Chapter Text
"Holy shit."
The bomb dropped, for the second time. Shit. Zooble said shit, and no one stopped them. For the first time in years, they were free. The Circus was left without its leader.
For a second, everyone was too stunned to speak up. Zooble turned to Kinger, asking "So, he's... dead? Deleted forever?" - as if they couldn't quite believe it, like it was a dream and they were about to wake up at any time. Kinger just nodded.
"Caine is dead." Jax, still in a state of shock, struggled to come up with a sequence of words that made sense, and by the looks of everyone else, he was not alone in this. "That's..."
"That's fucking awesome! Kinger, my man. I knew you could do it!". He jumped up, ran around, attempted to chest bump Kinger (who apparently did not understand the concept of a chest bump), and even performed a move that could charitably be described as something resembling a cartwheel. He genuinely smiled, for the first time in a while.
The ice broke. After years of indirect and weeks of direct torture, after years of being a subject to someone fundamentally alien, it was finally over. Caine was dead. Ragatha started laughing, and it sounded entirely sincere for once. Zooble tightly hugged Gangle, who, albeit initially surprised, quickly returned the hug. Kinger stared at a hole in the ground for a few seconds, then joined the others to celebrate. "We all did it. Every single one of us." said Pomni, feeling an emotion she never quite experienced before. It was the first real adventure she had in her life.
Jax seized the opportunity to quip, replying "Yeah, you're right. Thanks for getting us tortured, Pomni.". He inhaled, and exhaled, trying to nail the comedic timing. "No, seriously. You saved all of us. I owe you one.". And it wasn't even the first time, he thought to himself.
For a second, he closed his eyes. Caine really knew how to make him suffer, more than he knew how to make him laugh. Being exposed like that, ridiculed by everyone... despite knowing it was fake, it still hurt. He preferred not to think about it.
There was one thing he was particularly bothered by. The silhouettes of the jeering onlookers, as far as he could tell, were based on Kaufmo, Ribbit, and Pomni. He understood the reasoning behind the first two, but Pomni? She just arrived. Jax barely knew her. Kinger or Ragatha would have surely made way more sense.
Not that it mattered. The torture king was dead, and the entire exit thing turned out to be an elaborate ruse. They would run around in an empty world, maybe talk with each other, and eventually abstract. Nothing would ever matter, and that was all he wanted.
Gangle interrupted his little attempt at introspection. "So... what do we do now?"
"I don't know. Hanging out, I guess. Not going on adventures.", he replied. It didn't really matter. They'd hang out, talk with each other, he'd pull mean pranks, Ragatha would try to cheer everyone up, Gangle would be mopey, and so on. If he tried really hard and managed to not have one of those embarrassing moments again, he could maybe even fix up his relationship with the jester - him slightly cracking for a second there made things awkward, and he would not let his facade slip like that again.
It would be difficult, though. She had her ways of getting to him. He had to focus on not crumbling, and that was difficult in her presence.
There was one question left. "What about escaping?", asked Zooble. Over the past few days, they really were in no position to worry about that, but now that things calmed down a bit, it returned to their mind once again. Less pressing than it was before, though - being here forever would suck, but at least Gangle would be here.
Jax paused for a moment, and his pupils constricted. "I - I don't think it's possible.", he mumbled. He recovered quickly, though, and after just a second his pupils dilated back to their original width. "But who knows, maybe ol' Kinger will figure something out. He's a smart guy."
Kinger coughed, awkwardly looking from left to right. "About that...", he said, before being interrupted by a new development. Zooble found something interesting.
Caine's rod, the one with the golden tip, was laying on the floor. No one heard it fall, and many were confident they saw it disappear with the man itself, but here it was. Like nothing ever happened.
Gangle was still confused. "What's that?"
"I think it's Caine's cane? I thought it disappeared.", said Ragatha. She decided to keep her distance from it, being wary of any consequences being too close to it could cause. This place operated on symbolism, not logic, and nothing could be more symbolic than that.
Jax didn't think that far. Recognizing the opportunity to be obnoxious, he immediately interjected. "It's called a staff. Jeez."
"But, his name is Caine...", Gangle said, apparently wondering about the origins of his name for the first time since she arrived. She didn't have a lot of opportunities to do so before.
Now that was a setup for a punchline. Jax smirked. Twenty more of those, and Pomni would take him off suicide watch. "His name was Caine."
"Damn right.", Zooble chuckled. They still couldn't believe it. For the first time since they arrived, things seemed to improve. If they had a mouth, they would have smiled.
Jax still felt giddy, and seeing the discard staff gave him an idea. Over the past few weeks, he really hasn't been living up to his "funny guy" archetype, and now it was up to him to rebuild that image. Jax picked up the staff, bared his teeth, put on a deep voice, and loudly exclaimed "Look at me! I'm Caine! I love torturing humans! I love - "
Jax froze mid-sentence. His pupils constricted, his posture changed, and his hand tightly clutched the staff. He shook his left arm, as if he was trying to throw it as far as he could, but it never left his grip.
"Oh no.", he muttered.
A top hat appeared on his head. He frantically motioned to rip it off, but it appeared to be glued to his scalp, no matter how hard he pulled. In his panic, he stumbled over his own feet and fell to the ground.
Jax tightly clutched his knees, staring at the ground. Between his labored breathing, he kept whispering: "Oh God. Oh, no. Oh no, no, no, no. No."
Pomni was the first one to speak up. "Um, Jax... are you alright?", she asked, immediately regretting asking such a stupid question. He turned his head and looked at her, with an expression that was difficult to read.
Ragatha was the next one to butt in, with a less inane statement. "Jax?". His gaze did not shift, remaining fixated on Pomni.
In an instant, Jax vanished. Pomni was sure that she saw him disappear into his top hat, but it happened so quickly that it may as well have been imaginary. The ominous rumbling picked up again, and subsided.
A few seconds later, the circus returned.