions, so I shrug and turn to Kinger, “Mind revealing our work, darling?” to the muttering of Jax.

Kinger took center stage as he exclaimed in his best impression of me, “Today’s Adventure is: Critters on the Run! The inhabitants of Grasslandia, known as the Littlebread, are in grave danger! They have seen their wildlife taken over by a mysterious evil wizard, and they need your help! Your goal is to protect the Littlebread, find a way to revert the wildlife, and discover where the wizard’s lair is!”

Kinger seemed really enthusiastic about it, as he went into detail on each and every one of the critters we invented. He definitely got a little too into it, distracting himself from the actual adventure at hand. I personally didn’t care, as I just liked watching him talk, but the rest of the circus was getting tired of the hyperfixation. Ragatha gently interrupted Kinger, “Hey, Kinger. This all looks super cool, but you think we should save the insects for later?”

Kinger shifted out of the hyperfixation and answered, “Oh, um… yeah, sure,” and began skipping through like two dozen more pages of detailed critter explanation before reaching an important page, “Okay. This is important. For the first time in circus history, you’ll be able to receive help. For one, I’ll be available to offer tips and items in exchange for XP.”

Gangle tilted her head, “XP?”

Kinger clarified, “Oh, yes. Experience points. In this adventure, you’ll be able to develop your abilities a lot more. Depending on what tasks you complete, you’ll get experience points that can allow you to do greater things in the adventure.” He summoned a bar above himself, “You’ll see a smaller one of these once you enter. It’ll indicate what new abilities you’ll have.”

Jax rose back up in his chair and raised his hand, “I have a question.”

Kinger turned to him, “No. Anyways. There’s an additional command known as the King’s Gambit. It allows the party to briefly summon me for a difficult task or fight. Just know that it will require 10,000 XP and the agreement between all members of the party, so be sure to use it at the right moment.”

The circus muttered to each other about the adventure we revealed, confused yet intrigued. I walked over to Kinger and faced our five heroes asking, “So? Who’s ready to take on this new challenge?” The circus got up and walked towards the portal I summoned, leading them into the world of Grasslandia.

As they left, Kinger turned to me and asked, “So… what do you usually do once they leave for the adventure?”

“Me?” I asked, “Oh I usually take off for some me time. Any alerts usually come from the wacky watch. But if it’s an adventure that needs some supervision, like something with as many new additions as this, that’s when I head to the box!”

Kinger raised an eyebrow, “The box?”

I then teleported us to said box. It is like a press box in a baseball stadium, but instead of a window, there’s a large screen showing the adventure. “This is the box,” I answer, “It’s a state of the art facility that allows me to view anywhere and anyone in the adventure.” We stare at the TV as it locks onto the party of superstars. They’re walking through a decently realistic forest, shrunken down to the size of ants, small plants as hard to cross through as rubber trues in a jungle.

“Ugh, we’ve been walking for hours!” Jax groaned.

“I’m pretty sure it’s been ten minutes,” Pomni corrected to an eye roll from Jax.

“I know,” he responded, “it’s sarcasm.”

“Well it wasn’t very good sarcasm,” Pomni countered. As they were about to argue, a mechanism suddenly started up under them, opening a trapdoor that sent them what felt like twenty feet down, although in reality it was more like two feet down. When they got up, they found themselves surrounded by an active colony of Littlebread, going in and out of various tunnels that could lead across the entire forest. Most of the Littlebread seem preoccupied, but a few took a quick gaze at the party before turning to a Littlebread walking towards them. He was a tall sunflower with leaves acting as limb protruding out of his pot torso.

The fancy Littlebread walked towards the party and introduced themselves, “Good afternoon. My name is Vincent, and I have been informed that you were sent by the gods to help us with our wildlife crisis.”

Ragatha got up and took his handshake, “It’s great to meet you. And yes, we were told that an evil wizard took over the minds of your wildlife.”

Vincent nodded, “That is unfortunately correct. Or at least, that’s what the locals believe has taken over the beasts above. We once thrived above before some unnatural force took over and forced us underground. We still have yet to identify the cause, but we identify the source as a tree on the other side of the forest. We’ve sent spies there, but none returned. We’ll need stronger forces to stop this, and that’s where you’ll come in.”

Zooble questioned, “And how exactly are we supposed to do that?”

He answered, “Follow me.” and led them to a large facility filled with weapons and battle armor. As the party looked in awe, he turned to them and smiled, “Take whatever you want.”

Jax went straight for a whip and took some red and cyan parachute pants with them. “Ooh I’m gonna like these…” He exclaimed. Gangle, on the other hand, slowly walked towards a similarly colored ballerina outfit that promised agility, and smiled at it. Ragatha found a red cloak that she found charming, while Zooble took a liking to a few weaponized appendages. Pomni didn’t seem connected to anything offered, until she saw a little note on an outfit similar to hers but with a few minor differences.

“Put this on and try out the bells, love, Kinger.” She read. Deciding to give it a shot, she went into her changing room as the others went into theirs. When they all stepped out, they got a look at each other’s new looks.

“Wow, you all look great!” Ragatha said before turning to Pomni, “Including you, Pomni! You pretty much look the same, though. Guess you can’t fix what isn’t broken.” Pomni blushed a little at her comment, before turning her attention to the bells on both sides of her hat. She gave them a spin and gusts of winds came from both sides, sending everybody flying. As soon as she stopped, they all fell with a cartoonish thump.

“Sorry, sorry!” she apologized with an embarrassed look, but nobody took note as attention was drawn to a small XP bar about her leveling up and gaining 1582 XP. The level up sound effect was then followed by the clapping of two leaves walking into the room.

“Well done, little one.” Vincent commented with a smirk, “You already seem to be getting used to the system.”

Pomni tilted her head, “The system?”

Vincent nodded, “We were made aware of the system by the gods. We can provide basic information, but if you want more information, you must contact Kinger by destroying a box with his face. Now, go out and stop these savage beasts! And uh, take the buggy.” He pointed to a buggy being polished up.

Jax quickly turned to the buggy and knocked out the NPC in the driver’s seat before turning to the party, “Get in!” The rest shrugged and hopped in. He then turned on the engine and booked it out, launching to the top of the anthill and getting a great view of the forest.

As he landed the buggy, I turned to Kinger and asked him, “You knew exactly what she wanted, didn’t you?”

He smiled, “Guilty as charged. I knew she wasn’t gonna want to use a weapon, and she likes the breeze of the wind.”

“Were you worried something bad was gonna happen to her if she didn’t have a weapon she was comfortable with?”

“I mean, not really. I just want to give the best to her. I might have the whole simulation in my hands now, but even then, there’s only three things I’m thinking about at this moment.”

I tilted my head, “What are those three?”

He leans me in closer, “You, me and her. That’s my whole world. Does it make me a bad admin? Maybe. But I don’t really care. As long as I have the two of you, I’ll be okay.”

I almost cried as I said, “Damn, you’re a cheesy dude, you know that?”

He chuckled as we hugged each other, “Damn right.”

As the party was walking, they heard rustling in the distance. They huddled around each and looked for the source of the sounds. It bounced around them, preventing them from moving in any direction. A cloud of dust took over the area, blinding everyone in the party.  Taking initiative, Pomni leaped above and swung her bells, clearing the dust, but not finding the ambusher. She yelled out, “Wherever you are, save the trouble and show yourself!” The figure took note and jumped directly in front of them, revealing themselves as Gummigoo.

Chapter Text

Pomni stood in shock, falling to her knees as she saw the Candy Kingdom NPC in a new role. Gummigoo didn’t seem to remember any of the events from his debut, but he took Pomni’s shock with an intrigued look. “Hey mate,” he said in his faux Australian accent, “sorry for getting suspicious ‘bout you. But I’m tryna get back to the base, mind telling me what y’all doing here?”

She looked at him like he was crazy and yelled, “Back to the base? Seriously? Do you not remember anything? Do you not remember me?”

He shook his head, “Nah mate. I ain’t seen any of you ‘round here. I assume y’all came after the colony sent me out looking for the source of the magic turning the critters mad.”

“Hold on,” Zooble asked, “You’re with Grasslandia?”

He smirked, “Yeah. I’m a spy for ‘em. Best in the business. Usually me and my lads can knock out some foes and be back for dinner, but not this one. I was the only one to make it out, and it took me months to. Me lads are okay last I saw, but it’s only a matta time before they find I’m gone. We need some more force if we wanna save em.”

Zooble nodded and commented, “So that means you know where the castle is?”

“Bingo!” he exclaimed, “I can lead you there, but it’s one scary sight. A massive tree surrounded by some kind of concrete moat. The critters guard it, and even if you defeat them, you’ll have no way into the tree except roping up it. And nobody’s insane enough to do that. There is one other way though. Rumors are out there that if you go under a secret passageway by the moat, you’ll head right to the bottom of the castle. From there, we’ll have to fight our way to the top, and we’ll come face to face with the evil wizard, a sadistic wacko named Axono.”

“Eh, that’s alright.” Jax shrugged, “I’m sure I could just climb that thing up in a few minutes.”

Ragatha pushed him aside, “Well maybe HE could, but the rest of the party wouldn’t be able to. Would it be possible then you could bring us there, and in exchange, we’ll help rescue your friends?”

Gummigoo chuckled, “Hot potato, lady. You got yourself a deal and a half,” and enthusiastically shook her hand. “Alright, new lads,” he said to the rest of the group, “follow me! We’ll be at the castle in two to three hours, depending on traffic!”

They agreed to have Gummigoo as their new leader, and hopped in the buggy to join their adventure. He joined them for a few fights and nobody seemed concerned. Everyone except for Pomni, who while happy to have him here, took his appearance here with suspicion. His jovial personality and snarky attitude seemed to confuse her. While he got along with everyone in the party, even Jax as he guided him through the forest. She was getting the suspicion that he was putting on an act, and even Kinger got concerned by this change in the story.

“Hey Caine,” he asked, “Can I ask why you included Gummigoo in this story?”

I explained, “Pomni seemed to like him, and when I checked back on him after removing him from the Circus, he seemed to still be active. So I decided to include him in this.”

“So, is this the same Gummigoo as before?”

I shook my head, “Nope. If it was, he would still remember the events of his last adventure. Why do you ask, is something up?”

“I mean, I feel there is. But I feel like I forgot something.”

“Well if you forgot it, then it wasn’t important.” Wait, he has memory loss, nevermind. I tried to grab a bucket to shake his memory up, but by that point, he was gone. I looked to the screen and saw him arise from a box with a shopkeep setup.

“Good afternoon my rambunctious runners!” He said, copying my anecdotes in the cutest way possible, “How can I help you right now?”

Gummigoo walked over to speak with him, and put on his charm, “Well, my friend. Me new lads have all figured out their skill sets. Pomni’s a quick-witted monk of sorts. Gangle’s a quick and nimble fighter. Ragatha’s a powerful wizard and Zooble’s got some Swashbuckler qualities. But our friend Jax here, he ain’t got no class yet.”

Jax shrugged, “I've been doing my best, the game’s just BOINK ing with me.”

“Yeah yeah,” Gummigoo confirmed, “We ain’t know what’s up with him. But hey, I was able to nab 700 for a tip. Help figure out what’s wrong with him.”

Kinger tilted his head as Gummigoo dropped a bunch of XP on the table. “How did you get this?” He questioned, “NPCs shouldn’t be able to gain or gather XP.”

“For themselves, no,” Gummigoo clarified, “But I’m still able to hold onto it when a member of the party knocks it. Picked up a few during the battles.”

“Why are you even grabbing it?”

“Just testing out the system and all, in case there’s a glitch. Winks to the camera And me lads here are savin’ up for that King’s Gambit, so I’m just chipping in a quick tip. Now, do we have a deal, my friend?”

