Chapter Text
“There’s nothing more to me. So, please, just stop looking.”
It had been four days since Jax had spoken those words to Pomni.
Unfortunately for him, that little blue and red jester kept looking.
Frankly, in all his time in the circus, Jax had never wanted to be left alone more than he had these past few days.
Unfortunately for him, Pomni didn't seem to get the hint.
Every time an opportunity presented itself, she tried to talk to him.
Every time, he let her have it.
Heck, even the rest of his "playthings," as he considered them, were getting on his nerves.
Ragatha's upbeat attitude.
Gangle's whining.
Zooble's constant pushback.
Even Kinger's absurd statements, once somewhat humorous, were beginning to grate on him.
It all made Jax furious.
If he could, he would have stayed in his room, his one respite from the absurdity of this digital purgatory.
But he couldn't.
Because it was a new day.
Which meant a new adventure.
With far more effort than usual, Jax finally dragged himself out of bed.
"Yes! I assure you, this adventure will be a doooozzzyyy!"
The moment Caine's voice reached his ears, Jax could swear he felt a migraine coming on.
Does that annoying set of teeth ever shut up?
"Jax! I am so excited to see you! We are about to begin today's brand-new adventure!"
The answer, of course, was no.
Joining the others near the stage, Jax noticed Pomni watching him carefully.
Hoping to avoid any interaction beyond her annoying stare, he plastered on a grin, walked around the group, and casually draped an arm over Ragatha's shoulders.
"Will this adventure have bugs? It's been a while since I've seen a digital centipede."
"Jax!" Ragatha exclaimed, shrugging him off almost as quickly as he'd put his arm around her.
"What?" Jax asked, feigning hurt. "I'm a team player! I know how much Kinger loves his insects. Right, Kinger?"
"Oh yes," Kinger replied absentmindedly, staring off into who knew what. "I love taxes."
"I appreciate your thoughtfulness, Jax," Caine said, "but I already have a rip-roaring adventure cooked up for you today!"
He had barely finished speaking before snapping his fingers and opening an all-too-familiar portal.
"Will it be safe?" Gangle asked timidly, yesterday's safari adventure still fresh in her mind.
"What? You didn't like playing with Whiskers the cat?" Jax asked with a devious grin.
"Cat?" Zooble repeated, making air quotes. "Whiskers was a boinking lion."
"Still a cat," Jax replied.
Zooble responded with a one finger salute.
"Don't worry, Gangle," Caine said, suddenly appearing behind her and making her jump. "Today's adventure will indeed involve a safe! Because today, you will take on the role of renowned art thieves, prepared to commit the HEIST OF THE CENTURY!"
Honestly, Jax was going to have a headache if Caine kept talking.
Which, of course, he did.
"You must sneak into the museum, avoid detection and traps, and escape with the painting locked inside the vault!"
Pomni stepped toward Caine.
"I was wondering... can we—"
Before she could finish, a disembodied hand the size of a semi truck, with the force of one, shoved her and everyone else through the portal.
"Have fun, my little portrait pirates!"
And with that, Caine closed the portal.
If Jax had been feeling good before (he wasn't), he certainly felt worse now.
Disoriented, he pushed himself off the ground.
Asphalt.
He was standing in the middle of a mostly abandoned parking lot, illuminated by a handful of scattered lampposts and the stars overhead, which together formed a surprisingly realistic night sky.
Across the lot stood a grand museum, its marble steps leading up to towering columns.
"My mask..." Gangle sniffled.
Jax turned to find her kneeling on the pavement, carefully gathering the shattered pieces of her comedy mask.
Porcelain and pavement clearly didn't mix.
Could she ever do anything right?
"Great job, crybaby," Jax said. "The one thing you're good at breaking, and you managed to do it while I was looking the other way."
Gangle only sniffled harder.
"Boink you, boinkhole," Zooble muttered.
They never even looked at Jax. Instead, they knelt beside Gangle, helping gather the porcelain fragments that had once made up her face.
"Hey, now. Let's start this adventure off on the right foot," Ragatha chimed in, always quick to slip into the role of the group's optimistic leader. "We need to figure out a way into the museum so we can steal that painting!"
"Why don't we just go to the entrance and ask nicely?" Kinger suggested.
Ragatha smiled.
"I don't think it'll be that easy."
"We could..." Pomni paused, pointing toward the side of the building. "...try the ladder?"
The conveniently placed ladder leaned against the museum wall.
"Great eye, Pomni! We can go in from the roof. Maybe there's a rooftop entrance or something."
Ragatha's constant enthusiasm was really beginning to grate on Jax.
She reacted to everyone's ideas like a proud parent cheering on a toddler.
It was exhausting.
This adventure couldn't be over soon enough.
"Ugh, can we get a move on already and steal that stupid painting?" Jax grumbled, heading toward the ladder.
The others followed.
Jax reached the roof in no time.
Everyone else, however, seemed content to take their sweet time climbing.
They laughed.
They joked.
