Chapter Text
The first thing he felt was static. Fizzing out as he opened his eyes, only to be surrounded by an unfamiliar and new environment. Colourful and bright shapes littered the place, with the lights being obnoxiously bright. This wasn’t… Where was he supposed to be again? Wait, who even was he? Panic started to set in as he reached for his head to remove what he thought he had put on: a headset. Surprisingly, he felt nothing there except for the smooth plastic feel of something resembling a big hat. A helmet, maybe? All of a sudden, he heard a gentle voice call out to him.
“Hey there new stuff! I’m sure you’re a little freaked out right now, but I promise everything will be okay”
Looking around, he saw a ragdoll dressed in a periwinkle dress, with a button in her eye. Taking a step forward, she held out her hands in a way that meant no harm. “It’s okay, we’re not going to hurt you.” Turning his gaze, he saw that there were more people around the doll.
“Who.. who are you people? Where am I? What’s going on??” He demanded, taking a small step back, only to trip and fall. Looking down, he saw that his legs were both fused with… a green base? What the !@%^ ?? Wait, why were his thoughts censored? !@%^ !@%^ !@%^ !@%^ !!!??!? This was the point where he started to freak out a little bit more.
“Look Kaufy, we got a little toy soldier here? What’s next, sentient fighter jets and tanks?” a purple rabbit chimed in, gesturing towards a clown who let out a dry chuckle and shook his head.
“Jax, can’t you go one day without making any remarks about people?”
Toy soldier? What did this twink mean, toy soldier? Frantically looking around, he locked his eyes with a plastic looking green man, just like how those green toy men looked like from Toy Story. It took him about three seconds to clock that it was actually a mirror he was looking at, and not someone else.
“Why am I green? WHY AM I !@%^ GREEN?!?” Looking around, his eyes drifted around from the ragdoll, a chess piece, before finally landing on a humanoid frog. A green one, no less. He winced at his statement, before the frog opened their mouth.
“Hey, I take offense to that, you know. Green is THE colour of all time” the frog jokingly teased, before putting out their hand to help him up. Hesitantly, he reached out to grab their hand to get back on their feet (board?).
Before he could open his mouth to thank her, a pair of floating eyes and dentures popped out of nowhere, with a loud POP. This made the toy soldier jump, but the others around him seemed unaffected by it, and were staring expectantly at the weird abomination that had just shown up.
“Bow wow wow! Another new human! Welcome to my digital wonderland, where anything and everything is fun for all!” the warbling teeth boomed, floating above them all. While that happened, the toy could not help but notice the bubble hanging beside the fancily dressed teeth, tongue sticking out and… panting? Weird…
Shaking his head to regather his thoughts, the toy looked up at what he assumed was the owner(?) of this place and opened his mouth to speak in a volume that most people would agree was shouting.
“WHO are you people?? And why can’t I remember anything about myself, like my name?? Where am I???”
“NAMES! What a wonderful idea! Since I am unable to help you remember your name, what I CAN do, would be to help you come up with a brand new one!” Before he could protest anything, a loud popping sound was heard, followed by what sounded like coins spilling onto the floor.
A large jackpot looking contraption appeared out of nowhere, coins nonexistent. The ringmaster yanked at the lever, revealing six letters with a celebratory jackpot sound. “Adrian”.
“Could’ve been worse! They could have called you something like Armyman or Armo the Soldier” Jax sneered, earning a disapproving stare from the doll. Rolling their eyes, the frog sighed and spoke up.
“That doll over there is Ragatha! The clown’s Kaufmo, the chess piece there is Kinger, the purple rabbit is Jax, and I’m Ribbit!” they helpfully introduced the strangers to him, which he did appreciate.
“How do I leave this place? Is this just some fancy virtual reality kind of game like that one anime or..?” the toy asked, but the looks he got from everyone showed more than he needed to know. Great. He somehow has no memories of who he was, where he was or even what he did to lead up to this point, and there was going to be no way to leave too? And to top it all off, he was stuck there as a green army soldier toy? Why couldn’t he have been literally anything else, like a weasel or something?
“Leave? Why would you leave when I haven’t even given you a digital tour? Come along with me now!” Before he could protest, Caine whisked Adrian away to the grounds, where he could see a digital lake, a sun with a silly face, and a moon that looked softly at Caine.
“Another human, Caine?” the moon had asked, before Caine had seemingly blushed a little, and sent him back to the rest of the crew.
This all happened a month ago, or at least what felt like that to him. Sitting alone in his weirdly militaristic room with army green bedsheets and a metal cabinet as a locker beside him, he rubbed his temples. “Can’t believe I’ve been here for so long, but at least I’m adapting well to the situation at hand,” he thought to himself, as he stared at his green hands. Green and plastic. Fake. But real at the same time. Real enough for him to feel with those hands that weren’t his. Was any of this real? Was he still dreaming?
A knock at the door shook Adrian out of his deep thoughts. “Hey dude, Caine’s calling for another adventure. You coming?” Ribbit’s voice came through, prompting him to hop back onto his feet. He might be stuck here for now, but he was sure he could last long enough to get out of this digital dream. At least nothing bad could happen to prevent that from happening to him, right?