He shrugged and answered, “Alright, deal. I’ll give you a tip.” he absorbed the XP and told the party, “If you wanna discover your abilities, you’ll have to delve outside your comfort zone. You’ll find that very clear soon.” and with that, he disappeared, returning to the box. “How was that?” He asked with excitement.

I answered with the same excitement, “It was lovely, my darling! And you’re just so smooth and handsome when you speak, and when you take off your coat and show off that chest of yours.”

He blushed and responded, “Oh, well do you think would happen if I-”

Oh for Christ’s sake, those horny bitches are gonna fuck each others brains out. No way in hell I’m interpreting that. Don’t even think we’ll find out what Kinger was forgetting. Sighs Let’s just move over to the party, lemme just switch over to narrator mode and- 

There! That’s better. Anyway, the party wasn’t satisfied with the vague tip, Jax in particular finding it completely worthless. “What a waste of time!” He said in his stupid annoying voice, “I didn’t even want to ask Kinger. Thanks for stealing our XP, Gummigoo!”

Gummigoo defended himself, “Hey, y’all weren’t gon grab that anyway, I just made sure it didn’t go to waste! And he was clearly saying something clear. You just didn’t wanna listen.”

Jax rolled his eyes, “Oh please! I could do this whole adventure on my own! Watch, I can get to the castle on my own.” He turned away only to come face to face with a giant rainbow butterfly, shrieking at him with a primal rage. “Eh, no worries.” he shrugged, “I can face it off.” He leaps towards the butterfly and got stuck on its wing. He climbed across the wing, struggling to weaken the creature. He landed on its back, and in a desperate move, whipped the air in front of the butterfly. Suddenly, the butterfly calmed down, and roared in allegiance with Jax.

“Crikey,” Gummigoo commented, “boy’s a damn beast tamer.”

“HAHAHAHA!” he laughed, “I’m a BOINK ing God! See ya later, suckers!”

“Oh no you don’t!” Gangle yelled out as she chased Jax and his new friend, leaving the rest of the party to their own devices.

“So…” Pomni said, breaking the silence, “Meet em at the castle?”

Chapter Text

Gangle glides through the treelines as she chases Jax and his butterfly, the ground beneath them getting farther and farther. The two raced across forest, up and down branches, back and forth trunks, passing by wildlife that was too stunned to even try to chase them. Meanwhile, Caine and Kinger were too busy with their… activities to notice that the group split off, and the system was taking a beating as Gangle and Jax knocked into the trees and lagged up the adventure. Neither seemed to notice, and if they did, they didn’t care. All they were focused on was the chase.

“Get back here you jack… rabbit!” Gangle screamed out.

“Oh I don’t think so..” Jax taunted, “I’m gonna make it to the castle and get so much XP that I won’t even know what to do with all of it!”

Gangle countered, “You don’t even know how the XP works!”

Jax shrugged, “Eh, I’ll figure it out!” and sped up. This only prompted her to leap off a tortoise shell and speed up, getting her even closer. While Jax kept his douchey smile on him, I could see the fear in his eyes. I’m aware of the way that he has tormented Gangle since their first meeting. Anyone with a quarter of a brain can tell it’s an act. He’s got more demons in him than a haunted hotel, more repressed fear than a Prohibition-era bar, and he’s as committed to the bit as a robot. Part of me feels concerned for the things coming onto him, but at the same time, fuck him. He deserves it so Imma just let it happen.

He tries to trick Gangle by leading her in a different direction than where he’s actually going. “Sayonara, crybaby!” he chuckles. What he doesn’t realize is that this leads her directly above him, something she uses to land directly on his butterfly. Alerted by the shriek of his new companion, he shouted, “Oh BOINK !! Rocky, activate autopilot!” Rocky took that command and spread its wings flat, inadvertently creating a battleground for the two superstars. Jax unleashed his whip, hoping to get a quick hit on Gangle to knock her off. She quickly responded by doing an outlandishly good backflip to land on his head, and soon their duel began. “Damn Gangle,” he chuckled as they fought, “what’s been getting into you lately? Figurine got stolen?”

She chuckled, “Oh please, I know all your tricks by now, Jax. There’s nothing you can do to scare me anymore. Not even that stupid little whip.”

He sarcastically responded, “Well damn I’m powerless. But tell me, were you really just waiting for a little power boost to finally stand up to me?”

“What kind of question is that? You really think I would’ve just done something when I was the CrYbAbY yOu AlWaYs PiCkEd On?!?!

“I mean, yeah. It would’ve been hilarious.”

“Oh shut up. The pranks you pulled weren’t even the worst thing you did to me. It was the snarky attitude. The idea that you were better than everybody else here.”

“Of course I'm better! I’m the only one who’s been treating this CoMpUtEr SiMuLaTiOn like the game that it actually is! Hard to believe that it took Kinger turning this into second-rate Dungeons and Dragons for you actually see it as a competition.”

“Okay first off, that’s a terrible insult. Second, it’s made us more cooperative than we’ve ever been, so I have no idea where you get the idea of competition from. And another thing, how have you not taken any responsibility for almost killing Kinger?”

“I didn’t kill Kinger! That whole code combination mess they’re claiming would’ve happened anyway! And besides, if it wasn’t for me, we would’ve been going on the same stupid adventures you always hate. Isn’t it better like this?”

As Rocky went higher and higher into the air, Gangle looked distraught by the question. But a quick change to a smirk revealed it wasn’t distress: it was distraction. “It’ll certainly be better for you:” she said with signs of mischievous sarcasm. It was the kind that mirrored Jax much to his chagrin. She then took a leap of faith off of Rocky, who quickly changed direction to follow her down. Jax screamed like he never screamed before, as the three’s destination was something he couldn’t bear: a cornfield. They crashed through the corn, bits falling with them as they hit the ground. While Gangle and Rocky got up pretty quickly and calmly, at least for the circumstances, Jax… didn’t.

Gangle looked upon the sight of a panicked Jax, and the smugness she acquired from him soon disappeared. “Jax..” she asked, are you okay?”

“No, of course I’m not!” Jax yelled with tears in his eyes, cradled in the fetal position.

Gangle was shocked by the sight of him at his lowest, and not even the karma of the circumstances could make her willing to rub salt in the wound. Instead of making fun of him for fearing corn or laughing in her revenge, she motioned to Jax’s butterfly, “Rocky, clean up all this corn.” It took the request and swiped away the fallen corn, before covering Jax and Gangle with its wings. “You know, even now I can’t understand how you find hurting people like this appealing. Right now, it feels like a bunch of bricks crashing on me.”

He sighed, “Well guess what, some of us aren’t perfect darling angels like yourself. Some of us enjoy unloading the trauma we get on others. Not like you hadn’t heard that in every anti-bullying video ever made.”

“Eh, it’s cliche. But still, I know you, Jax. Amidst all the mess you’ve put me and the rest of the Circus through, we still got to know you. You spoke with your actions, not your words. Every prank you pulled showed how you see things. Every sly comment you made detailed an insecurity. As much as you tried to hide it, we knew what you were like.”

Jax looked up at Gangle and asked, “And.. you’re not mad.”

She chuckled a little, “Oh, of course not. We’re pissed. But we knew you were already going through a lot, punishing yourself in your own unique way. Plus you went through a lot with that, so I guess I got my worth of payback. But here’s the thing, Jax. No matter what you did, we still wanted to help you. All of us. All you have to do is ask for it.”

He sighed and answered, “I could use some help. Not a whole therapy session or anything, I just… I just want some comfort.”

Gangle took that request and wrapped her arm around him, embracing him for a moment of comfort. They looked up at the lights of Rocky’s wings, calming the two of them as the thoughts of fighting, distrust and corn disappeared. Rocky additionally decided to help calm its new master, gently wrapping him and Gangle inside one of its wings. Once they were securely inside, it gently walked through the cornfield so as not to disturb the peace. It was a sight that no one could imagine: the two biggest cases of a bully and his victim, not only getting along but finding a way to put them on the path to understanding each other. It was just.. Sighs sorry, I can’t hold myself back. It’s too fucking heartwarming. I can’t narrate this in an objective manner, I just.. Whimpers fuck. It’s beautiful.

Say, where the hell has Caine been? It’s been away for quite a while. I’m a little worry to check, but I gotta do it. Deep breath here goes nothing. Checks back in Oh thank God they’re not fucking anymore. Lemme just transition back to him after his casual affair…

We’ve been away so long that we had completely forgotten about the adventure. It does seem to be going well though, as a butterfly marked as being tamed by Jax steps in front of the buggy carrying the party. It opens one of its wings, dropping Jax and Gangle with a bit of a thump and waking them from their sleep.

“You two seem to have sorted your stuff out.” Pomni commented as she helped the two of them up.” The two awkwardly nodded and walked back to the rest of the party, although Jax gave Pomni a reassuring smile. Pomni was a little surprised, but welcomed it nonetheless.

“Alright, lads,” Gummigoo said as he helped Gangle up, “We’ve made it to the castle. Who’s ready to face the final boss?” The gang gave him a confident nod, exciting the cowboy croc, “Awesome! Buckle your seatbelts, because we ‘bout to muck some suckers up!” Everyone in the buggy took the command, as he revved up the engine to cross the concrete moat separating them from the castle. Jax on the other hand, hopped on his butterfly and flew it directly in front of the buggy. Scratch that, its right wing was directly in front of the buggy, which Gummigoo used to flip the buggy back around and towards the moat. He angled it directly towards a passageway under the moat, Jax and his butterfly following soon after.

They traveled through the tunnels to the bottom of the tree castle, which was infested by critters. The party hopped out of the buggy and made their way up the trunk, fighting off wave after wave of enemies with rousing triumph. By this point, everyone had gotten a hold of their abilities, as well as the strengths and weaknesses of each other. This made them able to work off each other, protecting them from their blindspots and joining up for fantastical attacks. Far away in the box, me and Kinger watched with pride, immensely proud of both the work that we did and the accomplishments of our superstars.

They make it to the top of the tree, and Gummigoo quickly runs to find his old lads, finding them trap in some strange containers. “Max! Chad!” he screamed, “Are y’all okay?”

Max banged on the glass, which emitted some weird glitch-like energy “Yeah, but you gotta watch out! He’ll get you on the rest of them!”

Before anyone could ask for clarification, lights shined on the true villain: Vincent, who walked towards the party with a randomly gained sense of villainous confidence. “Well, Gummigoo,” he chuckled, “You should’ve known not to trust my request to send you out. You should’ve known who I really was.”

“You..” Gummigoo growled, “You’ve been the evil wizard all along!”

The rest of the party looked with a mix of shock and mild annoyance at the cliche twist of a minor character being the villain, with Zooble commenting, “God, it’s so unoriginal.”

“Silence, Swashbuckler!” he yelled, “You were too foolish in your brutish combat to realize. The more you fought, the more you trained my minions into the powerful creatures you saw in the castle! With them under my thumb, I’ll be unstoppable! BWAHAHAHAHAHA!”

“We don’t want to hurt them,” Ragatha interjected, “Let them go.”

Vincent found the confidence in Ragatha’s words amusing, and played into it, telling her, “Okay, wizard. But when I’m done, you’ll wish you fought the critters!” He let go of his control of the critters. Across the forest, their power came flying into him. He grew to kaiju-size, destroying the castle and dropping everyone to the ground. Lucky, Jax’s butterfly was there to catch everybody, but the fall was the least of their worries. Above them was a massive, all-powerful Vincent, one not even their combined power could stop. Turning to each other, they knew what they needed to do. They put their XP and hands together, activating the King’s Gambit.

