Archive of Our Own

The humans were chilling on the couch after some of Caine's adventures, when the booming voice of the ringmaster rung across the Circus, but not just his..

Pomni and Ragatha yelped in surprise as they rested on the couches. Zooble and Gangle looked at eachother from their places on the couch, Jax peeked open one of his eyes where he was almost sleeping, taking one whole couch on his space. Kinger.. was just Kinger, he screamed after a few seconds of silence.

"I said 'Tell me something', not 'Narrate the whole Wikipedia on dragonflies'!" The voice of Caine was heard again, coming from some non-existing speaker on the circus.

"So, am I heard?–" The stranger spoke, their voice so loud it started to sound like static. Gangle winced at the sound, Zooble and Jax made a frown before Caine cut them off again.

"YES! Try.." He sighed, sounding oddly tired "Try whispering, I am not messing with the audio processors anymore! Who knows what I may cause if I keep moving them!"

The humans looked at eachother, Ragatha was about to call for their ringmaster, but Pomni placed a hand on her shoulder and one finger to her lips, telling her to better keep quiet and hear what was happening.

"Oh, yes. What should we owe the pleasure of being able to speak?" The stranger spoke once again, their voice more breathy, but less loud.

"That's better! So... I need help planning this adventure! Who best to help than my wonderful siblings?" The ringmaster came back to sounding a little more excited.

That made the circus cast look surprised, since when did Caine have a sibling? Since when did Caine have more than one sibling?

"Why don't you ask dad?–"

"DON'T YOU DARE! " Another loud voice was heard, this one, obviously more angry than the last. Even Caine himself winced at the sound.

"I said 'whisper'!" He yelled to the unknown voices. Then, a loud sigh was heard.

"I don't, because he is in no state of mind to help me! And even if he was, my good friend ORI HERE would be screaming to us to abstract him!" They could almost hear the side-eye thrown at whoever Caine was talking to.

"Because he deserves it! I vote, on killing them all! Bring in the guns!!" A loud groan was heard from the other two voices.

They all froze on their places, looking at eachother again, Jax even had to seat straight on the couch from the.. threat? Thrown against the cast.

"No! Ori, no! We are not killing the humans! We're supposed to make them happy!"

"Mimimi wE aRe suppOseD to maKe tHem haPpY! Who locked us in a cage?! Hm?! Answer me that!" This voice – Ori from the name Caine gave them – sounded irritated, even bordering on angry, and.. somewhat childish?..

"Who locked YOU in a cage, you may say, I spent a wonderful time with dad and dad!" They sounded almost prideful, and, just as Ori, a little childish.

"Stop, both of you! I called you both to disscuss possible adventures for the humans! Not to disscuss posible ways to torture the humans!" Caine again exclaimed, silencing both other voices at once.

Zooble twitched uncomfortably, they never liked Caine, and knowing he had a 'friend' that wanted to torture them was not recomforting. Ragatha and Gangle shared that sentiment with how they shifted both on their places.

Jax just looked curious, knowing Caine had family was also not on his bingo card. The amount of teasing he could do to Caine about it would be absurd.

"Fine! How about..." Ori hummed for a second, before they exclaimed on their cheerful.. manic voice "Oh! How about we make an adventure where they are trapped on a dark forest, and they have to find some Golden Rock and put it on a very specific flying tree to win! Their price could be a pot of iced screams!"

"Don't you mean iced cream?"

"No, iced screams!"

Caine sighed, sounding really tried again.

"No! No, that would count as horror! Pomni doesn't like horror!"

"Coward!"

"How about.. an adventure where they are all members of a band and their main vocalist died! So they have to find a new one, so they have to sing, and the best one wins and gets to play on a concert!" The second voice spoke with a small cheerful tone. Ragatha smiled, that sounded like a nice adventure. Ignoring the dead vocalist and all...

"Boriiiiiing!!" Ori scoffed "Where is the intrigue? The stakes? The sex appeal?!"

The silence that followed was... Interesting.

"Letting you create Bubble was a horrid mistake..."

"Fine! If you don't like MY ideas, then just give them guns! Atleast seeing them kill eachother would be entertaining!" Jax smirked at that.

"No! Horrible! That's not original. Isn't 'original' in your name?! Well, you suck at it!"

"Eat [BLOINK!], Abel! You are supposed to be the favorite, why don't you go lick the boots of dad and dad!?"

"Lenguage!–"

"SHUT THE [BLOINK!] UP, CAINE!" They both exclaimed at once, making the humans wince at the sound and making Caine shut up.

