Chapter Text
“…This is so stupid.” Jax grumbles under his breath. Dragging each foot as he walks towards the school entrance.
Memories of how this situation unfolded start to bubble again in his head.
—
“JAX!” Ragatha shrieks.
A sound that usually tells him he definitely made a good decision.
“What?” Jax blinks innocently. Gangle lets out a small whimper as she lays Peter Griffin style at the bottom of the flight of stairs.
“Are you SERIOUS right now Jax? This was supposed to be a TEAM adventure! YOU’RE IMPOSSIBLE.”
The grin on Jax’s face widens as Ragatha’s seething increases.
Gangle wasn’t looking where she was going, how could he have possibly let such an opportunity go to waste? Come on, it’s hilarious.
“Oh boo hoo, she’s fiiinneee! Right, Gangle?” Jax dismisses with a dramatic wave of his hand.
A small cry about a broken comedy mask is heard at the bottom of the stairs.
“See?” Jax grins cheerfully as if proving a point.
Jax felt someone glare daggers to his back, making him involuntarily flinch. Now that he thinks about it, Zooble has been strangely quiet. They usually nag him along with Ragatha. Maybe his ragebait wasn’t on his A game today, considering a glare was all he got from them.
Well, that was until they opened their mouth after that day’s adventure.
“Jax.”
Jax turns around in response to see Zooble standing there with their arms crossed, looking quite… smug?
not a good sign.
“.. what.” Jax replies unsure, skeptical. There aren’t many people that would voluntarily go up to Jax to strike up a conversation, so he has a fairly good reason to feel this way.
“Caine wants to see you.” Zooble says nonchalantly, pointing to a specific direction with their eyes.
following where Zooble is looking, Jax spots two wooden doors.
Considering he has explored a good portion of the circus, he’s certain this doorway hasn’t been there before. Odd that he didn’t notice them before.
“Uhh, why exactly?”
“Guess you’ll have to find out.” The smirk heard in Zooble’s voice was clear as they started to walk away, leaving Jax unable to ask any more questions.
Seeing Zooble so smug was both unnerving and annoying. Doubting that he has much choice, Jax slowly makes his way to the doors. He inspectes them for any specific clues on what he’s going to encounter on the other side.
His great discovery is that he has no idea.
The doors open smoothly with just one push of his hand.
The room is dark, but an outline of a table is somewhat able to be seen at the edge of the room… perhaps a desk? Oh, there’s a chair too.
He isn’t afraid of the dark, but something about this room gave him a queasy feeling. *gulp*
Jax slowly makes his way deeper into the room, allowing his eyes to adjust to the darker environment so he co-
SLAM
The doors behind him closed abruptly.
Jax almost jumped to the roof from the startle. Despite knowing that nothing can actually hurt him in this digital world, he couldn’t help how fast his heart started beating. Why in the world was he so jumpy? When in doubt, blame Zooble I guess.
Though…, right now he’s stuck in a dark room.
Is this some sort of lame joke?
Before he could voice this question, a spotlight shines onto the desk. An office chair facing away from him quietly sits behind the desk.
Then it slowly turns around.
You can probably already guess what’s going on by now.
As we all expected, Caine is sitting there, petting a flattened looking bubble on his lap (otherwise it’d look weird cuz Bubble is quite big) as he finally stopped rotating his chair so it faced Jax.
This whole thing probably lasted a solid 57 seconds.
“…Ive been expecting you.” Caine says mysteriously, clearly trying to copy that stereotype those uh.. mysterious people do…, actually I don’t remember but you know what I mean.
“The committee has heard various complaints about your behaviour towards your fellow human companions and have decided that immediate action is needed- BUT. Don’t even ASK who reported you, because I cannot say... For… client privacy” Caine continued, tapping his hands together to look more serious, looking quickly around, making sure that his client is getting all the privacy they legally need.
I think we all know who reported me, though.
Keeping this as an inside thought, Jax looks around the brighter room. Various certificates of practically every career- ‘professional adventurer maker’…? Is that even a real job? anyway, many certificates are displayed on the wall, giving this room an office vibe.
“Although this brings me great pain-“ Caine says tearfully “I’ve decided the best way to punish you is to send you on an independent adventure where you’ll have to learn how to get along with others. Though, it was a bit last minute so I had to reuse some maps” He further explains, quickly mumbling the last part.