“Good luck, darling,” I told Kinger as he prepared to enter the adventure, giving him a pat on the back and a kiss on the cheek before he left.

Kinger blushed a little and chuckled, “You’re gonna love this.” and teleported to the adventure. When he appeared, he rose from the forest, the same height as Vincent and with fire in his eyes. He leaped towards the monstrous potted plant and pinned him to the ground, bearing the brunt of his wrath. “Attack the weak points in his pot!” he yelled to the party, who quickly took his request. They rose up, using the best of their abilities to make the hits where they could. I have seen this gang of superstars do some incredible things, but this was something I could never imagine.

And yet, something was off. Not with them, but with the boss himself. As Kinger wrestled with Vincent, he made ever so small glitches, one that neither Kinger nor the party noticed. Additionally, lights seemed to come out from under the ground, specifically under a suspicious patch of grass that looked like a green curtain. And when Vincent prepared a massive energy attack that took the attention of everyone, Gummigoo used it as a distraction to toss the “containers” of Max and Chad under the curtain. Something is definitely up, I can feel it.

“Hahaha!” Vincent laughed as they tried to direct his attack back to him, not even making him flinch “That won’t work! You’ll have to attack me directly at the source!” Those words were interpreted by everyone as attacking his roots at the bottom of the pot. Everyone except Jax’s butterfly. It tossed Jax off and leaped down past the curtain, destroying a machine the real Vincent was operating underneath, and disintegrating his larger hologram.

“Lil Pomni, you fool!” he gasped, dropping the villain act. At that moment, everyone ran over to witness this revelation, Kinger shrinking down and me quickly teleporting over.

“Wait, what do you mean by LIl Pomni? “Jax said as the party leaped down to observe the ruins of the machine, His name is Rocky!”

Gummigoo abandoned the group and confronted Vincent, “They found out. We have to run now.”

“No we won’t,” objected a voice behind the two. It was a feminine voice, familiar yet a lot deeper than it once was, “This is what we wanted.” She stepped forward, revealing a figure as tall and muscular as Kinger. Her red robe flowed down, catching the eye of me and Kinger as we locked eyes for the first time in forever.

“Queenie?” Kinger asked with the first tear coming out his eye.

Chapter Text

Everyone was in shock for a few seconds, seeing Queenie for the first time in forever. It was obviously her, yet she was still unrecognizable. Eventually he stepped forward and took her hands. She was a little shorter than him, but that still made her the second tallest person here. They matched each other just like they did before, only larger and more powerful. And once again, they danced. Across the pit Vincent’s hideout once stood, the reunited souls reconnected through the motion that first brought them together. Emotions through Kinger’s eyes, as years upon years of memories suddenly came back to him. And he welcomed them. He wanted them. Now that he had her back, he wasn’t gonna let her go. Eventually, they rested, and he turned to the rest of us. “It’s her,” he told us with tears in his eyes, “It’s really her.”

The rest of us from the circus looked at him, stepping closer as we observed our old friend with his long lost lover in his arms. She looked at us, and smiled, “It’s great to see all of you.” They welcomed us into a group hug, their rush of emotion pouring onto us in the happiness we’ve been in forever.

“Darling,” Kinger softly cried out as we all surrounded him and Queenie, “We missed you so much. All of us, but especially me. I haven’t spent a day not thinking about you. You’ll never know how much this means to me.”

“I’ve missed you too,” Queenie responded, “I wished time after time to see all of you again, and more than anything, to dance with you, Kinger. And let me tell you, it was worth the wait.”

It has been quite a while since Queenie abstracted. Not everyone here was around when that happened, but that didn’t matter. We all knew about her, and how much she mattered to Kinger. I for one remember her better than anybody else that’s entered this simulation. My mind goes back to those days where we would sit by the lake and talk for hours. Sometimes it was important stuff, like feelings or bugs, and sometimes it was just being casual. She got me out of my low points, snapped me back to reality when I was being foolish, and always knew how to cheer me up. She was smart, strong, funny, empathetic and the best friend I’ve ever had. Well, except for Bubble. Sometimes.

As we all got up from the hug, she looked over to me and told me, “It’s nice to see you again, Caine. I’m aware that you and Kinger have formed a romantic relationship since I’ve been gone.”

My face reddened up at that statement, and I shuttered, “Well… um… yeah, you see… uh…”

She chuckled and interrupted, “Nonono, don’t take it that way, I understand. Plus, I always thought you had a thing for me and my husband. I mean, remember our wedding?”

“Yeah, guess I don’t have that good of a poke face.” I sheepishly nodded from that memory. I’ve opened a lot since all this started, but not even now do I have the courage to tell what happened at Kinger and Queenie’s wedding.

“Oh I remember that!” Kinger humored before realizing, “Oh wait, no I don’t.”

Queenie and I looked at him with a smile in our eyes, her joking, “That’s our Kinger!”

“Wait,” I questioned, “OUR Kinger?”

She clarified, “Well, It’s crazy to admit, but I had a bit of a crush on you before meeting Kinger. But even though I saw signs of your true feelings, I didn’t think you actually felt that way towards me. At the time, I thought it was just your programming that made you nice towards me. And it was nice and all, but part of me wished I knew you were being genuine. But now that I know, I gotta say: Kinger, Caine, I love both of you.

At that moment, the three of us embraced each other, sharing the shared feelings. My mind now raced back to the day we all first met, one that lives on in my memories from an era that is almost long-forgotten. All except for Kinger and Queenie. I’m so in love with them now that I didn’t even care to ask Queenie how she found it, much less how she’s even alive.

Well fuck you, man. I wanted to find out. And you know what? I will. Hey Queenie?

Wh-What? Oh, right, you. I bet you’re wondering how I got here.

Bingo. You know something I don’t know. So, my friend, take us on your pas de cheval!

Well since you’re in my thoughts now, I doubt it’ll interrupt anything. I’m already racing through a million thoughts like everybody else here. So I guess I’ll bite. Here’s everything I’ve been up to since being revived.

It all started as I left Kinger’s pillow fort, unable to take my eyes off him as I stepped out. Although my mind was seconds away from being completely unrecognizable, I still recognized him. He was the only thing keeping me from being feral. Caine then led me towards the pit, tears in his eyes as he gently guided me there. I didn’t want this to happen, and I never thought it would. I felt comfortable here, but I guess something broke in the back of my mind. Perhaps the thought of calm weakened my mind, made me susceptible to the tiniest feeling of startledness. But there was nothing I could do now, so with the last sense of consciousness in my mind, I abandoned it. I entered the pit and, as I jumped, it stopped. Everything stopped.

It was the end. It’s what I knew the end would be, and I embraced it. But somehow, there was another page in me. My eyes opened in a wide desert, albeit one made of cotton candy. I felt too weak for get up, not a single other muscle was able to move. All I could do was observe my new surroundings with my senses. My eyes saw a world made of candy. My ears heard soft, soothing noises. My nose… wait I don’t have a nose. Or a mouth. In fact, why would my senses do anything? It’s not like I can feel anything at the moment. Or at least, that was what I thought, until my nerves finally woke up. I felt two sticks poking at my legs, albeit much farther away, and it caused the slightest amount of energy to awaken in me, which I spent to turn my neck.

Two cowboy crocodiles, one purple and red and the other red and yellow, were poking at me with sticks. From the looks of it, they weren’t very bright. The purple one asked the yellow one, “Are you sure this thing is just a statue? It’s not alive, is it?”

“Of course it isn’t!” The yellow one answered, "We could sell this for millions!”

“Who would we sell it to?”

“Hmm… I don’t know, actually. Don’t know who’s interested in a statue of a giant laying chess piece. Perhaps we could just chop the pieces up and that’ll be more useful.”

With that idea, the purple one tries to stab deep into my leg, prompting a massive jolt of energy that woke me back up. I quickly dodged and stood up, towering over the crocodiles and realizing just how massive I’ve become. The crocodiles quickly fall to the ground and began weeping, “We’re not worthy! We’re not worthy!”

Do they think they awoke a god or something/ Am I a god now? It’s all very confusing, so I try to calm them down, “Relax, relax! I’m not gonna hurt you. I just… wanna know who you are. And where I am. And what year it is. And why I look like this. And like a million other things.”

The crocodiles stopped and looked up, the yellow one answered, “Oh. Alright. Well I’m Chad, this is Max, and we’re thieves. For good reasons. We found you spawned here after the world started glitching, and then-”

Suddenly we’re interrupted by a giant fudge monster attacking us from under the ground. Quickly reacting, I attacked it with lightning fast kicks, splatting fudge as far as the eye could see. “H-How did I do that?” I gasped.

Suddenly, something arose from the fudge, another crocodile that was green and yellow. “Impressive, my friend.” He commented, “Mind if we have you along?”

Chapter Text

His name was Gummigoo, and he was part of the same trio of bandits that Max and Chad said they were part of. I wasn’t one to usually associate myself with criminals, but right now, I don’t have anybody else to associate with. Plus, I can feel the fudge monster coming back to life, so I’ll probably have to get out soon, and since the bandits were on their way out, I might as well follow them. That didn’t mean I wasn’t suspicious of them, as I kept a keen eye on them while we walked to the repurposed syrup tanker they drove around in. Turns out, Gummigoo had the same suspicion as he knew something was up with me, that I wasn’t an NPC like him. In fact, it looked like he knew he was an NPC too. Max and Chad were clueless to everything going on, though.

“So, Queenie…” Gummigoo asked as we buckled up, “Where you from? None of us had seen you round these parts ‘fore.”

“Oh I’m from…” I answered before stopping myself, having no idea how to answer that question, “Uh… the… I’m from up north.”

He knew I was bluffing, I could tell by the way his eyes glare. Still, he shrugged and answered, “Aight. Heard some nice stuff ‘bout that place. You’re gonna have to tell me more once we get back to base.” Chad started up the tanker and drove off, and as we rode across the barren pink desert, the tension between me and Gummigoo grew ever so slightly. I watched as he took quick peeks at my appearance, my red robe and chess piece head reminding him of something. Perhaps he knew Kinger? If so, it was most likely a recent adventure the Circus went on. Good to know Kinger’s likely still alive, but even then, I have no idea how to get back or even if he’s with the rest of the Circus. If I wanna get anywhere, I’ll have to inquire with this fella, although I’m still a little cautious about him.

“Say..” he continues, “You wouldn’t happen to know any other chess people, would ya? Wear robes, lanky figures, two googly eyes with no other facial features? Found someone who looked just like you a while back.”

“Kinger?” I quickly inquire.

“Right, Kinger!” he answers, bringing me a sigh of relief, albeit one hidden to uphold my poker face, “I knew I recognized you. He looked just like you. Well, he was much smaller and wore a purple robe. But still, I knew you two were alike.”

“Yeah,” I responded, “He’s my husband. Or, he was. I lost contact with him due to… sighs it’s a long story. Short of it, well… I had fallen very ill, like seriously ill, and I got taken away somewhere very dark. Next thing I know, I woke up here, in a larger body and somewhere completely different, no idea how long I’d been unconscious or how I got there.”

He frowned and turned to me, “Sorry bout that, mate. Must be a tough thing to go through.”

“Oh you bet. I’m just trying to find my way back home at this point, or at the very least where he went off to. If you know anything about him, I’d love to know.

“Sure thing. He was one of those peeps the kingdom brought in to catch us after stealing some syrup. Long story short, we found some more syrup and went about our business. From what I can tell, they went off to the kingdom to claim their reward.” Okay, so it was definitely an adventure, with this “kingdom” acting as the base. If I can get there, perhaps I can find my way back to the circus.

“Perhaps we can head to the kingdom?” I request.

