Chapter Text
Black distortion seeped out onto the colorful bright corners, blocks overtaken by dark malevolence, sharp and flat like shattered pixelated glass.
“Good morning my buzzing bundles of colors! I need everyone to huddle up for a really REALLY big announcement!”
The ringleader's words were heard from all parts of the circus, but he spoke to nobody in front of him?
Snap
Let’s fix that.
And suddenly everyone was dropped onto the cushions of the colorful sofas in the middle of the circus. Groans as they were either toppled over each other or slid off the synthetic furniture.
Caine's voice overbearing as he began.
“On this fine and dandy digital day, we’re going on a…!”
Bubble opened their mouth, a drumroll sound effect coming out.
“Temporary outside adventure! For no particular reason what so ever”
There was a comedic slow turn as Caine’s floating eyes rotated toward the direction of jittering black pixels which slowly slid through the cracks of the checkered floor.
“Wh-what is that?” Gangle asked in her habitual whiny voice, her ribbon hand limply pointing to the black mass, her tragedy mask which already broke; kept with a terrified expression.
“Caine.” Zooble said with an edge in their tone, already giving a sharp glance to him.
“Woah woah woah!” He swung his arms around exasperatedly.
“Let’s not start giving some mean stares here! Even an ideal leader such as myself can make happy little accidents, which did not happen because I tried to merge the assets of the last..28 adventures.."
“Wait so-”
“So! (Caine interrupted zooble) I will be working overtime fixing this little quinky dink to be dealt with as soon as my lovely cast members are out of harm's way!”
He began batting large lashes in a cartoonish manner.
Zooble gave a skeptical look to Caine, while Gangle couldn’t keep their eyes off the void mass that seemingly got bigger with time.
“Alrighty then, what kind of adventure have you got for us?”
Jax spoke up, taking up the whole sofa with a sly yellow grin on his face as per usual.
Which left Ragatha standing next to Pomni, she had a polite smile but a tense squint as she saw the creepy pixels from the corner of her eye.
A light blue portal opened up beneath Caine, at its arrival confetti exploded out from it.
“Glad you asked my curious camel! I've cooked up a good change in pace from my wonderful digital mayhem that I know you all love so dearly."
He zips around the cast explaining his adventure with exaggerated passion.
“ You’ll take a serene walk through the passive meadows and lounge in the digital warmth of my 4k-ultra-realistic-and-TOTALLY-STABLE adventure!” He says the almost practiced words quickly.
“Come on guys, if we’re staying there a while it must be nice!”
The ever so optimist. Feeling like she needed to encourage them to be excited for the adventure, maybe one day she’d be right and they wouldn’t end up torn to shreds by amalgamations, sliced by giant swords, or having a shoot off for a useless prize..
Kinger stood up walking to the portal
“Pubert is right, we need to do this before the paint dries.”
He peeked his head inside the portal, his voice sounding pixelated and low quality.
Ragatha’s smile faltered for a flicker of a moment, an awkward stiff chuckle as Kinger called her Pubert? Who even was Pubert?? Anyway, he technically did move to the portal at her suggestion so, one down four more to go?
BONK
Kinger was replaced with Jax, his leg up and clearly the culprit of kicking the chess piece.
“Jax! What did you- Where's Kinger?”
Ragatha asked before pulling at her yarn hair as she looked to the whirling portal realizing what happened.
“Oh god he's in there all alone!”
“Whaaat? We’re going in anyway.” Jax grinned wide, looking at her up and down as a thought formed in his head.
“That doesn’t mean you can push him in! Oh what if he gets lost and we don't find him for a while!? Remember the playground adventure? We didn't find him until-”
“Yeah yeah bla bla bla, thanks for volunteering yourself, go get ‘em tiger.”
She swore she only took her eyes off him for a moment focused on the poor lost Kinger in the adventure with no one to keep a watch on him. But the next second she was held like a cardboard cutout held by the side, cartoonishly light as her next few moments were filled with a whirling blue.
“I’d call that a hole in one!”
Cricket
Caine then interrupted Jax’s not so hilarious skit with coerce.
“Now hurry! I need to fix this place pronto before you all become digital void food!”
Caine's hand became large as it swept them all into the portal.
