Chapter Text
Chapter 1 – Five Pomnis!?
Jax heard Ragatha scream for help and dashed to the scene. Not to help of course, but to see if what is happening was funny. Funny it was. Ragatha was being beaten by five different Pomnis. How and why? He did not care. The doll getting jumped was all the entertainment he needed.
Caine then told Ragatha to start selling them and she actually started too. What a riot!
“Ad over! Back to the creases of Pomni’s brain with all of you!” Caine points his staff at the multiple Pomnis to get rid of them, but Evil Pomni lunges at him, making him somehow accidentally open a portal instead.
“True freedom, *****es!” She screams excitedly as she and the other Pomni copies jump through it.
Original Pomni stood there, her mouth agape at what happened. Jax saunters next to her, still laughing at the now unconscious Ragatha on the floor.
“Hey, Pom Pom!” He pats her jester hat. “Sad that you had a riot of a commercial without me.”
“Is…” She points at the still open portal. “Is that okay? Should we do something?”
“Nah, it’s fine.” Jax reassures her. “Caine can just snap his fingers and fix everything.” He looks up at the floating ringmaster. “Right, dentures?”
Caine takes a while to answer. He starts to rub his chin. “I can… However, I have an idea.”
Jax and Pomni’s faces fell.
The AI snaps his fingers which healed Ragatha, and made the entire cast appear before him. “Hello, my perennial parfaits!”
Zooble angrily eyes their surroundings. “What the #@$% did you do, Jax?”
“Moi? Nothing this time, Zoobie.”
“Enough chit chat! It’s time for an adventure!” Caine points to the portal. “Five dangerous Pomnis have escaped the original’s mind and are wreaking havoc upon the digital sphere!”
“Five Pomnis!?” Kinger yells.
“Five Pomnis!” Caine confirms.
“Five… Pomnis?” Gangle meekly asks, confused by that.
“Five Pomnis!” Caine confirms again.
Zooble squints their eyes at the AI. “Why the #@$% are there five Pomnis?”
“It was a commercial.” Pomni tells them.
“Oh.” They sigh.
“Not ‘oh’! They were all beating me up!” Ragatha adds.
“Yeah, it was funny.” Jax snickers.
“Jax!”
“C’mon, Rags. Lighten up! Blow some steam sometimes.”
“I SAID ENOUGH CHIT CHAT!” Caine screams at them. “Your job is to go through the familiar worlds you’ve seen and round them up to bring them back!”
“Yeah, I don’t care.” Zooble started walking away.
“If you don’t get them all back, our original Pomni will DIE!”
“WHAT!?”
Zooble runs back. “WHAT!?”
“Caine! You can’t do that!” Pomni yelled in a panic.
Caine flies closer to her. “I’m not doing that, Pomni.” He then points at the cast. “THEY ARE! FOR NOT HELPING YOU!”
The jester suddenly starts breathing heavily, a dizziness has gotten to her. She takes a few small steps back until she falls over, Jax and Ragatha catching her before she hits the ground.
“Oh no!” The ring master exclaims in fake shock. “She is already falling ill!”
Jax groans. “Alright, dental plan, we get it!”
“Yeah, just please give us the details or anything to help!” Ragatha pleaded the AI.
After a quick debrief of each Pomni, Caine creates portals to the worlds where the Pomnis are located in. He then disappears to let the cast handle this new adventure.
“Okay,” Ragatha begins. “We should stick together and properly plan out—”
Gangle suddenly shakes the doll and frantically yells “I’m going after anime Pomni!” before running into the portal.
“W-wait!” Ragatha tried to stop the otaku to no avail.
“Beach Pomni is just at the beach here. I can go get her.” Kinger turns around and walks away, heading to the digital lake.
“Kinger, hang on!”
“In that case, Noir Pomni is something my speed.” Zooble walks into a portal.
“I—No, that one makes sense.” She turns to Jax, expecting him to just run off too.
What she sees is him, on one knee, looking over a sick Pomni with worry in his face. He then carefully picks her up and places her on the couch. “I’ve got you.” He says quietly, but not too quietly as the ragdoll still hears it.
A knowing smile graces Ragatha’s lips. “Jax?” She calls.
Jax flinches, now remembering that his castmate is there. He turns to her and sees her teasing look. She looked better getting beaten up, he thought. He quickly stands up. “I’ll go after Evil Pomni. She’s cool.”
“Mm-hmm. Sure, Jax. She’s cool.” Ragatha chuckles.
“Shut up, you don’t know anything.” He hurriedly enters a portal.
The doll giggles at his obvious actions. She glances at the sleeping Pomni and pats her head. “Sleep tight, Pomni. We’ll get your copies!” With that, she turns to the last portal and starts entering it. She stops herself at once, remembering something. The last Pomni is the possessed one. She shudders in fear. “Oh, why couldn’t I get beach Pomni?” She asks no one before reluctantly stepping through the portal.
Gangle drops onto the concrete floor and rubs her butt in pain. When she opens her eyes, she sees that she is back in anime world! As exciting as it is for her, she must track down anime Pomni and save her friend!
“Gangle!” Oh, looks like she found her instead.
“Pomni!” They embrace each other. “Come on!” She pulls her friend to the portal. “We have to get you back quick!”
“B-but, Gangle, I… need your help with something.” Anime Pomni fidgets in place, looking very bashful.
Gangle giggles at the sight. She was so cute in this style, of course she could not resist helping. Besides, maybe this is part of the adventure too? “What do you need help with, Pomni?”