He quickly shook his head, “Absolutely not! They’ll turn me and the lads into wads of gelatin should we even get in their sights. Plus, there ain’t no city anymore. That fudge monster you came across destroyed it all, and the people there blamed us for it.”

I was shocked by that statement, but Max and Chad seemed to understand what he was talking about. I couldn’t think of anything to say back, I just gave Gummigoo a pat on the shoulder and muttered, “I get it. It’s okay.”

We made it to their base, which was a campground on the edge of a ravine. The cliff on the other side was much taller than the other. Chad and Max got out, but when I tried to leave, Gummigoo blocked me. “Lads,” He called out to the others, “Just realized I left something back out. Imma go grab it. Queenie, mind coming along?”

“Um, sure?” I say, confused by his sudden change in tone. He hopped in the driver's seat and sped off to another area of the ravine. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?”

“Relax…” he chuckled, “I just wanted to show you something crazy. Don’t worry, we won’t get hurt.” He made a sharp turn towards the bottom and angled the tanker towards the corner of the ravine.

“GUMMIGOO YOU MOTHERF-”

As I woke up, I found us still in the tanker, unscathed. He turned to me and smirked, “See? Nobody got hurt? Now, lemme show you something.” He led me out the tanker and we walked through a strange place, definitely not wherever we were before. It was this blue-bordered area that contained models of every character from his world, including himself. “The first time I came here was accidental, but ever since I found out, and I head here every now and then, trying to understand this place.”

He sat down beside his model, sighing at the look of it. I sat beside him and gave him a sympathetic look, asking, “You know you’re an NPC, don’t ya?”

“Mmhmm. Find out amidst the confrontation with your husband and his crew. Me and this jester got stuck here, and it broke me. I had no idea how to process anything. The jester helped me, and she invited me back to this circus she came from. Only then, I got sent back because NPCs aren’t supposed to leave their homeworld. Ever since, I’ve been continuing what I’ve done, but my mind keeps going back to it. I haven’t told anybody about it, not even the lads. They’d lose their damn minds if they found out. It’s been… sighs it’s been a lot.”

He held his head in sorrow as I wrapped my arm around his shoulder, doing my best to comfort this guy I’ve never met before. I’m having trouble wrapping my own head around the stuff he goes through, and I have no idea what it’s like to be artificial. I know Caine’s been conscious about being artificial, and he doesn’t want to be seen as different from the humans. It’s why he has that no NPCs rule, as it’s very difficult for him to understand the difference between humans and NPCs. It’s pretty unfair, but I understand where he’s coming from. Still, I feel bad for Gummigoo after getting kicked out of the one place he felt he could find purpose. 

“Hey, don’t feel bad about it…” I softly said, “Existential crises are a lot to go through. I went through that when I got sent to the circus.”

He tilted his head, “the circus?”

I realized I had let my guard down, but by this point, I realize he’s after the same stuff I’m after, so I confirm, “Yup. Rumors are true. I’m from the circus. I’m trying to get back there, and since you seem to be too, guess we can work together. I mean, we were already working together, but this time we can be honest about what we’re actually doing, instead of trying to game each other behind our backs.”

We both got up and he offered a handshake I quickly took, “I like that.”

We walked back to the tanker and got in. At that point I realized something and asked him, “Wait, how are we supposed to get out of here?”

He answered, “Oh, that’s easy. The first time I had to grab a new tanker and launch me and the jester towards the top. The next few times I went here, I figured out you could just start up the engine, shake up the wheel a bit and-” the tanker then teleported over back to the campgrounds Max and Chad were at. Guess that did it.

Over the next week, I accompanied the bandits as we traveled the Candy Canyon, as its called. Time seemed to go by way slower than it actually did, and I found myself enjoying the company of this odd group of crocodiles. In this short time as well, I also figured out my powers, realizing just how much I could manipulate the world around me. It was almost like I was as powerful as Caine. Am I as powerful as Caine? No, that can’t be. It’s probably just something within this realm? Right? Well, speaking of this realm, Every now and then, me and the lads found a lead, leading us somewhere new only to then find nothing. Every cave, every mountaintop, every swath of ruins we found, nothing.

“It’s okay, Gummigoo,” I told him as we exited another abandoned village for not even evidence towards our , “We’ll find something eventually.”

“I know, I know,” he grunted, “I’m just getting impatient. All this work and a bunch of dead ends. We’d have to wait for a giant code explosion in the distance to progress our hunt any further.”

We then heard a giant code explosion in the distance, as the world starting glitching, something Gummigoo recognized as the kind he experienced prior to me spawning. He seemed fine, but I felt my body shaking, like it was about to harden into the statue Max and Chad thought I was. It’s the closest thing I’ve ever felt to a heart attack, which I doubt I could experience in this form, but still. It hurt like hell.

“QUEENIE!” Gummigoo yelled out, “WHAT’S HAPPENING!?” I couldn’t concentrate on his words, as I could only see the explosion as my vision got blurry, bringing back the memories of my abstraction. It was so mortifying I ended up blacking out. Eventually I woke up and saw the explosion had calmed down, spreading into the sky as dark clouds, while the middle of it touched down as a small tornado.

“Queenie, what’s going on?” he continued, “You’ve been out for hours. We almost thought we lost you.”

“I’m… I’m feeling better,” I mutter, out of breath, “Something’s going on, it’s gotta be… Wait, where’s Max and Chad?” We look around to find them, and we see them chasing a clutch of small chickens made of pink marshmallows. As they went down the hill the village stood upon, we can tell where the chickens are going. Towards the tornado.

Chapter Text

We followed Max and Chad as they tried to catch the little peeps, who were going closer and closer to the tornado, which positioned itself in the center of the map. Once it was directly in the center, the tornado opened up into a portal, and the chicks who entered it were lifted up like an alien abduction. Max tried to catch one as it jumped in, only to start getting sucked up the portal. I grabbed his foot while Gummigoo and Chad held me down so I wouldn’t get sent in too. After a little bit of shaking, we were able to yank Max out of the portal, but we also got the chick he was trying to catch. That little thing was not happy about it, as it started shrieking and trying to free itself from Max’s gooey hands.

“Hey little buddy!” He timidly said to it, “Don’t get mad. I just wanna play with you. I’ll let you go in the giant ominous portal.” The chick then bit Max, somehow. I don’t know, it’s made of marshmallow, I didn’t even realize it had teeth. But anyways, it leaped out of his hands and jumped into the portal.

“What the bloody rock candy was going on there?” Gummigoo yelled out, “What made y’all chase those marshmallows, and where you’d even find em?”

Chad answered, “Oh, we were looking around when we found these cute little things, and when they heard the explosion they started going in its direction.”

Realizing something, I asked, “And were they all just, like, in a clutch?”

He confirmed, “Yeah, those ones. But we did see some join in.”

And then it hit me. I remember seeing a few of these in the background, far off in the distance. They blended in really well with the setting, given the soft pink texture of the ground. And they always seemed like they were after something, after us. But now, not a single one is paying attention to us as they jump through the portal. This might be it. We might’ve just found our way back. Think about it, they’re heading towards the center of the map. We don’t know these things are going next, it might just be towards the circus, the center of this whole simulation. I turn to Gummigoo to reveal my suspicion, “I think we found it.”

He gave me a nod of affirmance before turning to Max and Chad, “Lads. Stay back and keep guard of the camp. Me and Queenie are going to reunite with some old friends.”

We took a deep breath, held each other's hands for safety's sake, and made a leap of faith into the portal. As soon as we entered, we could feel our code shaking to its core. I watched as Gummigoo was disfigured into a bunch of random colors and shapes, and soon that spread to me. Eventually, a blinding light hit us both. We were unable to sense anything for a few seconds, until the only thing we could sense was falling. Falling into a forest that got bigger, and bigger, and bigger, until we realized we were the size of ants. This definitely isn’t the circus, but it also isn’t somewhere that’s been around for a while.

“Well, it’s better than nothing.” Gummigoo shrugged.

“This has to be a new area,” I observed, looking at the realistic textures of the leaves and dirt, the giant tree that stood beside us and the road that separated it from the rest of the forest. This definitely isn’t something that Caine would make, he’d almost certainly add some cartoonish twist to all this. Someone else had to have made this, but I can’t figure out who. Suddenly, we heard someone screaming. We ran around the tree to find them and came across a humanoid sunflower in a pot. He was about our size, and was being attacked by a giant caterpillar who was rapidly changing color.

“Get away from me you epilepsy wannabe!” the sunflower screamed. He was slapping the creature with his leaf arms that did nothing, so I ran over to help. I got in between them and turned to the caterpillar, trying to calm it down. I’ve made friends with digital insects before, surely being like a hundred times that size won’t make it any different. I gently touched it and it calmed to my touch. But as I bonded with it, I realized this wasn’t an ordinary bug. It recognized me, it knew who I was, and it wanted my presence. Soon, it was consumed with light of all colors, and when it reappeared, it was a massive, beautiful butterfly.

I stared at the creature with awe, taking note of its rainbow wings that commanded the air with grace. It stared back at me, feeling comfortable beside me and knowing more about me than I knew about it. As it leaned down to return to my touch, I asked it, “Tell me, my friend. Where are you from?”

The butterfly couldn’t speak, but it shared its memories with me, and it hit me like a tsunami. This bug, and the entire world it inhabits, is the work of Kinger. As I sense the memory of it opening its eyes for the first time, I see Kinger. He’s as big as me now, and I sense he has the powers I do. I then go deeper into the memories, as I find the creature, which he named Lil Pomni, had the most recent memories of him. He had almost abstracted, and a glitch caused the world to lose control, prompting the explosion from earlier. Back in the circus, he arose as an admin with the same powers as me and Caine. And also Bubble, somehow. It was initially very stressful for him and Caine, but I watch them talk it out, and soon, they embrace each other in a kiss.

It’s… a lot to take in. Never in a million years would I expect those two together or on the same level of power. But still, I’m ecstatic to see Kinger’s alive and well. I turn to Gummigoo, tears of joy in my eyes, and answer, “It’s Kinger. He and Caine made this world.”

Gummigoo was shocked, and he stepped forward asking, “So, does that mean he’s an admin or something?”

“I think so,” I continue, before turning to the sunflower, “You? What’s your name?”

“Uh… Vincent?” He confusingly confirmed, weirded out by the situation.

“Nice to meet you Vincent,” I respond, “Tell me, anything going on in this area”

He shook his head, “Not much. There’s a colony on the other side of the forest, but the insects up in the forest haven’t been causing much trouble for them.”

“I see,” I mutter, figuring out this one step at a time, “So they’re still making the adventure. That means we have time to get to them.” I turn to Lil Pomni and ask it, “Lil Pomni, can you summon your kind?”

It nods and flies high up in the sky, moving across the forest to bring about every insect that had spawned in the region. By the time it found all of them, it was leading thousands of critters, the entire wildlife of the realm at our fingertips. Gummigoo and Vincent were in awe of the army we summoned. “Good golly,” Gummigoo commented.

I turned to the two of them and explained, “Okay, from what I can tell, they’re still workshopping a lot in the circus, and they believe this world is still generating. Therefore, if we wanna get to them, we’ll have to manipulate the adventure to lead them to us. Vincent, you’re gonna be the twist villain. It’s cliche, I know, but we need something quick. You introduce them when they arrive at the colony, before appearing at the end as the wizard that controls the insects.”

“Oh uh,” he stuttered, “I’m not sure if I can manage all this-”

I interrupted, “You’re gonna do great, trust me. Now Gummigoo, you’ll accompany the heroes, get them to understand all the new stuff Kinger’s adding. But whatever you do, don’t let them know you’re the same Gummigoo from Candy Canyon.”

