Chapter Text
"Gooooooood morning, my bodacious biscuit beetles!" Caine sung gleefully while twirling around in the air.
Zooble chuckled and rolled their eyes. "That might be your strangest nickname yet."
Gangle giggled softly while wrapping her ribbon hands around one of Zooble's arms and resting her head against their shoulder. "It's definitely not his worst though."
Things have been...weird ever since, what Pomni reffered to as, "The Digital Apocalypse". Weird and different in ways that were both good and bad. Jax had abstracted, but keeping him in the pillow fort seemed to keep him calm. At least enough for him to not destroy everything. He was almost like a dog now. Is that demeaning? Oh well, either way it's true.
No one really knew how to feel about the knowledge that Jax had technically been right; nothing was real. None of this is real, none of *them* were real. It was existential and scary to know that this would never end. There was no afterlife for them, they'd just exist here until whatever computer the circus was hooked up to got destroyed. And then what? They'd cease to exist? That's a horrifying thought.
But it was also oddly refreshing. There was no ticking clock counting down to their deaths. Their real selves were out there, living and enjoying the one life they had. And they were in here, a world with no limits to their creativity. A world without the dreading necessity to work an exhausting job just to earn barely enough money to not starve to death all while having to fit in and conform to societal norms and being unable to express yourself without judgement. It almost felt like *this* was their afterlife.
It was bittersweet in a way.
"I have a very special adventure planned today! Since right now is the..." Caine paused and glanced down at the watch on his wrist for approximately 3 seconds. "The 315,360,012 second anniversary of the arrival of our delightful doll, this adventure takes heavy inspiration from a suggestion made by the ravenous Ragatha!"
Ragatha snorted and cringed slightly at the nickname. "Oh wow, I didn't know you kept track of things like that!" Her smile slowly faded as she properly processed his words while quietly muttering numbers. "315,360,012 seconds... That's..."
"About 10 years in the macroverse!" Caine exclaims excitedly. As far as he's come, he still struggled with social cues.
"Oh gosh, has it really been that long..?" Her eye widened and her breath tightened. Without hesitation, Pomni takes Ragatha's hand and faintly smiles up at her. That small gesture seemed to be enough to calm the older woman, at least for now.
"Anyways, today's adventure is.... 'Unnamed because the author is too stupid to think of a clever name!™' You'll be split into two teams. Team 1 will be the bandits! The bandits will be given a set of tasks at the start that they need to complete carefully without getting caught. Team 2 will be the sheriffs! Their goal is too capture and arrest all the bandits while also trying to clean up their messes. If the bandits successfully complete their tasks, they win! If all the bandits get arrested, the sheriff's win! To make it a bit more complex, a handful of NPC's will be added to each team."
"So it basically just 'cops and robbers' but in a wild west setting..?" Gangle asks timidly.
"I suppose you could say that, yes... B-but this one has horses!"
Ragatha's entire face practically lit up at the mention of horses, Pomni couldn't help but quietly laugh to herself. She wondered if Ragatha even knew how charmingly adorable she could be when she was excited. Or really when she was happy at all. Actually, she was kind of always adorable.
That's a totally normal thought to have about someone you have purely platonic feelings for, right?
"Soooo... Will everyone be participating?" Caine flexed his fingers while anxiously awaiting their answers.
"Count me in! I'm so excited for the cute horses!" Ragatha gushed through a string of giggles.
"Ooh, me too! I'm sure I'll be able to find some new bugs for my collection!" Kinger clasped his hands together, his eyes crinkling like when you smile.
"I'll go if Gangle is." Zooble gently nudges Gangle's side. The girl smiles and nods up at them.
Before Pomni could answer, a low growl sounded from the pillow fort, alerting everyone's attention.
Oh right...him...
Lately, for some reason, Jax has been a lot more...active? Not aggressive really, he wasn't trying to attack the others, he was just...rowdy? Maybe restless? Jeez, Pomni really wasn't trying to make him seem like a dog but there really wasn't any other way to describe him.
Either way, he was starting to need almost constant supervision to make sure he stayed inside the pillow fort.
Pomni sighed and brushed a rubbery strand of hair to the side. "Someone should probably stay back, and I'm pretty sure it's my turn for Jax duty." She laughed, but there wasn't any actual humor in it.
"O-oh, right... Just, remember to alert us if you need something, a-and please be careful." Ragatha pulls a pager out from her dress pocket and hands it to Pomni, who slips it inside her hat.
The pagers were something Caine had conjured a few days ago when "Jax duty" became necessary. That way if something happened, the person watching him could alert the others while they were out, in case they needed something. Which, fortunately, hadn't happened yet.
Pomni nods and gives the ragdoll a thumbs up, which proved to not be very reassuring when she tried and failed to return the smile.
