Chapter Text
“Great news, everyone!”
“Oh, here we go…” Zooble groaned.
“Just give him a chance, I'm sure the next adventure won't be that bad…” Ragatha spoke up in Caine's defense—and immediately regretted it as Zooble shot a glare back at her.
Before the mix-match circus member could respond, however, the circus master continued his announcement. “After some internal review and popular demand, I've decided that you can each have your own npc buddies to hang out with at all times!”
“What?!” Pomni spoke up now, excited enough to bounce lightly on her feet. “Does that mean…”
“That's right! I'm bringing back your evil clones!” Caine pulled back the stage curtain to reveal the Evil Big Tops, sans Evil Orbs Man. In his place, Evil Gangle stood: a character with a white ribbon and a red mask.
“Wait, why them?” Zooble asked in annoyance. “Who asked for this?”
“I was hoping for Gummigoo…” Pomni admitted quietly, raising a finger in protest.
“Making up new NPC's with complete backstories and full emotional range would take up too much data, so I'm giving you each your opposite selves as an adventure in SELF REFLECTION!” Caine explained, “Besides, it's way easier to just take the base properties of your personalities and invert them to create characters with depth that you can learn from and relate to!”
“I think mine wants to kill me…” Gangle whimpered, her onstage counterpart grinning wickedly in her direction as it rubbed its ribbon hands together.
“Cool. I want to kill mine, too.” Jax replied, grinning evilly at Evil Jax. The pink bunny cowered and hid behind Dictatorer, who seemed to glare down Kinger with an odd sort of sanity in his eyes.
“Wait, wait, wait. You said NPC's can't stay outside of adventures before because you might get them mixed up with us—” Zooble tried to object, not even looking at Bazooble. If she was lucky, she hoped she could get Caine to reverse this decision before they were stuck together…
“That's simple. I've given each of your Evil selves their own names derivative of yours to keep track of them—” He held a hand up beside his oversized teeth as if speaking aside to the audience, “—and to avoid redundancy, since Evil-Name could get confusing pretty fast,” He spread his arms out again with pride, “and I've implemented a failsafe to ensure that you real players and your counterparts can easily be told apart now!” Caine replied.
Jax snorted, cutting into the explanation to say, “As if it weren’t easy enough to tell from the color palette?” The Evil Big Tops did each have an inverted color scheme from their real versions, which was a rather obvious visual clue…
Caine ignored the bunny, calling for the doppelgangers to each raise their left foot. Underneath, in big letters as though a child had scrawled on them with marker, was the acronym NPC.
“This way, I won't lose track! And if anything goes wrong, poof!” Caine wished his cane, making confetti stream from the end of it. “I'll make the problem disappear! Easy-peasy! So, what do you think?” The circus master tucked his hands under his jaw with an eager and pleading expression. Please praise me, His eyes seemed to beg.
And Ragatha couldn't resist a person in need. “That's… wonderful, Caine…” She said as the other circus members looked at her funny. She cast her eyes down and to the side, trying not to bite her lip in anxiety.
Ragatha didn't like her evil self either. Evil Ragatha was loud and crass. Her meanness knew no boundaries, stupid as she may be. The clone reminded Ragatha a lot of her mother, and she didn't really want to deal with that right now.
But Caine had seemed unstable for a while. He had gotten so upset, Ragatha felt worried that he might abstract himself, even if he was an AI and not a real person. She couldn't help fearing what might happen to the circus if something were to happen to him.
So, even though this seemed a bit dangerous given his prior hesitation to let NPCs roam unchecked for a prolonged period of time, she decided not to object to the idea. He had the NPC mark to keep the real and fake versions clear and he could pop them out of existence like Bubble if things got too crazy, so what was the problem? There was no harm, right? So she wouldn't object to the idea.
Jax, however, stepped in where Ragatha wouldn't—especially after catching sight of the way the ragdoll seemed to fold in on herself. She always had to lie about her real feelings to put others first, and he hated it. Especially when she was prioritizing the feelings of Artificial Intelligence over real people, in this case. “What's wrong, Rags? Aren't you gonna pester Caine about the dangers of letting his little AIs loose around the circus grounds?” He taunted her, feeling rewarded when she shot him an irritated glare in return. There's my girl, He couldn’t help thinking. He loved provoking Ragatha just to see what was really on her mind beneath that saccharine sweet surface she tried to project.
“If Caine says it's safe, it should be fine…” Ragatha said, clenching her fists.
Jax knew he was getting to her already, and he'd barely even started messing with her. It made him grin more widely. She was so fun when she dropped the mask—like Gangle, except less literal. “Letting Daddy Caine make all the decisions on what's good for you, hmm? Doesn't sound like the Raggy I know.”
“Da—what?!” Ragatha squawked, flustered.
Jax's smile grew, his eyes narrowing as he watched the blush bloom across the doll's face. She could be cute when she was taken off guard. When she lost composure and floundered like that, it was almost as amusing to bully her as it was to mess with Gangle.