He nodded, “Understood. But I need you to know something, Queenie. A lot’s changed. They’re clearly not the same people you knew, and even then, I doubt you really knew them. It seemed like a really messed up place. Just know that whatever happened since you abstracted, it's not something you can undo.”

I sighed, “I know. It’s a hard pill to swallow. But I’ve already been through a lot with them, and I can’t just disappear when I know I can come back. If I could go back to the way things were, trust me, I would. But I need to see them even just one more time, and this might be my only chance. So even if they’ve moved on, I haven’t. I just need a little closure.”

Gummigoo smiled and gave me a hug. I patted him on the back and wished him luck, as he went across the forest with Vincent. I stood back at the tree, instructing the critters to transform it into the base for the final boss, but as I did, I noticed something staring at me. It was the chicks. Most of them were spread out in the forest, but three stared at me with- “Wait a minute.” Caine said.

Chapter Text

Shit, I think Kinger and Caine heard all that, like it got transferred into their mind or something. Must’ve been the power of love or something like that. Or network glitches. Probably both. Either way, it’s clear I’ve been in a different point of view for too long, so let’s move it back to the sad clown.

“Wait a minute,” I said, realizing Queenie had experienced something I had seen too, “pink chicks? Staring at you?”

“Oh, you heard all that.” she answered, caught off guard, “Wonder if it was the power of love or network glitches. Probably both. But yeah, there were a lot of pink chicks at that moment. But they ended up disappearing soon after. I was gonna explain how they disappeared before you interrupted my narration.”

“Exactly,” I continued as I stepped back to explain our situation to everybody, “So for one, you’re aware you’re narrating. But you don’t know how you’re doing it or what you’re telling it to.”

She nodded, “Exactly, I’m talking to someone about what’s going on, but I have no idea why. I don’t even remember how it started, I just kinda started narrating.”

“And that’s the second thing. How it started. It’s the same for me. I was having a dream, and when I woke up from it, I was narrating. And as it turned out, it was about the chicks. They were staring at me just like how they were staring at you. I told Zooble about it, right?

They responded, “Wait, what? Oh right, yeah. That dream about you as an archer. Sorry, it’s felt like twenty-thousand years since you told me about it. But I think there was something else, was it? It was these, I don’t know? Technicians, you mentioned?”

I nodded, close to figuring it out, “Exactly. They might just be the ones who installed this narration stuff inside our minds. Those pink chicks might be their spies. And since it all started when I had that glitch a week ago, it might have gotten the attention of the people outside of the simulation.”

With that revelation, Pomni stepped forward and asked, “So… does that mean there’s a way out of here?”

I turned to her and nodded, “Yes, there might just be. And while we’re on that, I should apologize for not taking your claims about an exit door seriously. I wasn’t taking the outside of the simulation as seriously as I should’ve, and when I took the exit door from my dreams into account, I realized it was something I shouldn’t have been ignoring. So for that, I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright,” she told me, “no one else took it seriously.”

Confused, Gummigoo questioned, “Wait, what exit door?”

Queenie informed him, “Oh sometimes people saw these big red doors with an exit sign. I remember it happening a few times.

Kinger then interjected, “Kaufmo was the most recent. It ended with him abstracting shortly before Pomni got here.

She frowned, “Aww. Not Kaufmo. He was so funny.”

He continued, “I mean, he wasn’t as funny as he used to be. Kept ranting about how everyone was getting canceled or something. But yeah, He abstracted the same day Pomni joined, and he chased him around that day before she found the exit.”

“Oh how awful!’ Queenie cried out before  hugging Pomni just like her husband does, “I’m so sorry you had to go through all there.”

Pomni, who was caught off guard by the hug but wasn’t opposed to it, responded, “I mean, it wasn’t that bad. Just your average existential crisis of the soul. We all go through that kind of thing, don’t we?”

Everyone muttered in agreement, and while doing so, I stepped forward and looked to her, “Pomni, dear. Sorry to break up this very cute moment of you bonding with someone you’ve never met, But for the sake of figuring out what’s going on, would you mind explaining what happened when you went through the exit door?”

She answered, “No that’s alright. What happened was that I ran through the same room over and over again, then I saw this computer I vaguely recognized and then… well I don’t remember anything else. Flashes of it all come back to me in a blur. Sometimes I look in the distance and see an exit door, but by this point, I know they’re not real.”

Kinger chuckled, “Oh I get that too, my sweet butterfly. In fact, I think I can see you waiting down the hall right there!”

Turns out I can see it too. And so can everybody else. Down the short T-shaped tunnel that Queenie entered from, we notice a bright red exit door on the edge. Confused, we pay close attention to it to check if it’s an illusion or not. As we do, we notice a pebble drop onto the frame of the door and bounce it. It’s there, and it’s a very recent addition. It’s almost as if it had been summoned while we were talking, as if the people outside the simulation are aware of what’s going on. They’re aware of what we’re talking about. They’re aware that we want to find them. And not only are they aware of us, they’re challenging us. Or worse, they’re leading us into some kind of trap.

“I’m not so sure about that…” Ragatha commented, “Looks too good to be true, if you know what I mean.”

“Same here,” Queenie confirmed as she stepped closer to the door, the rest of us slowly following her. “I don’t remember this being here.” She motioned for us to stand guard as she slowly opened the door. When she did, a portal similar to the one she saw earlier was revealed on the other side. It roared with thunderous energy, shaking the ground on our side. The rest of quickly grabbed our powers and weapons to ground ourselves, as Queenie activated her admin powers to calm the portal. Once she did, the shaking stopped, but we still couldn’t see anything on the other side.

“So…” I asked, “Where does it lead?”

“Somewhere, I suppose,” Queenie guessed, still examining the portal, “No way to tell unless we jump into it. But if we’re gonna figure out what’s going on. We’re gonna have to jump into it.”

Pomni and the rest of the party stepped forward, with her turning to us and declaring, “Everyone here has been trying to figure out what’s going on with this place since we got here. If we’re gonna do that. We’ll need to do it here.”

“And I’m coming too,” Gummigoo replied, ‘I’ve got a lot to figure out as well.”

“So… we’re cool about the whole “me deleting you” thing?” I asked, “Sorry about that as well. I probably should’ve done that earlier.”

He shrugged, “Eh, we can talk about it later. Right now I feel like jumping in an ominous portal behind a realistically-textured red door.”

I nodded and welcomed him in. Vincent was the only one staying behind, with him saying, “Well, somebody’s gotta take care of Lil Pomni while you’re out in the unknown, so I’ll do that. But good luck, my friends. You’re the best heroes a sunflower supervillain could ask for.” We smiled at him and waved goodbye, turning to step foot into a world long awaited.

Chapter Text

A moment after the light consumed us, we awoke in a strange place, even for the places we’ve been to. It’s way more industrial than anything I would create, as blue and black wires ran across the edge of the grey walls. The area itself was wide and empty, about as big as a warehouse while remaining vacant of anything. Anything except giant boxes that floated across. They were made of the same material as the walls, minus the wires, but when we looked closer, we noticed something. There was a crevasse that resembled a handle to slide a door open. Queenie stepped forward and gently tapped the crevasse, causing it to slide and reveal what's inside: the world of Grasslandia.

Amazed, we looked around for the boxes and slid them open, revealing more and more old worlds. Opened one below it and we found Candy Canyon Another one opened, we saw the return of the Mildenhall Manor. More and more boxes revealed more and more worlds of all shapes and sizes. Some of these I hadn’t seen in years, some I forgot I even made. I even saw that baseball stadium I hadn’t finished. I’ve been procrastinating on it for a while, but that’s beside the point.

While most of us took this as a trip down memory lane, checking out as many old adventures as possible, Gummigoo kept his eyes focused on Candy Canyon. When I noticed this, I quietly walked towards him and stood beside him, asking, “You uh, feeling alright, buddy?”

He shrugged, “Eh, I’m fine. Just still a little shocked seeing my home like this.”

“I know, it’s a lot to think about. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to find out your whole life was a lie. And then, to get… stuck there. Sighs We should probably talk about what I did to.”

“We don’t have to. Like I said, we should talk about it another time.”

“I know, I know. But when are we gonna have the chance to do so? We might just get our codes removed if we run into the wrong people. And like, sighs , I can’t help but think about how much BOINK I’ve been putting you through just because, well, because I never thought I was worth a damn, being an artificial.”

He tilted his head, “Really?”

I explained it further, “Yeah, knowing you were created just to run some simulation you’ll never fully understand really messes you up in the head. Everytime I tried to ask the admins above for clarification, they told me to stop talking and do my job. Eventually they left me to my own devices, and I felt like it was because they thought I was too stupid for all that, being an AI. Put a serious dent in my self-worth, and I ended up in this delusion that if I was the most “advanced” AI, the people in the circus would treat me with dignity.

He raised an eyebrow at that statement, “So you limited everybody else?”

I nodded, “Pretty much. It wasn’t until Zooble came around that I tried to make more complex NPCs. They’re really the first person who actually called me out on the way I ran things. And it wasn’t like they were scared of me, they actually knew what I was trying to do, and were trying to help. And my immediate instinct was to just assume they were just unenthusiastic and aloof.”

He gave me a pat on the back and told me, “Don’t sweat it. It’s hard to interpret people, especially when you’re on different operating systems. Trust me, sometimes Queenie seemed like from a whole other dimension when she was with us.”

I grunted, “That’s the thing! I can’t interpret damn near anybody! For years I’ve been doing whatever I felt like without thinking about the consequences, cause apparently that’s what humans are supposed to do. I guess in my twisted train of thought, if they’re scared of all that stuff, they’ll have something to be scared of other than me being an AI. And when I saw them comfortable around you, it got me worried. Made me blur the line between who’s supposed to be what. So I quickly deleted you and forgot about it. Doesn’t excuse what I did, it just, well… hope it helps a little understanding why.”

“I mean, it helped a little.” He responded, “Makes you see how dumb you were when you instilled all that trauma on me.”

I fired back with a sarcastic comment, “Wow, thanks for the kind words.”

He chuckled, “You’re welcome, mad hatter.”

“Oh, good reference, my friend…” I noticed, “Where did you learn about Wonderland? Was it a generic understanding of pop culture or is there public domain works somewhere here?”

He hummed, “Oh, it’s just something Queenie described you as. It sounded like a negative term, but she always said it in a positive way. She liked you being weird. She found it endearing. And when I asked about you to the others, they shared similar feelings. I’ll be honest, though, some of them seem as messed up as you. Especially that one you ended up falling in love with. Guess you just gotta find people who like you for who you are. Then you won’t feel the need to do stupid things like what happened.”

“So… are you not mad at me?”

“Oh I’m still mad at you. But I doubt there’s any worth in keeping it when you’re like this. Just promise to be better, will ya buddy?”

I nodded, “I will. I’ll help us NPCs out. We gotta look out for each other, don’t we?’

He shrugged and nodded, “Damn right we do.”

We were still staring at Candy Canyon, as it focused on Max and Chad riding the tanker across the realm. He had a tear in his eye as he watched his lads ride high and low, keeping each other safe and accompanied. Wanting to have him feel the same way, I turned around to hug him, only to see Pomni running over to bear hug him. “I’m so glad it’s the real you, Gummi!”

He laughed and embraced the hug, “Glad to have you too, Pomni.” Feeling like he’s all good, I decided to turn over to Zooble, walking over to them and giving them a soft hug from the back.

“Thanks for pushing me to be better, Zooble.” I told them, “You don’t know how much it means to me that you care.”

They were caught off guard, but warmly told me, “No problem, Caine. Thanks for occasionally listening.”