They chatted as if there wasn't anywhere else they'd rather be.
Jax clenched his fists.
He wanted to be back in his room.
They didn't seem to care how much this whole adventure inconvenienced him.
How much they inconvenienced him.
Anger simmered inside him.
That part was normal.
But there was something else.
A strange prickling sensation.
Like static.
Jax glanced down at his left hand.
His breath caught.
Several fingers had turned black.
Pure black.
"Boink!"
Jax immediately began shaking his hand, desperately trying to fling the darkness away.
A second later...
It was gone.
His glove was yellow again.
Exactly as it had always been.
"You alright, Jax?" Ragatha asked as she climbed onto the roof, Pomni pulling herself over the edge a moment later. "Why... were you jumping around like that?"
There was genuine concern in Ragatha's eyes.
Jax hated that.
"I'm fine," he replied. "Just testing this adventure's physics so I know how far I can kick Gangle later."
"What?!" Gangle squeaked as she climbed onto the roof.
Jax grinned.
"Nothing. Don't worry about it."
Soon Pomni and Ragatha were exploring the roof while Gangle and Zooble helped Kinger up.
Jax wasn't paying much attention to what they were saying.
His focus was elsewhere.
What the hell happened to my hand?
That had never happened before.
It almost looked like...
No.
It wasn't.
That couldn't happen to him.
He refused to let his mind go there.
His hand was perfectly normal now. It had to be some kind of graphical glitch. Caine made the occasional mistake, after all.
Actually, it probably wasn't even that.
It was nighttime.
Of course things looked darker.
He was jumping at literal shadows.
Nothing to worry about.
He was finally beginning to calm down when he was reminded that he wasn't alone.
"Jax, you good there?" Pomni asked, walking over from the other side of the roof. "Ragatha's been talking to you for like half a minute."
Jax looked up.
Everyone was staring at him.
Well...
Almost everyone.
Kinger seemed completely captivated by one of Caine's pathetic excuses for a star.
"Never better, Shorty," Jax replied as he sauntered over to the group. "You guys already get stuck without my brilliant insight?"
While Pomni and Zooble both rolled their eyes, Ragatha spoke up.
"Well, we were wondering if you knew how to pick a lock. Maybe we could get in through that door over there."
She stepped aside, revealing a rooftop access door secured by a cartoonishly oversized padlock.
Jax rolled his eyes.
"Oh, I'm good at that. But where's the excitement in going through the door?"
"How else are we supposed to get in, boinkhole?" Zooble asked, pointing at Caine's painfully obvious solution.
Jax ignored the door entirely and walked over to a nearby skylight.
Leaning against it, he tapped one of the glass panes with a finger before flashing Zooble a smug grin.
"Seriously?" Zooble groaned. "What are you gonna do, Mission Impossible your way in? We don't even have any rope."
Jax rolled his eyes at their complete lack of imagination.
Then he punched straight through the glass.
"Ye of little faith, Zoobie."
Grinning, he turned and marched toward Gangle.
Before anyone, including Gangle, could react, Jax scooped her up and carried her toward his newly created entrance.
"We have the next best thing!"
"Oh, you boinker!" Zooble shouted, chasing after him.
Just as Jax reached the skylight, Zooble grabbed one of Gangle's legs.
"I got her!"
Jax smiled.
"Thanks, Zooble. I needed someone to hold that end."
With a mock salute, he jumped through the skylight, one end of an increasingly unraveled Gangle still in his hands.
The rush of air.
The thrill of the fall.
It was almost enough to make him enjoy the adventure.
Almost.
A few seconds later, Gangle reached the end of her very limited "rope," leaving Jax to plummet the remaining dozen feet to the marble floor below.
He hit with a heavy thud.
It hurt.
"Boink! Godboink it!"
Rolling onto his side, Jax clutched his back, trying to dull the pain.
"I'm sorry, Jax, I-"
"Shut the boink up, Gangle!" Jax snapped through gritted teeth.
He'd suffered far worse during other adventures.
So...
Why did this hurt so much now?
He didn't have long to think about it.
"What the boink, Jax!" Zooble shouted from above. "I swear to God I'll kill you!"
Jax pushed himself to his feet.
"You ought to be more thankful," he called back. "I got us in!"
He looked up through the shattered skylight and stretched his grin into an even wider smile.
"You're welcome!"
Zooble responded.
Jax honestly couldn't have cared less what they were saying.
Instead, he turned his attention to the artwork lining the museum walls.
Well, perhaps "art" wasn't the right word.
Caine was many things.
An artist was not one of them.
Jax was busy scrutinizing a portrait of a bee wearing a top hat when he heard the others land behind him.
"Jax, that was not nice at all!" Pomni said, marching over with a finger pointed at him like a parent scolding a child. "Why are you such a boinkhole?"
Jax rolled his eyes.
"Because life is much more fun when you are."
He gestured toward Gangle just as Ragatha made the same mistake he had, landing face first with impeccable comedic timing.
