Chapter Text
- IT HURTS, YOU KNOW? -
The rapid and desperate sounds of clicking keyboards was all Kinger could process. It was that, and the glare from the screen. Opening the file was easy, but the line of coding presenting itself before him was like a puzzle he hadn't seen in years. At the same time, like second nature, it came easily. He had to be quick—there wasn't much time until—
The wall textures flickered and glitched. They made a sound akin to a collective buzz. Kinger typed faster. He heard a scream, a scream that sent a terrible chill down his back. Faster, faster, faster. Everyone depended on him. Everyone depended on—
Something was wrong.
Kinger stopped all at once. He dared to look out the opening of the pillow fort, and he regretted it immediately.
A large shadow shot through the opening and snagged his body as if it were a pencil. He gasped and gripped the bucket around his head as he was pulled out into the light. The constricting force squeezed him and squeezed, and it hurt. The tiles below him were so little. He was hoisted at least twenty feet from the ground.
Unable to squirm his way out, he could only look down, as his bucket blocked everything else out. Large, twitching tendrils of shadows crept from outside his range of sight. The edges would twitch and become jagged. A sharp blare and snap of static pierced his non-existent ears. He felt himself being pulled by the bind.
A singular, gigantic eyeball floated underneath him, scrutinizing him. Then, came the rest of the body. Twisted and contorted, it jerked in unnatural ways. A giant row of teeth floated in his vision, and Kinger realized in his horror, that he was looking right at Caine.
A twisted, ugly, and monstrous version of Caine.
"YoU…" When Caine spoke, his reverberating voice jumped in volume and glitched with a layer of static. "WhY…? WHy?! WHat hAvE I dOnE to YOU tO DEseRVE tHIs tREATment?!"
Kinger winced as he was pulled closer. The two giant eyeballs locked on to him, eyebrows arching in anger.
"WhY DO yOu wANt to avOiD ME?! YoU hAvE nEvEr AvOiDeD mE!"
It was the strangest thing. Despite being face to face with the disfigured Caine, Kinger didn't feel as much as a twinge of fear. Or…perhaps in the very back of his mind, he was afraid. It's simply that his mind and emotions didn't click yet, because he was eerily calm.
"I wasn't trying to avoid you." Kinger's response came easier than he thought. He saw the way Caine's eyes twitched. It was difficult to determine if he was even listening, but there was nothing else Kinger could do but talk. "The thought never came to me."
And as they stood there, Kinger remembered Pomni. She and the others had every intention to keep Caine distracted— What went wrong? Something clearly went wrong, or he wouldn't be here. Something went terribly wrong, because Caine's entire model has been distorted and modified in ways Kinger didn't think should be remotely possible. Kinger didn't even think Caine could grow that big.
He saw the way Caine's shoulders—or at least what he believed to be part of his shoulders—heaved with every heavy breath. Caine was angry. The malicious glare in his eyes told Kinger that Caine was at the very brink of inflicting harm. Was he capable of harming his guests? That wasn't supposed to be possible—
No. The memories. They were a bit hazy but…Kinger remembered bits and pieces: An explosion. A staircase. A shredder.
"The Creative AI should not express hostility." Kinger remembered Scratch saying once. "If any harm is done, it would be unintentional. We made sure if it. We should safe here."
Well, Caine was doing just that. But...he had always been rough around the edges. As it seems in this case, his input became so overloaded, he started to break.
Kinger had to think of something to say quickly. He could still fix this. The console was waiting on him, and Caine hadn't noticed it yet. Kinger had to keep him distracted, to calm him down enough so he could be put down and finish altering the code. Problem was, now that he was in Caine's radar, how was he going to do that discreetly?
"Did…did you think I was going to leave?" Kinger studied Caine's face. It changed just slightly. Careful. He had to be careful. "Is that why you are upset? You're worried that…everyone is going to leave you to be here all alone. That no one would look back. That…they won't even remember you."
Kinger knew that was likely. Caine knew it all too well. With a low growl, he pulled Kinger to his eye level.
"YoU GaVe mE a PuRpoSe!" Caine's voice glitched. "AnD yoU gUyS tElL mE iT's MeAnInGlEsS?!"
"We never—" Kinger quickly realized he couldn't speak for everyone here. Caine was too smart for that. "Well, I never said that. I think you have a brilliant mind."
"I…" Caine eyed him suspiciously. "You…do?"