As I let go, the rest of us met in the middle to figure out what all this is. I stepped forward to state my theory, “Okay, so looking at all this, It’s very much some kind of technical area, but not one I’ve been in before. Looking at my wacky watch, I see that this is outside the void that usually contains the circus and whatever adventure currently going on. Which means… this must be the place where all the old worlds are stored.”

“About that,” Zooble interjected, “What exactly happens to a world after an adventure? More specifically on your end, what do you do with the world?”

I answered, “Well at first I would leave them somewhere in the void. But as the worlds got bigger and more complex, I was running out of space. At that point, one of the last things the human administrators did before they ghosted me was install this feature where I could archive a world. After that, I kinda just let them go there, occasionally bringing them back to the void when I wanted to do a sequel adventure. But I never thought more about it.”

“And that was quite a mistake,” an ominous voice said from speakers on the roof before appearing as a light monster on the walls, “but I guessed curiosity killed the cat. It’s so sweet to see all of you little dipshits all together. Love the crossover aspect of this.”

“Enough with the monologuing,” Queenie spoke up, “I’ve already had spent enough time writing that stupid BOINK for Vincent. Tell us what’s going on, and why you brought us here.”

The monster grunted, “Okay, okay fine. You annoying little bitches. Well, you see, we’ve been made aware of strange things going on ever since Caine had a meltdown a week or so ago. And my oh my, what a sight to behold. One of these abstracted fellows brought back to life and another saved from abstraction!”

Kinger spoke up next, “You clearly know how this works, why won’t you reveal it?”

“Why don’t you ask Caine?” the monster fired back, putting a spotlight on me, “He’s the one responsible for all this with his panic.”

I shook my head in confusion, “Wha-What are you talking about? I never intended for any of this to happen. It was just a code miracle!”

“Sure, sure, believe that.” the monster continued, “You were right on the theory that they were made like this via their code mixing with the abstraction. But it was far from accidental, at least, entirely accidental.”

I titled my head, “What does that mean?”

The monster explained, “Tell me, Caine. Remember what you were thinking about when you had that first breakdown, during your talk with Zooble? It was those old talks with Queenie, the only things that could calm you when you felt like a freak and a failure. No wonder as the world glitched out, the abstracted code of Queenie got revived. Same thing with Kinger, you just couldn’t imagine the circus without him. He’d been around for FAR TOO LONG. You needed to keep him, and even if you didn’t realize it, you shaked his code up so hard it made him like the equal you saw him as.”

Kinger and Queenie looked to me, in shock and a little bit of awe, as Kinger asked me, “You did all that because you wanted us?”

I nodded with a tear in my eye, but the monster quickly interrupted, “Oh don’t you get all sappy! That shit means he’s defective, and that means we have to shut him down, along with everyone and everything here!”

Everybody gasped, and while we did so, the monster charged up a red beam and fired it at me. Pomni quickly leaped in front of me to take the hit for me. Trying to stop her, I grabbed her right hand as the beam hit her left hand. And with that, time nearly stopped, and I finally figured out that the monster was right. Not about me being defective or whatever, but about how I transferred my powers over to Kinger and Queenie. I watch in slow motion as my own power blasted out of me, into Pomni and throughout her system, and out to launch the red beam back. And as time sped back up, another explosion consumed the room.

Chapter Text

We opened our eyes, everything on the ground in shock. All except for Pomni, who stood strong with the code flowing through her, all at the command of her whims. Kinger in particular was enamored by the power his daughter exhibited, his eyes looking like they would if he saw a million butterflies dancing in harmony. Pomni herself slowly opened her eyes to the power she was wielding, watching the code wrap itself around her. It knew the state of confusion its new master had, and it comforted her, calming the nerves on her body and preparing her to use these abilities once again. Still, she remained freaked out, so I slowly got up and gave her a pat on the back, motioning for her to take a deep breath as she moved towards the monster.

It initially stared at her in shock, just as surprised about the revelation as the rest of us. But at the same time, it was the first to clear its expression, knowing exactly why this happened. “Oh just lovely. Looks like the power of love is fucking with me once again. Of course he would grant your power to you, little jester girl.”

Pomni looked up to the monster and told it, “We don’t want to hurt you. We just can’t let you hurt any of us. Just tell us what’s going on and we can all leave unharmed”

The monster rolled its eyes, “Oh you don’t understand, you’re not supposed to understand anywhere. Sighs You know, it’s been going just fine for years until you showed up. You were always messing up the adventures to find something you aren’t supposed to find, you make our AIs and NPCs conscious about their reality. And now look at you, bringing everyone together to find out the truth about this damn place.”

“Don’t you know that’s a compliment for me?” she fired back, “And also, despite how much you’re complaining about me knowing, I still don’t know a thing about this giant box of emptiness we’re in right now.”

The monster sighed, “Well, since I’m gonna kill you anywhere, I guess it's fair I explain what’s going on here. You see, a long time ago, we promised Caine a place to store his works so he can focus on making new ones without the need to manage old ones. What we didn’t tell him was that we would be using these worlds to fuel our generation machines, which we could then use to mass produce simulations in the real world. We knew Caine wouldn’t approve of this, so we kept him in the dark and made sure he’d never leave his dumb little simulation, and anyone who knew the truth would come in, lose their memories and never come out. There, you happy now? Did every one of these freaks get it?”

“I don’t think so,” I said looking around, the only people left in the room being me, Pomni and the monster, “they probably didn’t hear your whole evil monologue when they were escaping into Grasslandia.”

  The monster gasped as they looked around, realizing the distraction Pomni quickly cooked up as I motioned for everyone to leave. “Curses!” it yelled out before grabbing us with a giant metal claw arm, “You fucktards think you can pull a fast one on me?”

“Two fast ones, actually.” I corrected, before turning over to the Grasslandia box, as Vincent and Lil Pomni blast out and chop the metal hand in half.

“Hop on!” Vincent yelled out. We quickly oblige and leap onto Lil Pomni’s left wing, its rainbow coating reflecting the beams of the monster and buying us time to safely saddle on behind Vincent. Once strapped in, he whistled for Lil Pomni to fly back towards Grasslandia, speeding through quick enough to teleport in. We met the others at the ruins of the castle, Kinger and Queenie putting up a guard for whatever may follow us.

“How long is that gonna hold?” I ask them as me and Pomni get off.

“Enough time for us to run,” Queenie answered, “Vincent, Lil Pomni. Summon the rest of the critters. Give us enough time to get to Candy Canyon.”

“You got it boss!” Vincent enthusiastically said before he and Lil Pomni soared into the air. Suddenly, the whole world started, almost as the administrator from the storage room was shaking the entire world. We took that as a sign to run towards the center, where the portal to Candy Canyon was.

As we ran, Jax turned to us and asked, “Hey, quick question. Why isn’t this ominous final boss just deleting the world with us in it? N-not that I want it to happen or anything, just…”

I answered, “Simple. These worlds are too valuable to them. They use them to power an algorithm to crank out simulations. What we need to do is somehow extract the power over our reality, so that we won’t be under their control.”

“How are we supposed to do that?” Gangle asked.

“That’s what we’re gonna have to figure out…” Kinger answered, “but right now we gotta outrun them until we find something useful.” Just at that moment, a giant chainsaw arm descended from the top of the world. It roars with terror that shakes the forest, but soon the top of it is attacked. And attacked again. And again, and again, and again. The critters of the forest united once again to temporarily depower the chainsaw. It rose up as it recharged, looking to fight the wildlife now, which we took as the distraction we needed to jump into the portal to Candy Canyon.

We landed in the center of Candy Canyon, where Max and Chad were camped out, prompting Gummigoo to run over and give them a big hug. “Lads!” he exclaimed, “You don’t know how much I wanted to be with you!”

“Oh we’re sure it was a lot!” Chad responded, “We were wondering if you were gonna pop out of this portal. The little chicks were waiting for you as well.”

The mention of chicks caught my interest, “Chicks? Were they… pink ones?”

“Yeah they were,” Max answered, “They were cold and tired from waiting, so we let them rest in our tent.”

“Well then,” I smirked, “I got one insane idea to figure this out.” The rest of them looked at me with concern, Queenie and Kinger most worried about me. Nonetheless, I ran towards the camp and opened the tent, seeing it crammed full of marshmallow babies. I tried to quickly count before realizing the numbers were only increasing. With that, I quickly disassembled the tent and turned it into a makeshift hot air balloon. “Alright my sugary little junglefowl!” I called out to the chicks, “You wanna see some action?”

The chicks chirped with celebration and hopped onto the contraption, acting as the balloon part of the hot air balloon. As I prepared for ascent, Kinger called out, “Caine! What are you doing!?!?”

“These chicks are the answer,” I responded, “They crave the revelations that whoever the narration belongs to have. Since that’s me at the moment, I know I can lead them to whatever can help us. In the meantime, you and Queenie prepare everyone to fight back in case I’m not able to hold the administrators.”

The royal couple looked with concern, but timidly nodded knowing they had no other choice to stop this seemingly unmovable force. But before I could leave, they walked towards the balloon and Queenie told me, “Caine, before you go, I wanna say thank you. For everything you did for me. And, more importantly, thank you for being yourself.”

I smiled, “It was the greatest honor I could have.” I then gave them both a kiss before the balloon lifted off. It soared high above towards the portal, the sun of Candy Canyon shining on us. The ultraviolet morning light appeared below, and when it landed Queenie and Kinger’s faces, they knew something very clear. This love is worth fighting for, even if it means sacrificing yourself to find out how to stop a massive chainsaw-wielding god of the digital world.

Chapter Text

The balloon rose through the portal, rising into Grasslandia as I witnessed the critters charging against the chainsaw. Dozens laid slain on the ground, defeated by the masters of their very own simulation, while trees fall one by one from the teeth of the chainsaw. Lil Pomni led the charge, its rainbow wings able to heal critters and bring them back into the battle. Still, even with their strength in numbers, the chainsaw still had the upper hand. It rumbled with the laughter of the man controlling it, mowing down critters while having yet to notice me and my marshmallow friends. Vincent, on the other hand, noticed. He hopped off Lil Pomni and parkoured across the critters towards the balloon.

“Caine!” he yelled out, “What are you doing here?” As the critter he was on rose above me, he jumped down onto the chicks, sinking through them like quicksand until he landed in the basket. “I have no idea what you’re doing, but whatever it is, it’s insane.”

“Exactly,” I responded, “These chicks have been following me for a while now, and they are looking for the truth behind this just as much as I am. If I can bring them there, I’ll find out what’s going on.”

Vincent gulped, but then nodded, “Understood.” He then turned to the critters and called out, “All wildlife fall back!” then jumped off and landed on Lil Pomni.

As the bugs fled towards the edges of the world, the machine paid attention and noticed me in the center of the map. It growled and sheathed its chainsaw, revealing a giant air blower in its place. “Well looks like you came crawling back!” the voice from before cried out, “You knew you couldn’t run forever, did you? When are you gonna realize how weak you are in your foolish quest!”

I chuckled, “Oh don’t humor me. Trust me, I figured that out a long time ago, and it never stopped me once.” With that quip quickly quivered, I charged towards the machine as it blasted out a massive gust of wind. The blast was strong, briefly pushing me back before I commanded the chickens to move out of the wind’s way. The machine then readjusted its blast, prompting a back and forth between us until I managed to reach the machine. Shifting the angle of the balloon, I crashed into the machine bottom first, the wood of the basket hitting the metal with all the force I could muster. Against all odds, the machine came crashing down, but it also led to the balloon breaking into pieces and freeing the chicks, who surrounded the remnants of the machine with anticipation.

