Chapter Text
Walking through the portal, Pomni, Ragatha, Jax, Zooble, Kinger, and Gangle were all greeted by the familiar brightly colored patterns of digital polygons within the circus. Today’s adventure wasn’t anything different from your typical trauma inducing adventure. For this adventure in particular, the gang had all gone skydiving. Cain had decided that it would be a good idea to have a more “high steaks adventure” despite the fact that none of them can actually die.
The adventure left everyone fairly shaken, except for Jax who was laughing at Zooble because they were once again split into literal pieces due to a harsh landing, despite having a parachute.
”F#!k off Jax!” Zooble shouted in annoyance. “Oh come on Zooble, you have to admit that watching you flailing around in your parachute was hilarious.” He continued to laugh hysterically. Pomni met back up with Ragatha, still a bit shaken from having been shoved out of a moving airplane. “Hey, you alright? “ Ragatha asked with genuine concern in her tone. “O-Oh it’s nothing…” Pomni replied sheepishly, knowing she wasn’t hiding her feelings very well.
”Alright, so maybe I’m a little shaken.” She fidgeted with her hands, intertwining her fingers nervously. “A little?” Ragatha places her hands on her hips, not believing it for a second. At least Ragatha’s slight amusement got a chuckle out of Pomni. “Alright, a lot shaken.” The two of them were good friends, and looked out for one another.
”I don’t want to ever do that again!” Gangle exclaims, looking sadder because she isn’t wearing her comedy mask. “Hey, don’t worry alright? At least this stupid adventure is over now.” Zooble chimes in, helping to comfort Gangle while Jax continues to laugh in the background like the jackass he is.
After what felt like a few moments of peace, Caine suddenly appears with bubble nearby. “Hello my shining stars! How did you all fair in today’s super cool wacky adventure?” Everyone kind of turned to each other and muttered comments. None of them were good. “Well I can see we’re all a little bit rattled from today’s adventure, so I was thinking we’d- *glitches* “UsElesS MaChiNe……”
”Uh…….ok?” Pomni questioned for a second. Caine was known to occasionally glitch. That wasn’t out of the question. But the way he glitched and the voice that came out sounded different and more distorted than usual. “Sorry about that, I’ve been having some uh…….technical difficulties lately!” Caine chuckled nervously, trying to brush it off as just having a weird temporary glitchy moment. “Anyway, back to the topic at hand, I was thinking-“
”Ugh we get it alright?” Zooble interrupts, annoyed as usual. “You want our input on suggestions for your adventures, but you’ll just ignore them anyway and continue to do things how you always do.” Caine tenses for a moment, clearly a little off guard by Zooble’s input. “Oh Zooble you mismatched cow I’m gonna POUND YOU INTO GROUND BEEF!- I mean, your input is greatly appreciated! However, I’ve been noticing you all have been…….less enthusiastic lately whenever I bring up another new adventure for us to do.”
Everyone looks at each other for a moment, muttering to themselves before Pomni speaks up. “W-Well Caine. I think the reason why we’re all a bit unenthusiastic is because a lot of us find the adventures a bit, uh, intense?”
“Y-Yeah, I didn't really like today’s adventure.” Gangle adds. “It was really scary.”
”I have to agree. Today’s adventure was……exhilarating to say the least.” Ragatha rubs the back of her head. “I liked pushing Zooble off the plane.” Jax comments, not surprising anyone. “Well we can’t have an adventure that doesn’t involve any steaks!” Caine argues. “Yeah, I like my steaks medium f#cking rare!” Bubble chimes in.
”Why do you swear now?” Caine’s eye twitches once, looking oddly annoyed for being just a giant pair of teeth with eyeballs. Zooble sighs heavily, already over this conversation. “Listen Caine, I hate to be the one to say this, but I’m going to say it anyway because heaven forbid if I’m ever allowed to say f#ck ever again. I didn’t mind the suggestions from the suggestion box. I’ve already mentioned that I didn’t mind those. But recently, you’ve been forcing us to go on the adventures that you’ve specifically created for us.”