A wicked laugh cut through the bickering, drawing their attention to the blue haired Evil twin of the red-faced doll. “Doesn't it, though?” Annabelle inserted herself into the conversation, responding to what Jax had last said. “Perfect little Ragatha always did what Mummy and Daddy told her to do. I doubt she ever made an independent decision in her life before joining the circus. Isn’t that right, Ragatha?”
Ragatha cringed, jaw dropping in shock as her inverted body double began commenting on her life before the circus. She quickly stood straight again as she saw Jax look at her with an analytical gaze. She didn't need him picking at this. “I made my own decisions! I moved out of the house at 18!” She shot back at her doppelganger, who only laughed in reply.
“Because they made you leave. It was expected of you. Everything you've ever done was done only to satisfy others’ expectations, isn't that right?” Annabelle persisted, cutting straight to the core of Ragatha's problems.
“Yeah, that's what I figured.” Jax flippantly agreed, and Ragatha felt like she'd been stabbed. The purple rabbit had his hands up behind his head, elbows out and eyes cast away from both the dolls as if he were bored. “Say, you got anything new to tell me about ol’ Rags? If you know about this stuff, then I'm sure you've got some juicier stories to share about her past.” He grinned again, and Ragatha felt the knife twist in her heart.
She was already embarrassed as it was, did he need to ask for more?
Yes, actually, he did. Because Ragatha didn't know it, but Jax was trying to change the topic by asking the question he'd asked. He saw the way Ragatha's face was falling; the doll was trying to keep it together (as always she did) but when her evil double mentioned the specifics of why Ragatha left home at 18, the redhead looked like she was on the verge of tears.
And having left home early himself because of family issues, Jax felt… some type of way about it. Not bad—of course not, because it's not like he cared about Ragatha's feelings or anything… but it was kind of awkward. Like he'd walked into some kind of family dispute at a friend's house. Like he was overhearing someone's private therapy session.
It wasn't funny.
He needed to make it funny again. “Tell me about the most embarrassing thing she ever did.” He suggested to the clone, who lit up at the idea.
“Where do I begin? Stupidgatha has failed in so many ways, it's near impossible to choose which story to tell first!”
Ragatha backed away from Jax and Annabelle, shrinking away from the conversation. “Um, Caine? On second thought maybe we should rethink this ‘npc buddies’ thing…”
A pair of white ribbons grabbed her shoulders from behind. “Why?” Mangle introduced herself, red mask leaning over to look Ragatha in the face. “I thought you liked Caine's adventure ideas?” The mask’s expression held a smile, but its eyes held malice in their gaze. The question was an accusation thinly veiled.
Why was Gangle's double coming after her too, now?! Shouldn't she be picking on Gangle? Ragatha felt bad the moment she thought it; Gangle didn't deserve this treatment. But Ragatha didn't want to be ganged up on, either, and now it was three against one, in her eyes. “I-I need a minute.” She drenched herself free of Mangle's grasp and bolted away from the group, surprising Jax and the other players who saw her run.
“I should go after her—” Pomni spoke up, feeling bad she hadn't cut in earlier. She had only been half listening to the conversation though, because she was also listening to Zooble argue with Caine and watching the other doppelgangers descend from the stage.
“Nope!” Xddcc tackled Pomni, dragging her off in the exact opposite direction. “You're comin’ with me, shortstack.”
“We're the same height?!” Pomni protested in alarm.
“Whatever, man, you don't want to be involved in their bullshit anyway.” X replied, rolling her eyes.
And it was kind of true. This wasn't really Pomni's problem to solve. She wasn't even involved in the conversation, but she still felt like she should reach out. Ragatha was her friend, after all…
Gangle felt much the same, but she didn't dare speak up and get anyone's attention on her. With Ragatha gone, the ribbon girl would certainly be the next target, and she didn't have the guts to try to comfort the ragdoll when she couldn't stand up for her when it was most needed. She crept away from the group, moving to hide behind an oversized block while they were all still distracted.
She almost yelped when her hiding spot turned out to already be occupied.
“O-oh—” The pink rabbit's ears shot up to attention at Gangle's squeak. He looked at her nervously, as though he'd been caught doing something he wasn't supposed to be doing.
“Uh—um—it's okay…” the masked girl replied, touching the tips of her ribbon hands together anxiously. “Do you mind if I, um, hide here also…?”
“Not at all. Actually, I was just leaving…” EJ looked in the direction of the hallway Ragatha had run into. He'd heard the conversation between the others and he felt bad for the doll. He was just looking after her and debating if he should pursue the redhead when the ribbon girl appeared.
“Oh… really?” Gangle asked. She tried not to sound disappointed. She remembered EJ from the baseball game; he actually seemed pretty nice. It would have soothed her nerves a bit to hide out with him, admittedly… the selfish part of her wished he would.
EJ didn't pick up on her hidden feelings. “Yeah! So don't worry, you can sit here.” He said, standing up and retreating toward the hallway. The way he bent over at the waist, practically dancing away on his toes in his anxiety, made Gangle smile softly. She wouldn't mind this NPC sticking around…
“What are you smiling about?” Mangle asked, at her side suddenly.
Gangle screamed.