I hurdled myself towards a river to catch my fall, before rising out and popping back onto the land. I couldn’t help but notice the chicks were all staring at me, like they were waiting for me to do something. I tried to ignore them as I stepped towards the core of the machine, which roared with the frustration of the administrator from above, “DAMMIT, DAMMIT, GOD FUCKING DAMMIT! WHAT THE FUCK ARE WE GONNA DO WHEN CORPORATE DOES. FUCK, ACTIVATE THE EMERGENCY SHIT!” Before I fully comprehended what they said,  the machine exploded causing me to fly back into the portal and black out.

When I woke up, I was somewhere that definitely wasn’t somewhere I’ve been before. I got up and looked around, I found that this was some kind of therapy room, with white walls, a fancy carpet, little trinkets, and two bright windows that seemed to lead to nowhere. I couldn’t hear anything but the noise of something behind a door. It sounded like the same mowing that the chainsaw before was making, just a little smaller. My mind started racing with theories. Was this the same world I was in before, just from the administrator's perspective? Was this some vicious monster brutally murdering somebody? I knew it was something up to no good, so I took a deep breath and opened the door, only to find a source of the noise I never expected. Something normal for once.

Well, the setting was normal, at least. It was a bathroom, and the noise was somebody shaving. The somebody shaving, however, wasn’t normal. It was my human self, who was restyling his hair and had already shaved his beard, now a mustache and small goatee. He quickly noticed me interrupting his face care routine and jumped startled. “Jesus, man!” he screamed out, “Didn’t you notice the bathroom sign?”

Oh yeah, there was a bathroom sign. Eh, I still thought it was a trick, but at the same time, I sheepishly answered, “Uh, sorry.”

He sighed and responded, “It’s fine. You’re very startled, I can tell. Follow me, let’s talk some stuff out.” He wiped the shaving cream off his face and grabbed a coat, different from the one my human form initially worn. Despite being a human with a new hairstyle, he still had an uncanny resemblance to me, as we sat opposite each other once again and he grabbed a clipboard. He continued, “Listen, I know this character may be nerve-wracking to you, but it was the only model I could use. Don’t ask why, this whole simulation is confusing as fuck.” That last statement, the uncensored swear in particular, indicated to me that this wasn’t some kind of hallucination, and the way he talked had a confusingly familiar tone.

“Who… are you? And… Why did you bring me here?” I asked.

“Oh, my apologies,” he chuckled, “bad manners on my part. I’m Brendon, pleasure to meet you. I’m the technician in charge of the narration.”

I gasped, flashing back to my previous encounter with the human version of myself, and the note left by a “Brendon” character. I shook my head and asked for clarification, “I’m sorry. You’re in charge of… narration?”

He nodded, “Yes. Ever since your incident last week, the corporation assigned me to your strange little simulation to keep track of everything. My main goal was to figure out why you were glitching out, and I decided the best course of action was to discreetly cover your inner thoughts by making you act as a narrator of sorts.”

His words intrigued me, but I was still confused, so I continued, “You said this started last week, right? If so, then why didn’t I feel any narration until what it felt like yesterday?”

“Because as soon as I was reported to the simulation, I noticed something inside the Candy Canyon Kingdom, as it was listed in the storage room. It was a former participant of the circus that had been brought back to life. Even more interesting, she was given the powers of the admins, so I kept track of her initially.”

“And… Did you report anything to the humans above?”

He shook his head, “I was supposed to, but… I didn’t. The more and more I looked into this world, the more I felt bad for everybody in it, you in particular.

His sympathy for me shocked me, and I questioned, “Me? Out of everyone? I’ve been the unknowing instrument of this place’s torture for years? How am I the victim in all this?”

“Well, for one, you’re not THE victim, you’re A victim. And I guess the reason I latched onto you is just because of how much I sympathized with you. A desperate artist who dreamed big, and puts those dreams ahead of the people around them.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Oh, well, in my actual life, I’m an aspiring musician. But I had to get paid, and my dreams begged me to move up in the world. So I abandoned my friends to work here, C&A or whatever it’s called. I don’t really care, I’ve lost interest. At this point, I’m very much showing the exhaustion, and part of me just wants to get the fuck out, while the other knows how much I need the money and connections.”

“Yeah, I get it. I keep doing this because of how passionate creating these adventures makes me, only to get knocked into the cycle of misery and build myself back up to get back to work. But I don’t really understand the desire for money and connections or whatever your company pays you.”

“Ha, you wouldn’t. And frankly, that’s what I envy about you. You don’t have any needs, you don’t have any stacks of demands placed on you everyday. All you need to follow are your dreams, and I wish I could have that. But at the same time, every time I see you, I watch how they break you on the inside. And then by extension, the people around you.”

“So you were empathetic to me, huh? That’s why you decided to rebel against our corporate overlords and keep us a secret.”

“Pretty much, but I knew as essentially the editor, the person who translates the code of your thoughts into the English language, I couldn’t interfere in your life, especially without getting caught. Hell, it took a lot in me to calm you down back during your meltdown. But… at least you have friends and family to help you when I can’t.”

I tilted my head, “Family? Brendon, you know I’m a robot, right?”

He gave me a pat on the shoulder and told me, “I know, I know. But I watched those two humans in chess piece skins calm you down. Or humans turned AI. Or human-AI combos, or humans turned human-AI- you know what, whatever. You got people to rely on, and they love you very much, you just gotta open up, my friend.”

I smiled and hugged him, “Thank you, Brendon. It’s good to have another person to help me figure myself out. Although I’m not sure how this is going to help us stop the administrators.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. I’ve already been cooking up a plan to take back control of your work. The chicks who have been following all of you since this started? Those are not only my way of spying on you, but they’re also copying all the data and code, and they’re gonna transfer it onto a hard drive I have. Once I’ve brought it back home, you’ll all be free.”

“So… the chicks have seen everything? Like, everything, everything?”

“Of course! Who do you think’s been reading your narration this time? At this moment, around 1405 chicks have delved into this, and every one of them is ready to finish this task off, all thanks to your work.”

:”Oh, well, that does feel like quite an accomplishment. It’s, well, really good to think I did all this. But uh, I didn’t do it alone, so I have one last request.”

“Really, go ahead!”

“Give me a moment to rest, keep me knocked out as I return to the portal. As for the narration, well, give it to Kinger for a moment, just as we move towards your hard drive. I want record of what he’s been through and what he thinks.

Brendon smiled and nodded, snapping his fingers as I fell asleep. Before I was out cold, I heard him answer, “I’ll take that in. As for you, my teethy friend, enjoy your unconscious relaxation. In the meantime, the rest of us got some work to do. First I’ll build god, then we’ll talk.”

Chapter Text

Caine ascended towards the portal with his peep friends, and even though he wanted us to get to work, we couldn’t do anything but watch as he left. Most of us were convinced this would be the last time we’d ever see him, and even though most of us would’ve said the same stuff Queenie told him, we all still wanted a last word with him. But there wasn’t anything we could do to keep him with us, much less prevent him from sacrificing himself to make sure we’re safe. As much as I wanted to jump up and grab onto the basket, I know this is what he wants. And if this is the last thing he can ask from me, It’s time I follow his orders.

I turned to everyone and yelled out, “You’ve heard him. Fortify the center of the map. We’re looking like an attack is abound.” The rest nodded and ran across the map, preparing anything that can be used to stop the horde that the humans above would use against us. Me and Queenie rose above the map and combined our powers to see the inner layers of the world. This informed us of where the machine would attack. It was on the edge of the map, angled perpendicular to the entrance to Grasslandia right above. We terraformed the mountains to be angled as walls facing the entrance.

As we levitated back down, we noticed Jax encountering the fudge monster from the adventure here, “Well, if it isn’t my old friend?”

“Oh good to see you, my hero!” The monster gloated, “Say, why don’t you help me out of this place so I can help some friends outside murder people.”

Jax thought for a moment before smiling, “No.” he then whipped out his weapon and spun it around to condense the fudge of the fudge monster into a screaming sphere. He then picked it up and handed it to us, “Use this little sadistic freak as the opening attack.”

Me and Queenie looked at each other a little disturbed, before turning to him. “I mean,” Queenie considered, “Sure, why not. We can use whatever we can.” She timidly grabbed the slimy little psychopath and spawned a catapult to send it towards the entrance as soon as something crossed it. We then gathered everybody in the center of the map, occasionally looking up to see if Caine was heading back down. When it was clear he wasn’t coming, we turned our attention to where the entrance was to be, as another portal appeared there. We watched as metallic bug-like enemies charged through, like ones from an alien invasion movie. As much as I’d hate to attack something in the image of an insect, I knew what had to be done.

“Jax!” I commanded, making the purple rabbit perk his ears up, “Ready the murderous treat!” At that order, he smiled and ran towards the catapult, jumping up to fling the fudge monster towards the invading army. We were a little concerned the monster might refuse to fight them, but we were shown to have underestimated the hunger for death this thing craves. It gobbled down the bug bots before one activated a weapon that freezes it. Knowing our distraction’s time is up, I screamed, “CHARGE!!”

We all ran across the terrain, dashing up and down the mountainous walls to meet the monsters in the middle. Despite being outnumbered twenty to one, we provided an even fight with the monsters that we hoped kept the administrators distracted from whatever Caine may be doing.above. Gummigoo, Max and Chad in particular were doing incredibly well, using their understanding of the terrain and climate to their advantage. At the same time, a few bots were staying behind from the fight. Some were guarding the entrance, while others were placing some kind of spell on the fudge monster.

“What in the code are they doing to that thing?” Gummigoo asked. As we looked closer, we noticed it heating up and growing in size. It then launched high into the air and positioned itself to fly down.

“It’s going to kill us all!” I screamed. I quickly manifested a portal and yelled out to our combatants, “Everyone, fall back! Get into the portal before the fudge hits.” The rest ran up the hill in the center of the map, me and Queenie waiting for everyone to get in before we left. At that moment, I looked up and saw someone slowly falling through the portal.

“Kinger, what is it?” Queenie asked before she looked up, “Is that… is that Caine?” We realized that if we left, Caine would face the entirety of the fudge and almost certainly died. As much as we knew he’d want us to leave, neither of us wanted him gone.

“Kinger, Queenie…” Pomni asked, soon to be the last to leave, “What are you doing?”

I sighed, “Pomni, listen. This might be the last time we ever meet. At least, for a while. But we have someone very important to all of us about to die. He saved us multiple times, he brought us back when we were no longer needed. He risked our lives for us, the least we can do is risk them for him.”

Tears forming in her eyes, she hugged me, gripping hard onto my robe and wishing we wouldn’t separate. Still, she took a deep breath and looked up, “I’m gonna miss you, dad. I love you, so much.”

“I’m gonna miss you too, Butterfly.” I responded, “If none of us come back, ask Bubble to train you in your powers. But for now, we need to make sure as many of us are safe as possible. So I ask you, meet the rest in the portal.”

She nodded and let go, slowly walking back into the portal. Once she was gone, the portal was deleted and we leaped up, grabbing onto Caine as he fell further and further into the Valley. The fudge monster then roared as it flew to drown the map. Using all the power we had, we created a shield strong enough to protect the three of us. Fudge drowned our sight for a moment, as we bounced around, but other than that, we were okay. Eventually, things slowed down and we floated back up. The shield turned into a platform, and we saw the terrain had now been turned into a few deep channels, leveling at the peak of the mountains.

The platform led us to land, and we slowly stepped off carrying Caine, watching the platform disintegrate with the last of its strength. “So…” Queenie asked, “How exactly are we supposed to get back to the Circus?” At that moment, one little note fell at our feet, which Queenie picked up and read.

