Chapter Text
Pomni can’t tell what's weirder, the giant Rooster being there or the fact that it sounds like an alarm clock.
She had just left her room, after the sound of a deafening alarm clock had literally shaken her out of her bed. She stares at the giant rooster standing in the middle of the hallway, blinking and rubbing her eyes, as if expecting it to just be a hallucination of some kind. Nope. It’s still there, and still like ten times her height. And for some reason wearing an exact copy of Caine's hat.
Pomni hears a door open behind her, and glances back to see Zooble leaving their room. They stare at the rooster for about three seconds, looks at Pomni, and then turns around wordlessly and walks back into their room, shutting the door behind them.
The rooster crows again, sending another deafening blare down the hall, and Pomni hears what sounds like several mirrors cracking coming from Zoobles' room. Zooble leaves their room again, sighing and walking over to stand next to Pomni. Further down the hall past the chicken, Ragatha steps out of her room.
Ragatha looks up at the large Rooster with wide eyes, gaping up at the titanic bird. She blinks, and slowly starts inching along the wall towards Pomni and Zooble.
“Well, that’s one way to get Zooble out of her room.” A familiar, smug voice says behind Pomni. She looks back, seeing the yellow teeth of Jax’s grin as he comes up to stand besides Zooble. “Caine should do this more often.”
Zooble holds up a hand, and a black bar blocks off the rude gesture she makes.
The door directly across from Pomni’s room opens, and Gangle peeks out. They look blankly up at the giant Rooster, before looking at Zooble, who just shrugs at her. Gangle walks over, not looking at Jax as she stands just behind Zooble, away from Jax.
“Did… did Caine make it?” Gangle asks aloud.
“It must have been him,” Ragatha says, finally making her way over. She seems oddly uncomfortable in the presence of the chicken, moreso then to the others, despite the fact it hasn’t moved, except to preen its feathers. “Kinda weird he’d just… make a giant chicken though…”
“Almost everyone’s awake! Wonderful!” Says Caines voice, coming from below them… through the ground? Pomni watches as a T-posing Caine rises straight up through the floor in front of the ground, floating upside down. A second later he becomes animated again. “I consider that a ROUSING success!”
“I’m sure everyone is wondering why I made it. Well I remembered that humans are supposed to go to bed and wake up at regular times, but I don’t have a curfew or ANYTHING to make sure you have a schedule! So naturally I decided to make a giant Rooster, so that you guys DO have a sleep schedule!” He beams at them. Zooble just glares at him, while Jax ignores him. Gangle jumps as the chicken crows again. Caine's excitement wanes a little.
“Yes yes I know, it’s uncomfortable now, but that’s just a sign it's working!” Suddenly the chicken coughs and lets out a burp, as Bubble appears out of the chicken's beak.
“If there’s no pain there’s no gain!” Bubble says. Caine quickly hides his somewhat grossed out look and nods enthusiastically.
“That’s absolutely right Bubble!” He says. “Soon you’ll all have fully developed your circadian rhythms!” Suddenly a door opens behind him. Everyone turns and watches as Kinger walks into the hallway. “Did someone mention cicadas?” He asks, before stopping in his tracks as he notices the Rooster. He looks up at it before turning to face everyone else.
“Does Caine look different today?” He asks. Caine stares blankly at Kinger, looks at Bubble in confusion, before looking back at Kinger. He clears his throat, causing Kinger to notice Caine.
“Oh hi Caine, did you make a copy of yourself but as a giant Rooster?” Caine sighs and rubs his large eyes.
Ragatha speaks up. “Oh er… Kinger that’s actually not… Caine at all, its an NPC Caine made look like a Rooster to wake us up to replicate a sleep schedule.” As if on cue, the Rooster lets out another deafening blare of an alarm clock, causing everyone to cover their ears and grimace. Except for Kinger, who barely seems to notice.
“Oh I see!” Kinger realizes. Suddenly his eyes turn nearly black as his pupils dilate in alarm. “Wait, Roosters eat insects!” He turns and starts speeding down the hall, presumably towards his pillow fort in the larger area of the circus. “NOT MY INSECT COLLECTION!” His voice echoes back.
Ragatha sighs and shrugs at Pomni. “I should… go make sure he’s okay.”
“Eh, none of us are getting any more sleep with that thing here.” Zooble says, gesturing with their left hand, which is more so a claw similar to arcade machine claws, at the chicken. “We all might as well go.” Everyone nods unanimously in agreement. Caine, satisfied at a job well done, sinks back into the floor, though not before Zooble gives him another glare.
As everyone starts walking to follow after Ragatha and Kinger, Pomni lingers behind for a few seconds, staring at the chicken. For some reason, Pomni feels unsettled by it. Weird, since she was fine with it only a few moments ago. It looks at her. It preens its feathers… and freezes. Every movement stops. Not just freezes, it’s like it lost it’s entire ability to be animated.
A sound like an alarm ringing played over itself a thousand times blasts in Pomni’s ear, the Chicken flashes with a texture that looks like a grid with pink and black squares, then it suddenly goes back to normal, preening its feathers as if nothing happened.
“Holy s***!” Pomni takes a step back, tripping over the floor and falling to the floor.