“I…” The anime jester shakes a little, blushing profusely. “I think I’m in love.”
The otaku’s mask quickly shifts to one of shock, and then it slowly turns excited, a long gasp accompanying the change. In her mind, it is just her screaming OH MY GOD repeatedly. She stops herself from squealing out loud, she MUST do this properly.
Gangle remembers her surroundings. School setting, huh? She knows a few places to talk. She quickly picks one and grabs her castmate’s anime copy and starts bringing her to the roof of the school. “We have much to discuss!”
Kinger steps into Caine’s magical changing booth and gets spit back out in his beach outfit. He wipes off the sand on him and looks for beach Pomni. She is, for some reason, being stopped from entering the beach by some random NPC.
“This is ridiculous! I’m twenty-five!” Beach Pomni, holding a bucket and a hand shovel, stomps the sand angrily.
“Yeah, sure, miss.” The mannequin who stopped her says sarcastically. “No minors allowed without a guardian.”
She points at the sun. “Ask the Sun! I’ve been here before!”
The Sun smiles down on her. “I could help you, but I already decided that I HATE you!”
The little beach jester groans in frustration.
Kinger approaches. “Hello, she’s with me.”
“Hello, sir.” The mannequin points to beach Pomni. “This your daughter?”
“Well, n—”
“YES!” Beach Pomni interrupts. “Please let me and my papa in!”
The word echoes through Kinger’s head. ‘Papa.’ He looks down to see her giving a pleading face. She was silently begging him to play along so she can play in the beach. To him, she looked so innocent, so pure. An unfamiliar feeling captures him, like he needs to protect her from literally everything that moves.
The chess piece grabs her hand. “Yes, this is in fact, my daughter!” He declares. “Two tickets to the beach please!”
“You, uh, don’t need tickets.” The mannequin steps aside. “Enjoy the beach, sir. You have a lively daughter.”
“Yay!” Pomni rushes past the guy, dragging Kinger along.
A joy enters Kinger. “Want to make a sand castle?” He asks her.
A gasp comes out of her. “Do I!?” She bounces with an excited energy before rushing to fill her bucket with sand and water.
The chess piece chuckles to himself. A little fun right now with her will not hurt anyone, right?
Zooble opens the door as the rain gets stronger. Looks like they dodged the downpour just in time.
“Hey, barkeep.” Noir Pomni calls to them, holding an empty glass and shaking it. “You’re late.”
Oh yeah, this is a setting the abstract loves. They get behind the counter. “Negroni?”
“You already know it.” She answered immediately.
They chuckle at the attitude. They would be like that too sometimes in a bar. The drink she wants was quick work. They slide the negroni to Noir Pomni and she starts with small sips, appreciating the drink.
“I suppose,” She starts. “I have to go with you, yeah?”
Zooble picks up a dirty glass and starts cleaning it. “Yup.”
She takes another sip. “Caine made finding all of us an adventure?”
“Yup.”
She sighs and takes another sip. “Do you wanna leave immediately?”
Zooble takes a second to answer. “Nope.”
Noir Pomni smiles. “Good.” She downs the negroni and asks for something stronger.
The stadium. Jax walks through the now empty field. Pomni would tell him that this was the day they became friends. He sighs. He just had to #@$% it up, didn’t he? He just HAD to almost abstract like an idiot, right? Painful as that last memory is, that pyramid maze adventure with Kinger and Pomni saved him. This was supposed to be his second chance, but $#@% is hard when the rest of them has years of torment perpetrated by him.
He owes so much to Kinger, and that old man responds well to him trying to be friendly to him. Bless the guy. Sometimes Jax believes he does not deserve it, yet when Pomni introduced him to the chess piece’s darkness talks in his fort, it is like Kinger knew magic words to make him feel better.
Ragatha is friendly to him now, too. So, maybe he should be nicer to her. Maybe. She is more genuine now, so… Maybe. He would most likely need Pomni beside him to keep him civil.
Gangle is still scared of him, but tries not to be. He does not know what type of talk-no-jutsu Pomni used to make her try to talk to him. Some progress, as he does not break her comedy mask anymore, but that's because she stopped wearing her comedy mask, which was cool of her, honestly. Pomni told him that was Zooble’s doing.
Speaking of, #@$% Zooble. &@#%$ just will not leave him alone. No way they can EVER be friends. End of discussion. However, the thought of a disappointed Pomni enters his mind and he groans out loud. He must use his second chance at life to be better here, and that means befriending Zooble no matter what.
They make it so hard though, like, man, you sing ONE love song with Pomni—
He stops his thoughts by smacking his own head. The jester entered his mind with literally every thought. Man was down BAD.
Jax should befriend the others first before asking her out. What even is ‘out’ in the circus? Do they just—
He hears a mechanism under him and jumps back to see a spike shoot up.
Evil Pomni can be heard cackling in the stands. “You ain’t getting me, copper! I’m experiencing freedom!” She turns tail when she sees Jax sprint towards her.
The purple rabbit had a smirk on his face. This adventure is gonna be FUN.
Ragatha was wrapped in darkness. The only light was the portal behind her. “Hello? Possessed Pomni?” She carefully walks forward. “Y-you need to get back with me!” The doll feels something grab her feet. “Oh no.”
She gets dragged into the dark, an evil laughter echoing through the room. “You made a mistake coming alone, girlie!”
“I know!” Ragatha yells as she continues to get dragged.