-
It was serene and really, green. It consisted of soft grass and wild flowers, different varieties wherever you looked but similar earthy colors where you stood, through squinted eyes you could see a figure in the distance similar to some house? A shed? Something of the sort and hard to make out from far.
You could feel a perfect breeze pass by with every minute, the sun with its cartoonish face had more of a realistic render to it, its rays actually radiating some warmth on the cast's cartoonish bodies. Speaking of them, they all looked particularly different, lighter colors to their clothes with more natural hues, flowy and light fabrics. This was a lot different than other adventures, like the saturation was lowered perfectly to match a life outside the digital circus. If only they could actually be outside of it.
“Oh wow”
Gangle said with wide eyes on her mask as she looked at the area ahead.
“This actually looks pretty nice.”
Pomni said after, looking out as well next to Gangle. She noticed she changed appearance, and so on with everyone else not too bad coming from Caine.
“More like pretty, BORING”
Jax says, his usual yellow teethed grin changed to a bothered frown. He remembered this adventure before, it was the most dreadfully quiet adventure he ever had the displeasure of being part of.
He then shifts his gaze to the side after dwelling on his annoyed disappointment, noticing a certain someone standing ever so distant from the rest of the cast. They had a white parasol and held it well to cover their face. But through the process of elimination, it was clear who it was.
He squinted, trying to get a better look. This adventure might seem uneventful, but doesn't mean he can't make it interesting.
“Oh look, Ragatha finally became a nun. Geez can you get any worse?”
Nothing
A bitter scoff came from Jax, tilting his head with his ears following along limply.
“You deaf or somethin-”
“You know I like it on my toast, not when it flies.”
Kinger said, his voice loud enough to hear even at a distance as he appeared in front of Ragatha.
You could hear the quiet polite chatter of her talking back, hard to make out unlike Kinger as he showcased to her a stray orange butterfly.
“Huh”
Jax threw his arms behind his head, acting aloof as he dwelled on Ragatha's silence. 'Is she ignoring me?'. That thought came with a hollow grin.
-
Zooble and Gangle found a sandy path down the digital world, being the first ones ahead as they chatted about things which were too far to hear.
Pomni occupied Kinger enough by letting him talk her ear off about entomology which she didn't mind as he followed her along behind the first two. Which left the unfortunate doll to be nearest to the worst of all, and the culprit of her silence.
“I bet you’re like ribbons with her wittle happy mask that we got this adventure huh? You guys are such a buzzkill.”
Right on cue the purple rabbit began bringing up conversation, he walked by Ragatha’s side and turned slightly trying to get a read on Ragatha's face, his usual grin which might’ve been more cheeky as he waited for his assumed silence.
Nothing
She kept walking, soft steps due to her stuffed body as she kept herself in a silent protest.
He laughed, a hand to his face as if he was told the funniest joke in the world.
“Wait wait, let me guess? You’re going to be silent ALL day because I pushed you! God you’re so sensitive, can’t someone have a little fun? You ain’t dead and neither is hoo haa over there.”
He motioned forward at the distant figure of Kinger. Then walked ahead in front of her and turned, now walking backwards at the same speed as her steps. He clasped his hands together to his chest and lowered his ears mockingly.
“B-But still! That’s so mean of you Jax, I wanted all of us to hold hands and jump in! Even with my lame little speech and everything, b-but no one did because no one really cares about my dumb little self.”
The parasol flinched, a reaction, finally. He kept walking with his back turned to the others, his eyes only seeing the peeked red of her hair through the stupid umbrella thing.
“Spot on, aren't I? God you’re so pathetic.”
He sighed with faked empathy as he gave the finishing touch. "What are we gonna do with you Rags?”
He turned his back to her waiting for the fish to bite the bait.
Her steps paused, and his smile creeped up to his eyes.
The umbrella was lowered to the ground, closed like the fist in her free hand. Ragatha gave Jax scalding a glare as irritated heat rose from her chest.
“Can you just!-"
She caught herself. No, she was supposed to ignore him and let him sit in the mess he made; Don't let him get to your head, don’t let him get a reaction. She repeated to herself, a frustrated huff escaped her mouth as she stomped by him.
“No no, can I just what? Hm? Come on, say it!”
He followed her although quicker than she thought, making long steps to catch up.
“Nothing, its nothi-”
-THUD-