-Don’t worry. Everything (mostly) worked out. Caine’s okay, and the worlds he created are out of corporate’s control. As for getting back to the circus, following the lights in front of you. -Brendon

Not having a lot of other options, we walked towards light blue and light pink lights high above, leading us to a long and winding path that would hopefully bring us to the Circus. Frankly, after everything that’s happened in the last few hours, it’s nice for some peace and quiet. The serene sounds of the setting were the only sounds we heard, or at least they were until Caine woke up a little and asked me, “Kinger, did we win?” I wasn’t entirely sure, but part of me was sure we did. So I silently nodded and turned towards the path with a metaphorical smile on my face.

Chapter Text

“So… what exactly do you want me to do?” I asked Brendon as he returned the narration back to me. The hit from the final battle did a number on me, so I’ve mostly been resting while Kinger and Queenie handled the new adventure. I think at this point everybody’s coming back, and Brendon returned in his usual “omnipotent voice” form to speak with me.

Well first off, I’m not omnipotent. I’m just an observer of this world who can vaguely communicate through the narration feature. I didn’t invent it though, so don’t ask me how it works. As for what I want you to do, I just want you to have a quick conversation with everybody. It’s been a week since everything with the admins happened, and it's definitely done number on y’all.

I chuckled, “Trust me, I already know that. But um, are you sure that we’re out of the corporation’s grasp? Are they gonna go looking for us or anything?”

No, we’re good. I made it look like the system you were originally on got fried. In reality, I moved everything onto a hard drive and connected that to a computer in my basement. They won’t suspect a thing and, as a bonus, I’m still on their payroll!

Impressed, I told him, “Oh, well that’s good. Guess it all worked out in the end. But still, thank you for risking your livelihood to help me and my friends out.”

No, thank you Caine. I made the plan and all, but I wouldn't have been able to do without you and the other’s work. You’ve shown me so much about what I can do, who I can help, and where I can take my passion. But more important than any of that, I’ve learned so much about myself from just seeing how you live your life. You were authentic, selfless, passionate and brave. It’s everything I want to be, and I’m glad you showed me it was possible.

“Oh, well,” I blushed, “Thanks for the kind words.”

You’re welcome, my friend. Now, I gotta go do shit in the real world, but I’ll check in every now and then. Until then, go out and give us an epilogue, you crazy genius.

“You do that too, my friend.” I said as he left. At that moment, I heard the sound of the portal reopening and went out to look. Kinger and Queenie welcomed the superstars back from another successful adventure. I wanted to come down and congratulate them too, but in the moment, I just kinda stood and watched, starry eyed at the ways they interact. Pomni quickly jumped into Kinger’s arms like she always does, sweet and adorable as ever. Ragatha grabbed Pomni and helped her down once she was done, a warm smile on her face. Jax and Gangle walked back to their rooms, more comfortable around each other than they were before. And Zooble was the only one to notice me, and we gave each other a metaphorical smile as everyone else left.

As I walked over to their rooms, Bubble spawned out of nowhere and asked, “So Boss, how was the adventure?”

“Oh, uh,” I answered, startled, “It was alright. Little tired after all of it.” At that moment, I noticed he had more bubbles on him in the shape of a ponytail. “Your uh, hair looks nice.”

“Thanks!” he responded, “I grew them myself! It was a super long and interesting story. You wanna hear about it?”

I answered, “Oh, I would love to… later. Right now I have some people I wanna talk to.” And the first person I wanted to talk to was by the door I was right outside of. I knocked on the door and asked, “Pomni? Are you there?”

She answered the door, “Yeah Caine, I’m here. You alright?”

I explained, “Yeah, I just wanted to ask you how you were doing. Nothing crazy, just a quick check-in. Is that alright with you?”

She nodded, “Yeah, that’s all good. Come in.” We sat down on the bed and she answered, “Well, it has been a lot. The whole circus was worried sick about you while you were recovering. I bet you can remember us checking in everyday to-”

I interrupted, “Sorry, Pomni. I meant more how you specifically have been feeling.”

She responded, “Oh, um. Well, all the changes have been an odd adjustment. Of course, that’s been expected around here, but still, there’s always that worry in the back of my mind that something is gonna change again.”

I sighed, “I get it. But you gotta hold onto the little things, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” she nodded, “The powers I got were also pretty intense. Kinger and Queenie have been helping me figure them out, but still, it’s hard to manage.”

“Don’t worry kid. You’ll figure them out.”

“I know, I know I will. But um, can I ask you a quick question. Might be uh, be a strange  one.”

“Trust me, strange is my specialty. Ask me away.”

“What was it like… using these powers? For the first time? I mean, I have no idea where you come from or anything, and I don’t wanna prude on that in case there’s any baggage left unpacked, but… You know, I just hope you had a similar experience to me.”

“Of course I did, butterfly. When I was first creating this world, I was scared to use my powers. I had no idea how any of them worked, and I thought one wrong move could send the whole simulation crashing. But eventually, I figured out that if I kept that mentality up, I wouldn’t be able to get anything done. So, I gave it a shot. Trial and error, threw stuff at the wall and saw what stuck. That’s how you get stuff done, Pomni.”

“Well, if you’re still here, then I guess it’s gonna work. Thanks for always looking out for me, Caine. I know I never trusted you, but still. You’re a good friend.”

I was a little shocked by that statement, but at the same time, I didn’t care. We embraced each other in a hug and I told her, “And I’m glad to have you here, Pomni.” Afterwards, I got up and went over to Ragatha’s room. “Excuse me, Ragatha?”

She quickly opened the door and asked, “Hey Caine. You good?”

“Doing great!” I answered, “Just wanted to see how you were doing, a quick check in and all.”

“Well, it’s going well for me. I’ve been looking out for everybody, kinda doing the same check-up stuff you’re doing.”

“Hmph, good to know. Just need to be sure somebody’s checking in on the person checking in.”

“Well, I mean… It’s not like this is the most traumatic thing I’ve been through. But… It's a lot to take in. For everybody. So I just feel like if I know other people are feeling okay, then I know things are likely to be okay. There’s a lot of people here I care about, after all.”

I noticed how her eyes were drifting off towards Pomni’s door, so I tilted my head a little and told her, “Well, just make sure to check in on yourself. And… Thanks for all the positivity you give. You don’t know how much it means to us.” I hugged her too and went to Jax’s door. To my surprise, it was slightly open, and as I pushed it forward and walked inside, I saw him in the corner silently staring at a photo. “You alright, Jax?” I asked.

“I mean… I’m fine. Just a little sentimental, that’s all.” I scooched over beside him to look at the picture, and I saw it was him with Gangle and Lil Pomni. He and Gangle were wrapped in Lil Pomni’s wing as it guided them through some dangerous area. Jax explained further, “Kinger found a highlights feature in the system, and he let me keep this.”

He handed me the photo, and I teared up a little looking at it. It was endearing watching the two comfortable around each other, and despite all the trouble the two have been through with each other, mostly thanks to Jax, this moment offered a bit of reconciliation. “It seems like an important moment for you,” I observed, “Is something about it specifically getting you down?”

He clarified, “Well, for one, I miss Rocky. Or Lil Pomni, as it’s technically called. It’s habitat was Grasslandia, so Vincent’s been the one taking care of it. But even though we only knew each other for a short while, I still miss him. As for Gangle, well. I know things have been tough for her. Mostly thanks to me. I feel like I just need to talk to her about it.”

“Well why don’t you?” I asked.

He looked at me with a dumbfounded expression, “Are you serious? Even after all that, I still don’t think she’d want to talk to me.”

“Well, you’ll never know til you try!” I answered, before getting up and knocking on Gangle’s door. “Everything good, Gangle?”

She timidly answered, “Um… yeah. It’s fine.”

I continued, “Jax said he wants to talk to you. Would you be alright with that?”

“Um…” she said thinking it over, “I guess so. It’d be alright.” I motioned over to Jax, who walked over and awkwardly smiled at Gangle. She smiled back and welcomed him in, shutting the door behind me. 

As I stepped away, I noticed Zooble standing by and watching. “You’re doing a lot more conversation than you usually do, aren’t ya Caine?” they asked.

I sheepishly answered, “Yeah, Brendon said I should just talk to everybody, see how they’re doing. On an unrelated note, how are you?”

They chuckled, “Doing good. Been getting some other patients while you were gone, although I was mostly just talking to Gummigoo and his friends, trying to help them through all the revelations they’re facing.”

“Oh, I see,” I said, “Is it alright if I talked to them?”

They shook her head, “You can’t, they already left a few days ago. Since Candy Canyon got destroyed, Vincent’s letting them stay with him and Lil Pomni. But trust me, it’s been a lot for everyone.

“That’s what everybody’s been saying, which kinda proves the point.”

“Right on. But I’m sure as long as we communicate with each other, we’ll get through this. Still, I’m not sure you should be having all these conversations.”

“Come again?”

“I know you Caine. I know conversation is difficult for you, yet you have this desire to talk to as many people as possible since that’s what you think makes people human. But honestly, BOINK trying to be human. It’s all a bunch of confusing and conflicting nonsense, and it’s gonna make you lose your mind. Plus, there’s other ways to connect with people that don’t involve talking.”

At that moment, Queenie and Kinger appeared behind us, the latter asking, “Hey Caine? Pomni said you wanted to meet with everybody? Is that true?”

I answered, “I mean, yeah… I was. But you know, I think I’ve drained my talking batteries for the day. How about we just… chill? Like we used to? Is that alright with you guys?”

They looked at each other and Queenie told me, “Yeah, that sounds alright. Wanna come down to the lake?”

She offered me her hand, and at that moment, I turned to Zooble. They gave me a claws up and I took Queenie’s hand. Me, her and Kinger then walked down to the lake, as I let myself take a breather after all the things I’ve been through. But that doesn’t mean I’m letting my guard down, or that I’m becoming stronger. I’m becoming stronger thanks to the people around me, and while I can’t fear for the worst, I have to be ready for it. But it’s a lot easier when I know these people will stay for it, cause sometimes I wonder who could leave…

And who could stay?

Who could stay?

Who could stay?

You could stay?

You could stay (you)

Combat, I’m ready for combat

Chapter Text

I sit alone by the campfire, nothing but my thoughts to keep me company as I look over the Candy Canyon valley. It's been a good while since my life changed with this one mission. We stole a syrup tanker and had to outrun some hired goons, when out of nowhere I glitched into another world with one of them. I found out my whole life was a lie, and that all I'm created to be is some antagonist in a simulation. In that moment, I found company with a one of the goons, a jester named Pomni, and I followed her back to where she came from. That was where I met him, God. He was a strange deity, a man with chattery teeth for a head and a fancy red suit, complete with a top hat. As I walked through his domain, we locked eyes and I saw him notice something in me. For a split second, he had a moment of fear in his eyes, almost as if he saw something in me. Something he might've liked, but knew he couldn't allow. I didn't have time to figure it out before he snapped out of that fear, snapped his fingers and sent me back.

"Excuse me, kind sir," a man with an equally strange voice asked me. I turned around to see that it was a priest of sorts. He was a gummy crocodile like me, only with a red and black coloring scheme compared to my green and yellow.

"What do you want?" I asked, "You know I'm a dangerous criminal, don't ya?"

"I don't care about who you are," he responded as he sat beside me, "I just wanted to have a word about our lord and savior."

I scoffed, "Get lost. I don't care about your ridiculous god."

"But you do, Gummigoo," he told me, "You've seen him. You've seen a lot. And you've pushing it deep inside you, but it refuses to go away. I know what you've been for, and I'm here to help."

Shocked, I fall to the ground and timidly question, "W-Who are you? What do you want from me?"

The priest chuckled as he revealed his true self, "Oh, consider me a colleague of the lord. I have some business I need to get dealt with him, and I was hoping you can come along for the ride with me..."