Chapter Text
In contrast to the bright saturated reds, blues, yellows, blacks, and whites of the circus, there is a smaller tent made up of purple and grey blankets in the middle of the circus. Inside of it is an uncountable number of pillows of various sizes. Inside sits a pale white jester wearing red and blue. Pomni sits in the darkness, solemnly, her hands cupped as she looks down at her feet, at least as much as she can see in the darkness. She then looks up next to her, where a large inky black blob that dwarfs her lies next to her. It rises in a slow pattern, quite similar to breathing, and the multicolored slits all across its body provide the only dim rainbow light in this tent.
"Jax." Pomni says, trying to get his attention. But it doesn't work as he just continues to sleep, it's honestly all he has done ever since they first set up this enclosure to keep him calm when he first abstracted. Pomni sighs and looks back down at her gloved hands. "I wish you could hear me right now. Maybe you can and this is like a coma for you." With a smile on her face, she looks back up at Jax, but all he responds with is distorted sounding snoring. Pomni's smile then quickly fades. She reaches out her right red gloved hand to touch Jax. She then touches his ferrofluid looking body and then quickly retracts her hand in a jolt of pain. She looks at her hand as the color glitches into different colors. Pomni sighs and looks at Jax as he peacefully sleeps. "I really do miss you Jax." She then gets up and walks towards the bright light that is the exit of the tent.
Waiting in the blinding light of the circus for Pomni is a ragdoll wearing a blue dress and with a blue button for an eye.
"O-oh, Hi Pomni!" Ragatha enthusiastically greets Pomni, though seeing Pomni's downer mood upon leaving the tent, she tones it down a little bit. "How, is Jax doing?" Ragatha asks with a pause because she knows the answer. Pomni rubs her arm, looking to the side as she answers.
"About the same as before." Pomni answers solemnly, still looking away from Ragatha.
"Well Pomni, abstraction is permanent, so Jax probably won't change anytime soon as long as he stays in there. I honestly think it's sweet that you still visit him." Ragatha says, trying to cheer Pomni up. It doesn't work however as Pomni's frown stays right side up as she looks back at Jax's fort. Ragatha's smile falters too. Her eye wanders as they stand in silence, and she notices Pomni's right hand glitching. "O-oh, Pomni, your hand! Do you want me to go get Caine?" Ragatha reaches out to Pomni to get a better look at her glitching hand. Pomni pulls away.
"Oh, no it's fine I can endure it a little bit longer." Pomni then looks around, "You know, I was actually thinking about something. Do you know where Kinger is? I want to talk to him." Pomni asks.
"O-oh, right, I get that." Ragatha responds trying her damndest to hide her disappointment that after everything, Pomni still wants to be around everyone but her, good ol' Ragatha. "I think he should be in the Abstrarium, you know how he likes to be there now." Ragatha actually answers.
"Thanks." And with that response, Pomni leaves without another word. As Pomni leaves Ragatha, the expression on her face drops into clear sadness, but then quickly morphs into a petty glare as she looks up at Jax's purple and grey blanket fort.
Pomni walks down a set of stairs that leads beneath the floor of the circus. As she walks down, the light from the circus dims, and all that is left is the multicolored light that comes from the inky black squid-like abstractions that swim in the water that surrounds the glass dome that she stands in. It doesn't take long for Pomni to find the tall chess piece wrapped in a purple robe that is Kinger and she walks up to him.
"Hey, Kinger." She greets him and joins him in watching the abstractions swim in their newfound freedom from the cellar.
"Hey, Pomni." Kinger calmly greets Pomni, clearly in a lucid state. He doesn't look at Pomni as his eyes are fixated on one of the specific abstractions. To Pomni, they all look the same, but it seems that Kinger recognizes that specific one.
"So," Pomni pauses, while watching the abstractions she struggles to find the words of what she wants to ask him. "Since you worked on, all of this, do you have an idea of what exactly abstractions are?"
"Oh, Pomni," Kinger chuckles, "I've told you, I never worked on the circus, I only helped to create Caine." Kinger responds, still looking at the abstractions swimming freely.