“Pomni? You alright?” Pomni looks to see Zooble, Gangle and Jax staring at her. Gangle and Zooble are startled by Pomni’s outburst of alarm. Jax is largely uninterested, only barely curious.
“U-uh- sorry did- did any of you see that? Or hear that?” Pomni looks up at the rooster, and quickly hurries over to the others, not wanting to be near it any longer. “It like-” she struggles to come up with the words to describe it.
She glances back at the animal, which has started to wander off down the opposite direction of the hall. “It like… glitched out? I was weird.”
“Wait, it glitched?” Jax says, suddenly interested. He raises an eyebrow. “Ooh that's rare, only happens from time to time.” He grins at Ragatha. “Remember that time I pushed you into a glitch and you got stuck in a tree for like an hour?” He laughs, as Ragatha sighs in discomfort at the memory.
“It’s pretty rare, but sometimes things will do that.” Zooble explains to Pomni. “I'm not surprised you haven't seen one till now, they’re pretty rare.”
Gangle nods. “And it's not safe to touch a glitch.” She says. “Once I touched an NPC that was glitched and it sent me flying through the ground and into the void.” She looks down, holding both her hands to her chest. Clearly it was a bad memory.
So naturally Jax snickers when he remembers it. “Oh yeah, I remember that. That was fun.” He chuckles as he walks off. Zooble tries to use their claw hand to flip Jax off by pulling in two claws and extending the fingers, but despite the hand being non-standard the censors still cover it.
Pomni glances back at the chicken one last time, before following Zooble and Gangle out to the main area. As she leaves the chicken continues walking the opposite way down the hall. It keeps going, and collides with the wall. It freezes again. It, and the wall, lose their texture for several seconds before the chicken vanishes. The wall stays behind, but its texture remains lost.
Once they arrive at the main area everyone typically hangs out between adventures, Zooble collapses on one of the couches, Gangle sitting beside them. Kinger appears to have retreated into his fortress of darkness. Ragatha is hovering outside of it. Counting can be heard from inside the fortress, as Kinger counts his collection. God knows where he puts it, since every time Pomni has seen the inside the fort has been empty.
Suddenly there's a loud popping sound and Caine appears in the air above them. “Hello my Gallant, Grumpy Gooses! I hope everybody's ready for today's adventure!”
The response is awkward murmuring as well as Zooble groaning, his face pressed into the couch cushions. Gangle pats Zoobles head and smiles comfortingly at him.
“Today's adventure is going to be: Saving the Kingdom from the Evil Dragon!” Caine snaps his fingers, and a screen pops up. Mannequins dressed in medieval peasant garb wander around a stereotypical medieval town square. One wearing Knights armor on a horseback passes through, waving at the peasants below them. A castle is visible in the distance. A few seconds later the skies darken, and a dragon swoops down through the clouds. It sends a fireball directly into the castle, sending the NPCs in the square into a panic, and the Knight racing off towards the castle. The dragon swoops over the view of the screen, and ignites several houses, causing the screen to be obscured in smoke. A few seconds later the screen clears, now with a view of the dragon clutching a cartoonish money bag in its claws, as it flies towards tall and imposing mountains.
“The evil dragon has invaded the kingdom! It has caused untold damage to the innocent townspeople, and worst of all has stolen every ounce of gold from the kings treasury!” Caine swaps the screen to a figure in golden armor with a jewel encrusted crown kneeling in the middle of an empty room. It seems to be a treasury, but only a few silver and copper coins are left in a small pile in the middle of it. The King holds his head in his hand and bawls.
“And so it is up to YOU, my Noble adventurers! You must travel the strange and mystical lands to the dragon's lair, and defeat the monster to stop its rampage! Along the way you will encounter monsters and magic, ancient artifacts and great dangers! Perhaps you will fight through each encounter, who use diplomacy to leave them in peace!”
Pomni blinks as Caine snaps his fingers, opening a portal that glows with green and red. She had zoned out but managed to catch most of it. “Also you’ll be given special abilities and powers to help you and make it more fun and spice it up.” He says. “Now off! Off on your journey of mystery! Of triumph! Of-” Caine continues talking as Pomni follows Jax through the portal, followed by everyone else.
Caine stares as the portal closes. After a moment he glances at his WackyTMWatchTM, before speeding off to the living corridor. He stops at the very end, where the watch said there was a texture glitch that wasn’t being fixed by the program's automatic error repairs.
He scanned the wall in front of him, before looking down at his watch.
“Mh… well that's odd! There’s nothing here!” He glances up at the textureless wall, and sees the normal, vibrant and colorful texture that’s supposed to be there. He’s tempted to just dismiss the warning, but feels bad about doing nothing. Afterall, what kind of ringmaster would he be if he just ignored the Circus’s problems?
He waved his hand, deleting the wall, before replacing it with an identical copy. The warning disappears and doesn’t come back, so he pats himself on the back.
“Another job well done!” He vanishes off to his office to work on his next adventure, already forgetting the whole thing.
A few moments after he leaves the wall glitches, losing its texture and going back to being a grid of pink and black squares.
Despite the glitch, the WackyWatch stays silent and doesn’t go off.