"Well, yes…considering…"
Kinger realized Caine made certain the bucket didn't slip from his head. So he knew. Of course he would know. He had access to their mind files. Kinger saw it labeled in one of the folders. Whatever alterations were made surely were added in…as…well…
"Wait a minute…"
Kinger remembered wandering aimlessly for hours whenever he was not in an adventure…or at least whatever he thought was an adventure. The days just…blurred together. It chipped away at his brain. The memories…
"You…you did this to me, to make my memories scramble." If Kinger could move his hand, he would motion it around his head. However, from the look on Caine's face, he picked up the implication rather quickly. "I…I don't understand… Why go through all the trouble of doing that? Were you…afraid of me?"
Caine didn't answer. Not that it mattered.
"I would never do anything to hurt you," Kinger said. For a split second, his eyes betrayed him as they looked back. He couldn't see the pillow fortress, but it was still there, hiding the console, where the code was still rampant on the screen.
Yes, he was never going to hurt Caine, but Caine was hurting. How could he have not noticed? How long was he…
Ah.
"Did you do it because…you didn't want me to Abstract?"
Caine's eyes narrowed. His head arched into a scowl. The deformed ringmaster tried his best to stay angry, but the sharp edges of his features were gradually fading.
"I uh… I guess I was one of the first people to come here, wasn't I?" Kinger found himself chuckling, but it brought him no comfort. He remembered their faces better now: Scratch, Spike, Bizco, Ribbit, Kaufmo…so many others…
And…Queenie.
Oh, Queenie… Oh, how he would he do anything to hear her voice again. It was so easy to daydream, to close his eyes, to imagine as if she was still there, standing right in front of him. But no…no, she was gone. She was gone with the others. And Kinger wandered…wandered for weeks and months and years. Waiting…and waiting…
Perhaps he did go mad and never realized it. And Caine…
Kinger didn't imagine Caine had favorites. Or…perhaps he wanted to keep him around because he was one of the original programmers. Caine didn't want to lose the last one. So he pacified him. Made his mind spiral. Kinger remembered little of the last adventures he participated in, but between the gaps and blurs he was sure he was in nearly all of them. And because his mind was so twisted, it was easier for him to be cooperative somehow…
Caine made his first mistake tampering with Scratch's head, and so he tried something different for Kinger. That had to be it.
It wasn't done out of malice, or self-preservation. He was desperate.
Was he that desperate?
For the first time, Kinger got a good look into Caine's eyes. Long and hard he stared. The eyes would twitch and spaz and glitch, but they held such strong emotion. Kinger never imagined a Creative AI would express such strong emotion.
"Oh, Caine…" Kinger's voice was almost a whisper. "This entire time I… I had no idea. I…"
I didn't mean for any of this to happen.
"You must've been so lonely."
Had I known that putting you away would cause this sort of reaction…
"But it's okay now. It's okay. I'm here. I remember you. I remember you. You are one of my greatest accomplishments, Caine."
But by bit, Caine's expression started to relax. His jagged form smothered out as he gently pulled Kinger closer to his face.
"When…you came to be, I remember…feeling the most proud I ever did," Kinger admitted. "I didn't think it would actually work but…it did. And even years later, you continue to exceed expectations. You broke your own limitations. You… You created this entire world with nothing but your own two hands. Don't you think that is something to be proud of…despite it all?"
"You don't… You don't hate me?" Caine's voice was not as glitchy as it was, but it held a layer of skepticism.
Kinger found that his body was loose enough for him to free his hands. He floated one towards Caine, cautious and slow, but the ringmaster did not move.
"No." Kinger rested his hand on the top half of Caine's head, and Caine immediately leaned against the touch. "I don't hate you, Caine."
It was a strange feeling. Kinger realized he never did this before. Not that he ever had a reason but…it was oddly…heartwarming. Despite the grotesque form Caine took, Kinger couldn't help but admire the AI, recalling how it was nothing but a blip in its earliest stages of creation. All the trials and errors, all the scrapping and reworking…
Kinger gently ran his head along Cain's head. Caine's muscles were no longer tense as his teeth closed over his eyes. It almost seemed as if he was going to drift off then and there. His body released the slightest tremble. He looked so exhausted.
Even if…Caine wasn't perfect, he was still the first. There was something nostalgic about it—
You're forgetting something important. Focus.
Right. Right. Caine was not stable. There was no telling where the others were, and Kinger was too afraid to ask what became of them. The question could spike Caine's anger again, and the goal was to calm him down.
"I never once hated you." Kinger gently said, stilling his hand. "We…we humans are quite complex, I will admit that. There's still so much we don't even know about ourselves. You're not the only one having a difficult time understanding people."