Jax stared in disbelief. No way he’s going to friendship rehab… the hell? Learn to get along with others? He literally gets along with everyone though?? It’s not his fault they don’t appreciate his company. Oh woe is him that it appears having a great sense a humor is a terrible sin now.
“Caine, come on! They’re definitely overreacting, you agree right? Think about it-“
“I’m sorry Jax my boy, but this is final.” Caine cuts Jax’s persuasion cut short.
Why he’s talking as if he’s Jax’s dad is a mystery. Fortunately, what we do know is that it made Jax somewhat uncomfortable ngl.
“Well off you go!” Caine snaps his fingers just as Jax was about to open his mouth. A portal appears, sucking Jax into the torturous punishment adventure.
—
This is where he is now, walking to school in a school uniform. Of course he’s in the stupid slice of life adventure Gangle suggested, ugh. Can this day get any worse?
Great. Now he jinxed it.
Jax sits in his seat in his first class. One second in the seat and he’s already yawning. This would’ve been so much better if this was a shonen anime. Huh? How does he know what shonen is? Um… he definitely doesn’t… because anime is for losers after all.
He glances out the window after his third yawn in a row. If he was already going to be stuck in this stupid classroom, he might as well be seated to the nearest exit (the window).
The classic beautiful cherry blossom scene is viewed beyond the window, which strangely gives him a chill down his spine.
A loud knock is heard from beside him. A mannequin is there, obnoxiously hitting the top of his desk.
“… can I help you?“ Jax responds, unenthusiastically.
“Uh, yeah? This is like, literally my desk. So like, can you like, go away. You’re kinda like, wasting my time right now.” The mannequin says in a dramatic manner, swaying their hips and looking at their non-existent pedicure- is it pedicure? Or is that just for feet? Anyway, whatever the hand version of pedicure is.
“…Yeahhhhhh, no.” He responds in an apathetic tone, looking away and hoping this thorn to his side leaves by themselves.
His hopes of this happening crumbles as the mannequin releases a loud offended gasp.
“Umm? Do you like, NOT know who I am?”
Maybe he should just give them a little taste of freedom he wished for himself and throw them out the window.
“I don’t. Let’s keep it that way before it ruins my day.”
The mannequin surprisingly gives up after that, letting Jax blend the light chatter into a resonating low tuned note. With only the echoing ticking of the clock left, each tock managed to steal a piece of Jax’s patience away bit by bit.
Actually, why is he still even there?
And with that innovative thought, Jax abruptly stands up and opens the window with a slam.
“Have fun learning patty cake, you loser geeks” he refreshingly exclaims, not waiting to see the reaction of the NPCs that he left in the dust, he jumps out of the second story building.
Bushes were there to help with the planned impact, though, in anime logic, he should probably be fine even if there wasn’t any there.
A few seconds of falling passed and Jax realized the impact wasn’t going to come. Instead, the feeling of being teleport replaced it.
“Tsk tsk tsk!” Sounds of preformed disappointment leaked from the one sitting on the chair in front of him.
Jax is left puzzled, standing in the previous office he had seen before, with Caine waving his finger in front of him.
“Jax my boy, you continue to disappoint the family” (??) He says sadly, “if you continue to not follow the storyline and never learn your lesson, I’ll have no choice but to give you a more… drastic punishment.”
A gulp made its way down Jax’s throat. Caine obviously wouldn’t do anything malicious to him but deep down, he knows he needs to stay on Caine’s good graces if he wants to continue on. Also, he can’t imagine anything worse than what he’s already going through.
“Alright, alright, fine…., how long exactly is this adventure going to last?” Jax crosses his arms in surrender, all he has to do is put up with this adventure and just get it over with.
“Well…” Caine pondered, tapping his fingers on his ‘chin’.
“I guess until you learned your lesson!” He flies out of his seat with his finger up as if he just thought of an incredible new idea. It was definitely not, and Jax’s face showed this sentiment.
“Any disciplinary detentions along with failing tests will slow the storyline planned for you” Caine further explains, much to Jax’s displeasure.
“But- uh- what about the others? They’re obviously going to miss my presence.” Jax lies through his teeth with a wavering smile, unable to think of any other excuses to get himself out of this.
“Oh, worry not! I actually did think about this very situation and gave them your evil version while you’re away!”
“What.”
Slurrrrp
An unexpected wet feeling hits the back of Jax’s head.
“This version tastes better though” Bubble says cheerfully.
Caine yelps in shock at the sight of this.