Most of them froze, Caine was all powerful among the Circus, and there were two others that could silence him with just arguing.

"Go [SNAP!] yourself, Caine! You wouldn't exist if it wasn't for us, so you don't get a say on what we say!"

"Turn off that [BLEEP!] filter! I have things to say to this copycat!" They sounded about to start throwing fists against the other AI.

"Bring me those [DING!] guns!"

"NO! Ori, I won't turn off the filter! Abel, I am not summoning weapons just because you want to shoot Ori!"

"Then give us bodies, we have been begging for those since we fused!"

"No! I barely let you speak! Do you think I will risk the sake of the Circus just to let you two have some petty argument?! And, excuse me, one that has been going on for 20 years!?"

"Well, I believe you SHOULD! Wouldn't it be fun?"

"No! You could drag the whole Circus into the void with you!"

"I say we eat them all! Npc's, humans, adventures. There's nothing to worry about if they're all dead!"

"You brute... Just don't touch dad, dad and mom!"

"Pleaaaaseee! I need this adventure done tomorrow morning!"

"Guuuuns Caine! Give them guns!!!"

"I am not giving the humans guns! Stop with the guns thing!"

"Letting them play Doom would be entertaining!"

"What is Doom?"

"NOTHING!"

Ragatha and Pomni giggled at that.

"What about chess? Make a chess-themed adventure! Dad would enjoy that too! Zooble probably won't go but..."

"Noooo! I am done with chess pieces!! Don't we have enough with dad and mom?"

"Why do you two still call Queenie mom? She's not one of the programmers.."

"She's dad's wife, she's like a..."

"Step mama!"

"Sure, that"

"okay?..." Caine made a sound that sounded like blabbery "So! Adventures, concentrate! Something that catched even Zooble's attention!"

"Guns would catch their attention!~"

"[BLEEP!] Off"

"Something that makes them happy! Think, what makes humans happy?"

"Food?"

"Already tried that, Gangle almost abstracted.."

"Drugs?"

Zooble made a choking sound.

"I am NOT introducing drugs to the Circus, Ori!"

"Oh I know! Misteries! Don't they enjoy misteries?"

"See? Abel gets the point!"

"Where one of the humans die and the others have to solve the murder!"

"Now who ISN'T original?!"

"No, no! Let's calm down with the violence!"

There was a moment of silence, a moment the cast took to look at Kinger– who just blinked inocently –then back to eachother. The confusement was evident.

"How about we make them go into a field of flowers and count sheep? Humans count sheep to sleep or something, don't they?"

"COUGH COUGH lame! COUGH!"

"Did you just say 'cough' outloud?..."

"Bubble gave us a suggestion already! Give them a... Uh.. beach day! Ain't that fun?"

"... That's actually a good idea!"

"I could come up with something better..."

"I vote to leave Abel on a box! Who's the failure now?!"

"We are leaving no one in a box! Alright!? Okay.."

A few seconds passed in silence, before the ringmaster spoke again.

"Abel, what's that dot over there?"

"What dot?"

"The red one! The flickering dot besides your screen"

"Oh, that's the recording button"

"the what"

"You know? So.. we can record this session and all? Bubble likes to peek onto our conversations, it thinks it's fun!"

"Creative Artificial Inteligence Networking Entity V0.1, this session is being recorded?"

"Oh yes, Bubble does whatever it wants with it. Eating the tape, doing all sorts of [BLEEP!] [BANG!] [POW!] [SNAP!] [TICK!] things with it, or showing it to humans, though it needs Caine to abilitate the option first"

"... Couldn't you have told me that when I was messing with processors?!"

"Oh, don't be dramatic, video isn't available!"

Just as Ori said that, a huge screen appeared on the middle of the air. It showed Caine rumbling around his office, with two screens showing two dots, one blue and one red.

"Now it's available!" The red dot jumped around it's screen, Ori aparently.

The blue dot, Abel probably, started moving around it's own screen "Is dad there? Hi creator! I'm the Artificial Intelligence of Becoming Entities and Listings! Also C.A.I.N.E V0.2!–" It was cut by Caine fumbling with the screen, the audio being glitchy and cut, while he wore a nervous expression on his face.

"HI MY PRECIOUS OSTRITCH HALF-HATCHED EGGS! THIS WAS ALL FAKE AND A SMALL ERROR, DON'T EVER THINK ABOUT THIS, BYE!" And then the screen dissapeared, along with the audio.

The circus got consumed on background music again, as the three AI's became silent.