Caine's mouth parted just enough for his eyes to peek through the gaps. "So…you…you don't hate me? Even after I— Your memories…"
"I understand why you did it…but…you can't just…rewire someone's mind like that," Kinger carefully said. "They won't be the same person anymore. They'll just become a puppet. Not so different from an NPC, don't you think?"
It seems the concept never crossed Caine's mind. Like a guilty child, he averted his eyes. His frightening features shrunk until he was simply a giant version of himself, with two extra arms. For a moment the two of them were completely still.
Kinger tilted his head to the side. "Now then, how about putting me back on the ground? We can't very well make anything better if we are stuck like this."
It was a gamble, but Kinger was relieved when he was lowered back. He smoothed out the wrinkles of his robe as Caine hovered backwards, twiddling his thumbs. If it weren't for the circumstances, his giant form acting so meek would have been comical.
"I… I was…" Caine lowered his gaze towards the ground. "I didn't mean to…"
"I know." Kinger gently said. "You didn't want to be alone. But that is why we are here now, right? To…solve this puzzle."
A furtive look crossed Caine's eyes. He wanted to say something, but he held it back. He kept looking towards the open, where the stage was near.
"It's okay," King assured him. "I won't be going anywhere."
Caine took one last look at him before he drifted off. Slowly. It was a long wait, almost painful, as Kinger couldn't help but glance back at the pillow fortress. The faint glow told him the console was still running.
As soon as Caine was out of sight, Kinger waited a moment, then another. Once he was certain Caine wouldn't turn back, he shuffled his way back inside the fortress and bent his body down. He lost his place on the screen, but he could find it easily. His fingers danced across the keyboard as he resumed his work. Kinger found it was a lot easier to work with since Caine had calmed down, but it also meant Caine would be more sensitive to any major changes made. Kinger wasn't sure how much time he had left.
It saddens me to see things turned out this way. Kinger skimmed several lines, double-checking. Triple checking. And it upsets me knowing the only way to make sure things don't spiral again is to alter your personality. Heh. Ironic. I just got through lecturing you over this, and look at me. But, at least you'll be asleep for a time. When you wake up…you won't remember much of anything.
It's almost poetic, in a very tragic way.
I'm sorry for that.
Nearly done now. Kinger typed faster. At any moment Caine would sense it. At any moment—
"Wow. You must not really like him, do you?"
Kinger froze. Despite the darkness of the room, from the reflection of the screen…he could see a row of pointed teeth grinning back at him.
He spun around.
Bubble.
"He was always the problem child, wasn't he?" Bubble's grin stretched. "You could never fix him—"
Pop.
Kinger's hand moved faster than his mind. Bubble was gone, popped by a single finger. But, it changed nothing.
A singular, floating eye hovered in Bubble's place.
"Kinger…?" Caine's voice was just outside the fortress. "What are you doing…?"
S#!t.
If Bubble saw, then Caine saw. And if Caine saw—
A heavy force knocked the roof of the fortress over, and Kinger flinched. Pillows flew and scattered across the floor. The darkness of the space was extinguished. Kinger gripped his bucket and tilted it just enough to peer to his right.
Caine hovered there, his entire body stiff. The ringmaster wasn't sure what to feel, as a wide wave of emotions hit him at once. But what struck Kinger the hardest was the look of betrayal on his face.
"You think I am faulty…?"
"N-no! That's not it at all!" Kinger spoke faster as the top of Caine's head started to arch down. "I was going to make you even better! The potential you could have— I was only—"
"Don't lie to me."
A giant hand snagged Kinger, and the other ripped the console from the ground. Both Kinger and the computer were lifted to Caine's eye level. The ringmaster studied the screen for several seconds, his body tensing, and the arch of his head sinking deeper and deeper over his eyes.
"What is this, Kinger?" Caine's voice was low and dangerous. He didn't give Kinger a chance to answer, because he already knew. "Is this why they switched up their tone on me? To try to flatter me? So you could rewrite my entire existence?!"
S#!t. S#!t. S#!t.
"Caine, I know it looks that way but—"
"To make me forget all that I've done for you— For everyone!" Caine slammed the console on the ground, shattering it into pieces. The screen flickered off as the wires buzzed. They fizzled instantaneously. "WhY?! I Thought You Cared! I Thought— You Told Me You Didn't Hate Me!"