"I know that, but I thought, maybe you would know a thing or two about our 'mind files'." Pomni continued, also not looking away from the abstractions.
"Well, I don't know too much about them, if anyone would know it would be Scratch, but you can't really ask him since, y'know." Kinger gestures with his head towards the abstractions, though it was unclear which one, if any, was Scratch. "But, given that they are files, I would think that abstraction is when those files get corrupted." Kinger then answers to the best of his ability without Scratch able to jump in and correct him. Pomni thinks for a second, watching two of the abstractions chase each other, their eyes semi-closed in a way that makes it look like they are smiling.
"Well, you can recover or fix a corrupted file, right? So wouldn't the same be true for abstraction?" Pomni then asks, hoping for a very specific answer. Kinger jumps and looks at Pomni, his already huge eyes widened.
"Pomni, I like your thought process but, I don't think that is exactly possible. I don't think Scratch implemented any sort of backups for any brains scanned, and when Scratch first started his project file recovery software wasn't all that common. I guess that maybe the files could be recovered manually, but with how intricate the brain is, fixing one of the brain scans would be on par with brain surgery and along with that I don't-" Kinger's words start to fade out as Pomni stays hung up on the idea of manually recovering the files, sure a computer could be conjured like last time Kinger needed get into the system, but as Kinger said it would be difficult to recover the files that way, it would be difficult for humans to do. Pomni then remembers there aren't only humans here. "-Seriously, it is a good thought, but abstraction is just simply irreversible, Pomni, and that's okay." Kinger finally finished. Pomni then snaps back to reality.
"Yeah, thanks for that Kinger. Do you know where Caine is? I just remembered something I wanted to talk to him about." Pomni asks, starting to feel weird about all the running around she starts to do as soon as she gets the right information out from the people around her.
"Oh, yeah, I remember Zooble saying something about making a new cocktail and wanting Caine to try it, so maybe try looking at their bar." Kinger answers.
"Thanks, Kinger." As Pomni leaves, climbing up the stairs she entered from, she looks behind her, seeing that Kinger is back to just watching the abstractions. He notices her lingering on the stairs and waves to her.
Pomni spends a while wandering the large and cavernous halls of the circus, looking for Zooble's bar. After that long while, Pomni finally finds that checkerboard open sign topped with a giant decorative martini glass that signifies the makeshift bar. Sitting at the stools of the bar are Gangle who is wearing a fluffy large pink sweater and Caine, both of whom are talking and sipping on their respective cocktails. Behind the counter is Zooble, wearing a dark blue denim vest with small spikes along the shoulders. Zooble notices Pomni first.
"Hey, Pomni, rarely see you here, what brings you here?" Zooble greeted Pomni who was approaching the bar. Gangle and Caine both look over and greet her too.
"Hi Pomni!" Gangle greeted, waving her ribbon hand and her mouth turns to a cat-like smile.
"Hello Pomni!" Caine shouted, he then scanned Pomni with his eyes and noticed Pomni holding onto her right hand. Upon further looking, said hand's colors blotching into different colors, a clear sign of physical contact with an abstraction. "Oh, let me fix that up for you Pomni!" Caine then snaps his fingers and just like that, Pomni's hand is back to normal. She looks at and stretches her now fine hand, relief washes over her as the world feels so much better when it doesn't feel like your hand is being both burned and stabbed at the same time.
"Oh, thanks Caine. I actually came here to speak to Caine." Pomni pauses, awkward silence fills the area as they all look at each other.
"Oooookay, then talk to me, I'm all ears! Wait..." Caine responds, confused why Pomni just stood there instead of talking to him.
"Oh, no, I meant like, talking alone, in privacy." Pomni then looks at Zooble and Gangle. "If you two would like to keep him for longer, I'm okay with that, I know you were busy."
"Oh it's alright, I was thinking of closing up the bar for the day anyways, and I think it would be better if it was just me and Gangle, she is quite the help~" Zooble winks at Gangle as she turns her face to avoid looking at Zooble, her porcelain mask face turning a bright red with blush. Pomni and Caine just stand there and blink at Zooble and Gangle's least obvious PDA.