Pomni sighs and gently takes Ragatha's hand, rubbing comforting circles onto the back of her hand with her thumb. "It'll be okay. I'll be okay, he'll be okay, everything will be okay. I can handle this. Trust me."
Those last two words seemed to be enough. Ragatha trusted Pomni more than she'd ever trusted anyone else, and Pomni felt the same about her. The two girls had grown especially close this last month. They could read each other better than anyone, they were almost always together, and Pomni found herself actually enjoying being touched. Her hands were just so soft and plush, her waist was the perfect size for Pomni's short rubberhose arms, and her chest made for a nice pillow while hugging.
Wait, that sounds a bit perverted.
"Oh, try singing him a lullaby! Or maybe you could try telling a bedtime story!" Kinger advised. Advice Pomni probably wouldn't use.
Caine snapped his fingers, a yellow and orange portal opening in front of everyone. Pomni turned to leave but was stopped by the feeling of a soft hand intertwined with hers and plush lips pressed against her cheek for a fleeting moment. It all happened so quickly, by the time Pomni registered what happened and turned around, Ragatha had already booked it into the portal.
Pomni stood there by herself, just staring at the portal for an undetermined amount of time. She brought a hand up to her cheek and gently rubbed the spot Ragatha had kissed before another low groan interrupted her thoughts.
She shook her head and hurried over to the pillow fort, carefully peeking inside. Jax was awake and moving around restlessly. He seemed fine for now, so Pomni sat down on one of the pillows and rested her head in her hands.
She wasn't sure how long she sat there for before she dozed off. Or how long she was asleep before another groan woke her up.
But it sounded different. Any other time Jax growled, it sounded like someone took the roar from The Lion King, reversed it, and put it through auto tune. This time though? It still had that animalistic roar, but it almost sounded mournful?
Pomni jumped to her feet and peeked inside. She could've sworn he was bigger last time she saw him. She hesitated for a moment before taking a step closer.
"Jax..?" He actually turned around and she jumped. He'd never reacted to his name before.
She watched as he let another growl, but there was almost no reverb this time. Hell, she could almost hear **him**. The real him.
Her heart was beating so fast it felt like it would burst, but she wouldn't get her hopes up. Caine had insisted abstraction was permanent, that there was nothing that could fix someone once they abstracted. And Caine had swore he was done lying, that he would only tell the truth from now on.
The abstracted Jax flickered for a moment, it really looked like he was shrinking. Another growl, except it didn't even sound like a growl anymore. It sounded like Jax...sobbing? Grunting? She couldn't tell.
Pomni ran closer and crouched down beside him, her eyes welling up with tears. "J-jax..?"
The abstraction looked down at her, made eye contact with her, and let out another sound. A soft sob.
She watched with bated breaths as it slowly morphed into the shape of a tall, lanky, humanoid rabbit. Still black and glitchy and almost shapeless, but she could actually recognize him.
He was hunched over on the floor, grunting and crying quietly. Pomni quickly reached into her hat to grab the pager, but that proved unnecessary when she heard the familiar sound of a portal opening right outside the fort.
She sprinted out of the fort and over to the group. Gangle was helping Zooble remove metal handcuffs off their wrists, both of them wearing black and white striped jumpsuits. Kinger's royal cloak had been swapped for a cowprint vest over a brown plaid button down, a small brass star was clipped onto his cowboy hat. Ragatha had on a frilly off the shoulder top that was the same color blue as her usual dress, denim shorts and brown leather chaps with tassels and a matching vest with a slightly bigger star clipped on.
Ragatha smiled brightly when she saw her. "Pomni! Look, I brought you back a little something!"
Pomni was about to interrupt her but then she was presented with a small figurine of an alligator and suddenly all thoughts about Jax just disappeared. It was messily painted to have a yellow head and green body and it was wearing a small cowboy hat.
"Gangle got caught pretty early on, so to pass the time she asked me to find something artsy for her to do. I found this little alligator and um... I thought maybe you'd like it i-if it looked like that um..." Ragatha trailed off, clearly having forgotten his name.
"Gummigoo..." Pomni's voice was soft, barely audible, as she took the small figurine and carefully cupped it in her hands. "And, yeah... I love it! Th-thank you!"
"Oh, it's nothing!" Ragatha beamed pridefully. Caine snapped his fingers and everyones avatars returned to normal.
"S-so, how's Jax doing?" Gangle stepped up with a small smile. "I don't hear him, it sounds like he's calmed down at least at little."
Pomni blanked for a moment before remembering. "R-right, Jax! About that, I think he's--"
She was interrupted by the sound of Ragatha's gasp, her eye wide and her hands flying up towards her mouth.
Zooble quickly stepped up to Gangle's side, protectively holding an arm in front of her. Kinger was staring ahead, his eyes blank.
Pomni turned around, her eyes watering slightly at the sight of a familiar rabbit like silhouette stumbling out from the pillow fort, coughing and groaning quietly while holding his head.
"Holy shit..."