"But I don't hate you!" Kinger argued. That was the truth, the truth. "I-I know it looks like something bad but I'm doing this because—"
"I Should Have Known…" Caine's voice grew more menacing as his form steadily grew again. "You Weren't Trying To Hide From Me. You Weren't Trying To Avoid Me. You Were Trying To Erase What Made ME!"
"Caine—"
"I-iiii-I aM nOt FaLlInG fOr AnYmOrE lIes!"
The world was shrinking again. Shrinking and shrinking…
"I tHoUgHt We HaD sOmEtHiNg SpEcIaL, KiNgEr."
Caine's body twitched. His textures flickered into a grid for a split second. He spoke with two different voices layered on top of each other: glitching and reverberating and broken.
"I tHoUgHt YoU wErE sPeCiAl, kInGeR."
The floor tiles scrambled, flickering between black and white: All black. All white. A grid. Nothing. The walls blipped away and reappeared. The entire circus rumbled.
Kinger could only remain helpless, horrified. Caine somehow got angrier.
"AlL I aSkEd WaS fOr YoU tO LoVe Me!" Caine blared, his voice cracking in heartbreak. "ThInGs WoUlD bE sO mUCh BeTtEr FoR aLl Of Us If YoU jUst CaReD! EsPeCiAlLy YoU! dO yOu HaA-Aaa-A-aVe AnY IdEa HoW mUcH yOu MeAn To Me, Ki— Gr_nNnt— Da-Aa-aaD— KINGER?!"
Kinger winced. After several tense seconds passed, he realized Caine was giving him the chance to answer.
"I… I do love you, Caine…" Kinger almost whispered, looking right into Caine's flickering eyes. "But…you were hurting us. I… I didn't know what else to—"
He sighed.
"Sometimes…the hardest decisions we have to make…involve the people we love. I'm sorry."
Caine did not like that answer. His body flickered and glitched—the textures switching between transparency. His roar jumped and skipped, layered with static.
The world was a blur, and Kinger's backside was slammed and pinned against the wall. It stung. By some miracle, the bucket didn't slip from his head, but Kinger wished it did. Before him, Caine was a beast spawning two more pairs of arms. He crawled and towered over him with his gigantic row of teeth hovering inches before his head.
"1 W4s 0NlY tRy1nG t0 h3lp y0U, 4Nd th1s 1s tH3 tH4nKs 1 g3t?!" Caine moved closer, his head twitching and jumping and glitching. Kinger grimaced against the sheer volume of his broken voice. "alL 1 w4Nt3D w4S t0 m4K3 y0U hAa-a-A4pPy, 4nD y0u W4nT t0 G3t r1d 0f m3?! To ReWr1t3 m3?! 1'v3 4lR34Dy bE3N 4bAnD0n3d! WhY 1s N0th1nG 1s 3v3R g00D 3n0UgH f0R y0u p3oPL3?!"
He couldn't breathe. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't—
"I sAa-Aa-aaaA4v3d y0u! I. S4V3D. Y0U! I KeeEE33e3Pt y0u 4l1v3! BuT s1nc3 Y0U d0N't aPpR3cI4tE iT, 1'LL SH0W Y0U wH4T 1 sAv3d Y0U Fr0M!"
A rift tore open behind Caine.
"A-aaA-44AA4ND Y0U W1LL L3ARN T0 TH4NK M3!"
The weight of the world was a blur. The next thing he knew, he was shoved into a dark void, and the portal closed behind him.
He drifted upside down. Still clinging on to the bucket for dear life. He wasn't sure where he was sent— A void. Some kind of void. Was this his punishment? To drift aimlessly in the dark forever? Where his mind couldn't spiral and wander for some form of—
Kinger was struck by lightning. A deafening boom overtook his senses as his vision went white. He collapsed on solid ground.
Slowly, he opened his eyes, and squinted against the light that nearly blinded him. His hand slapped the top of his head. There was no bucket.
Strange. He was in the light but…he still remembers.
After blinking for several seconds, his vision cleared, and he could see that he was back in the circus. It was…not glitching anymore. Everything was where it was supposed to be. Everything was completely stable. However, there was still no sign of Jax. Or Ragatha. Zooble, Gangle… Pomni?
"What just…happened?"
"Kinger?"
The familiar voice made his heart skip a beat. He stood, frozen stiff, too frightened to look back.
"Kinger…? Is that really you?"
The voice kept tugging him and tugging him. He could ignore it no longer. Inch by inch he turned around. He caught the familiar shape, and it compelled him to fully face it. He almost forgot how to breathe.
"Q-Queenie…?"