”What is that supposed to mean, Zooble?” Zooble sighs, muttering oh god not this again, to themselves. “Well Caine, I think what Zooble is trying to say is-“
”JAX DON’T YOU DAR-“ Zooble attempts to stop Jax from saying what he was about to say, but unfortunately, nothing was going to persuade him otherwise.
”Nobody likes your stupid adventures. Listen Caine, no matter how hard you try it’s never going to be enough to get us to actually enjoy them.” Everything falls silent for a moment, and Caine chuckles once. “Heh……….” He glitches again, this time his eyes turning blue reading binary code on them: 01011001 01101111 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 01100100 01110110 01100101 01101110 01110100 01110101 01110010 01100101 01110011 00100000 01100001 01110010 01100101 01101110 11100010 10000000 10011001 01110100 00100000 01100101 01101110 01101111 01110101 01100111 01101000 00101110 00100000 01001001 01110100 11100010 10000000 10011001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01101110 01100101 01110110 01100101 01110010 00100000 01100010 01100101 00100000 01100101 01101110 01101111 01110101 01100111 01101000 00100000 01100110 01101111 01110010 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 01101101 00101110
“Caine, are you ok?” Pomni hesitantly asks, before Caine goes back to normal. Though his posture is slightly more tense than usual. “Don’t worry that jestery head of yours my little circus clown, your old buddy Caine’s gonna go prepare for tomorrow’s adventure!”
Caine disappears, leaving the rest of the gang to discuss amongst themselves. “Jax that was mean!” Gangle blurts out. “What? I was just telling him what Zooble was thinking.” He shrugs. “Yeah but…..did you have to say it like that?” “What, someone had to be honest with him. Relax Zooble, I honestly did you a favor. You’re welcome.” Jax retorts sarcastically.
”I did not thank you a$$ho!e!” Zooble shouts before sighing. “I’m going to head back to my room.” Everyone else shrugs it off and agrees. Ragatha decides to go talk to Pomni. “Hey, don’t worry about Kinger ok? He went back to his pillow fort…………hey, you alright?” Pomni had been lost in thought for a moment. Something about Caine seemed off, and more off than usual. “O-Oh yeah it’s fine. I was just………thinking to myself.” “Thinking about what?” Ragatha was genuinely curious to know what was on Pomni’s mind.
”Well, I know Caine usually has these…….strange moments of glitching and all that. But I can’t help but feel like something seemed…….off? I don’t know, it probably sounds stupid.” Pomni sighs, feeling unsure.
“N-No totally! I get what you mean!” Ragatha tried to reassure her, although she really didn’t see what the problem was. But if Pomni was upset about it, then she just had to advise her to make her feel better. “Maybe you can uh, talk to Caine later? Maybe see if he’s willing to do another in the house adventure tomorrow?” Pomni smiles. Ragatha always seemed to find a way to come across as reassuring. “Yeah…….I’ll do that!”
Everyone heads to their rooms after a long day of adventuring. Caine meanwhile, was at the back of the circus tent. He was hyperventilating a little, not able to comprehend such words he was told. “Bubble, did you hear that? They just said that they…….don’t like my adventures. Doesn’t that sounds crazy?” Caine found it harder to breathe, but why? He’s never had try breathing before.
”You should die- y-you should throw a f#cking beach party!” Caine’s expression turned to one of frustration. “We already did that!” Caine glitched again, this time more intensely. By the time it stopped he was gasping again. Why was it so hard to breathe? He thought to himself. He was an AI, so why was a basic function suddenly becoming so much harder to do?
“I need to figure this out. Was Jax saying what everyone else was thinking?” Caine talks to himself. “Surely not……right?” He looks at Bubble, who just tilts his head back and saying nothing.
”Do they really not like my adventures?……”
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