“BUBBLE, you CANNOT be doing that! I thought we’ve already talked about this” he says rushing to Bubble and popping them.
“You know what, just send me back to the adventure.” Jax grumbles in a low tone, wiping away whatever digital fluid was now dripping from his head.
Caine gives him a tearful proud look, which Jax just had to bear uncomfortable until the snap of Caine’s finger’s echoed around the room.
—
Jax was now sitting in the front of the class. Preventing the storyline to slow down meant he had to stay out of as much trouble if possible. In other words, this will be the most excruciating pain he’s ever going to go through, probably.
His thoughts are interrupted by tip taps from the hallway, the shuffle of the NPC students made Jax notice that class was finally about to commence.
A diabetically sweet looking teacher walks through the doors. Cuz she’s a lollipop.
“Goodmorning everyone! Hope you all had a wonderful summer break, we have some new students in the classroom so let me reintroduce myself” she cheerfully clasps her hands together. “My name is Ms. Loolilalu but you can all call me Ms. L”
From princess to a union worker, huh? Quite the opposite of rags to riches. Jax wonders if perhaps this drastic career change was due to his actions on the previous adventure which caused all the civilians to probably be eaten. A fond memory compared to the constant disappointment he experienced throughout that adventure.
A wave of chatter goes throughout the room, mostly greetings among other things.
“Alright, let’s jump straight to it! We’re going to be doing just simple introductions today. Everyone will get into pairs and give their partner 1 truth and 2 lies about themselves. Partners will switch every 5 minutes.”
Perhaps turning into a slug for the rest of eternity would be less torturous than whatever this is.
As soon as Ms. L finished giving an example, everyone got up and started bustling throughout the classroom to find a partner.
Jax stayed seated and silently watched the scene play out. He was still unpaired only because he was unenthusiastic about this activity, definitely not because he couldn’t- because he definitely could if he wanted to.
The sound of gum popping near his ear interrupts Jax from trying to convince the readers that he isn’t a loner loser.
“So like,” *pop* “are you gonna start talking or what.” The mannequin from before appears in front of him.
How are they doing that.
“Nah.” He already decided that snoozing away the class is more worth his time.
“I inquire that everyone please kindly all participate! Class won’t end until everyone has had at least 5 different partners!” The anthropomorphic lollipop adds loudly, staring directly at Jax.
Just call him out at this point.
This new information stops Jax in his tracks of his planned nap time and he lackadaisically sits back up again with a loud sigh escaping his mouth.
“Ladies first.” He gestures to the mannequin half heartedly.
“I knew you’d, like, eventually ask, like, literally everyone is curious about me so, like, I can’t even blame you!” The mannequin ends the sentence with loud exaggerated laughter.
“Alright lets see like, okay, first one is I own like, a mansion, second one is everyone absolutely like, ADORES me, and the third is that my daddy literally, like, totally owns this school“
Each second they continued talking the more Jax was debating on actually ripping his ears off.
“Alright, well, the second one definitely isnt tru-“
“Oh oops-! Was I like, supposed to give 2 lies? Omg, I like, totally said 3 truths there! Ahaha, I’m so like, silly, oopsies!” They fan their face and frantically giggle at their own idiocy.
“Ok great, my turn. First one is that I’m going to waterboard you, second is I’m going to douse you in gasoline, and the third is I’m going to throw you out the window directly behind you.” Jax says brightly, putting up a finger each time he lists an additional option.
“Uhm… is like… the third one false?”
“Wrong! Close though!” Jax’s infamous smile is plastered across his face. “That one is true and the other two are up for debate.”
Now there’s a very suspicious mannequin-shaped hole in the wall and the one who fits perfectly through it is currently head first in the bushes. Crazy how coincidences happen like that.
Perhaps this will be more fun than he thought.
“New student, please be kinder to your classmates if you don’t want to stay after class.”
Never mind.
The next 15 minutes went swiftly with Jax’s partner’s happily sharing their 1 truth and 2 lies, and Jax gaslighting them on his turn into thinking that he already said his part of the exchange.
With just 10 minutes left of class, Jax is slightly in denial that he actually had to go through all of this all because Zooble became a damn tattle tale, which is honestly embarrassing in his opinion. Maybe even more embarrassing than whatever he just spent doing for the past 30 minutes….
Nah… this was humiliating.
Though, it’s amusing that they think a few minutes of playing hokey pokey is actually going to ‘fix’ him.
Suddenly, a bright red colour catches his attention.
And then there he was.