"Alright then, me and Caine should get going." Pomni turns to Caine, not even waiting for a response from Zooble and Gangle, though it's not like she will get one from them, as in their eyes, Pomni and Caine are already gone. "Caine, want to meet me in the room hallway?"
"Sure thing Pomni! We should leave before they start getting frisky around the whiskey." Caine shudders and quickly walks away, speeding past Pomni. As Pomni and Caine walk away, Zooble pulls Gangle over the counter.
Pomni and Caine walk down a bright red hall, its walls lined with dark brown doors and abstract paintings. After a bit of walking, Pomni stops as Caine continues to walk.
"Caine, can I ask you something?" Pomni asks. Caine continues walking forward and the stops and clumsily turns around.
"Sorry about that, even if I have been doing this for a while now, this whole walking thing is taking some time to get used to. And yes Pomni, you can ask me anything you sweet starfruit." Caine then materializes eyelashes to bat at Pomni. She breathes in and stands firm.
"How much control do you still have over the circus." Caine falls back a little bit at the question.
"I-I, Pomni," Caine stutters, "I told you guys, I gave up all control over the circus, I know I did things I regret." Caine's hands shake and tears well in his eyes, "Do you really don't believe me?" Pomni then puts her hands on his shoulders to try and calm Caine down.
"Hey, no, that's not what I meant Caine, I do believe you, but I'm sure there are some things that you weren't able to give up complete control of, right?" Caine's shaking slows as he starts to calm down. "Like, you are still able to fix my hand, you have to have some control over the circus to do that. So is there anything else like that you have control over, more specifically our brain scans?" As Caine's shaking stops and he completely calms down Pomni removes her hands.
"O-oh, yes right, sorry about that, yes, I do have access to your brain scans but I haven't touched them in a looooooong time, mostly because it didn't work out that well last time I did..." Caine looks off to his right side, coincidentally to his right is a door for a yellow dog looking character who has abstracted, it probably means nothing. "Why do you ask Pomni?"
"Well, I was talking to Kinger, and if abstraction is just a corruption of our brain scan files, maybe it can be manually fixed, and I think if anyone can do that, I think it would be you, Caine." Caine then puts his hands on his chest.
"Aw, Pomni, I'm absolutely flattered, I do think it would be risky, but I will see what I can do, but I will let you know if I have anything figured out, and I should get started on that because I would think you would want your abstracted friends back sooner than later." Caine pats Pomni on the head with his now comically enlarged hand, "If you need me, know where my office is! I moved it to the end of this hall so you can access it, remember!" With that reminder, Caine then teleports out with his body quickly spiraling in a vortex, leaving Pomni alone.
Pomni then walks towards her door to retire for the day. As she begins to open the door, she looks over her shoulder and sees the door across from her's, on it is a portrait of a smiling purple rabbit with yellow eyes, the door has been crossed out with a red "X". Pomni acts as if she completely forgot about her room and walks across the hall to Jax's. She reaches out to open the door. The door remained unlocked, nobody bothered to lock it after they handled his abstracted body she figured. Realizing she has never actually seen inside of Jax's room, she is greeted with a room where, while dim and dark, is clearly meant to be bright, colored with blues and pinks with a desk that has keys strewn on it. She walks in and closes the door behind her. She makes note of the small things such as the shooting stars that decorate his room and the small plastic tea table and chairs. She knew that there were some childlike elements in all of their rooms, but Pomni is surprised at how childish Jax's is. She then makes way to the bed in the right corner of the room. She sits down on the neatly made bed and on top of the patchwork blanket. She then fully lays down and gets comfortable. As she lays, she looks to her left and notices a bunch of polaroid photos on the wall. All of them are turned over except one, being one that depicts Jax hanging out with Ribbit and Kaufmo. Pomni slightly smiles and grabs the pillow at the head of the bed and hugs it as she drifts to sleep.