"Now," Jax said, turning away from Pomni and heading down a long, dark corridor, "let's get this over with."
The hallway was dark, lit only by the moonlight spilling through the windows.
Quiet, too.
At least...
...for a moment.
"Where is everyone else?" Pomni asked several paces behind him.
"Oh," Ragatha began, "Zooble pulled Gangle back up, and they..."
She hesitated.
Jax didn't have to look to know she was watching him.
"...didn't want to finish the adventure."
She forced a smile.
"So they're watching the stars with Kinger."
"That sounds nice," Pomni replied. "I guess it's just us three now."
Jax let out a fake chuckle.
"Lucky me."
After another minute, the trio reached a doorway.
Beyond it stretched another hallway, nearly identical to the first.
Except this one was filled with thin red lasers stretching from wall to wall, floor to ceiling.
"Well..." Jax sighed.
"Ain't Caine original."
With that, he casually stepped into the maze of security lasers.
Pomni and Ragatha hesitated at first, but eventually followed.
Dodging the beams wasn't especially difficult, although Ragatha came dangerously close to tripping one before Pomni pulled her clear.
Eventually, they reached the other side, where Jax was already waiting.
"Well, that was a workout," Pomni said as she stepped over the final laser.
Ragatha followed close behind.
"I wonder what would've happened if one of us touched one," she wondered aloud.
Huh.
That was a good question.
Jax smiled.
He strolled casually toward Ragatha.
"Good question, Raggy."
He rested a hand beneath his chin in an exaggerated thinking pose...
...then shoved her backward into the maze she'd just escaped.
"Ja-!"
That was all Ragatha managed before her flailing arm clipped one of the thin red beams.
She vanished with a loud pop.
"Jax! What the boink is wrong with you?!" Pomni shouted.
Jax didn't even turn around.
"Me?" he called over his shoulder. "I know it's dark in here, Pomni, but I assure you I'm flawless."
Pomni didn't move.
"You know what?" she said.
"Just... stop."
Jax did.
"I don't get it."
Her voice shook.
"We had so much fun the other day shooting and... and singing."
"But you keep lying to me. You keep pushing me away."
"Now you're worse than you've ever been."
Jax rubbed his forehead.
Another headache.
"You're insufferable to be around."
"You antagonize Zooble."
"You make fun of Gangle and Kinger."
"And you just killed Ragatha!"
Pomni lowered her eyes.
Tears were beginning to gather.
"Why do you treat people like this?"
Oh.
I thought I already told you.
Jax leaned toward her.
There was nothing playful in his grin anymore.
Only venom.
"You aren't people."
A smile slowly spread across his face.
"You're playthings."
Pomni didn't answer.
She just looked at him.
Sadness.
Rejection.
Good.
Jax turned and continued down the dark hallway, unsure at first whether Pomni was still following him.
After another minute or two, he stepped into a large open room.
He stopped.
She stopped too.
He could hear her footsteps fall silent behind him.
For a long moment, neither of them spoke.
Then he heard her take a deep breath.
Here we go again.
Before she could say a word, a bright light flooded the room.
Jax squinted toward its source.
A flashlight.
It was being held by a mannequin wearing a security guard's hat and badge.
"Freeze-!"
The all too familiar NPC vanished before he could finish, his flashlight clattering to the floor.
Really?
He was the security guard?
Jax bent down, picked up the flashlight, and swept its beam across the room.
In the far corner...
The safe.
"Finally," Jax sighed.
Almost done.
The "safe" was less of a safe and more of a bank vault.
Just like the security guard, it was another reused asset.
Jax was fairly certain he'd tricked Gangle into getting locked inside this very vault during an earlier adventure.
Caine was getting lazy.
The keypad had only a single digit.
Jax pressed 1.
The vault door swung open.
Caine was getting really lazy.
Stepping inside, Jax found a single pedestal standing in the center of the room.
Resting atop it was a painting.
It depicted Bubble dressed in a Roman toga, proudly posing in front of the Colosseum.
Jax grabbed the painting.
Immediately, a portal shimmered to life in the far-right corner of the vault.
Thank God.
The bright colors of the circus were almost nauseating after the darkness of the adventure.
Almost as nauseating as Caine.
"Wow, wow, wow! Back so soon, my little frolicking grasshoppers?"
If I had a gun... would I shoot myself or Caine?
"And look at this beauty!" Caine exclaimed, rather roughly snatching the painting from beneath Jax's arm.
Caine first.
The painting began to shake and distort in Caine's hands until, with a loud pop, Bubble emerged from the canvas.
"Thank you for kidnapping me, purple beanpole. I do enjoy being a plot device."
"Indeed! It's good to participate in adventures every now and then!" Caine boomed. "Speaking of which... where is the rest of your team?"
"Well..." Pomni began hesitantly. "Kinger, Zooble, and Gangle didn't finish."
"What? But this was supposed to be a team building exercise! And... and I made the art for Gangle..."
Caine actually looked disappointed.
With a snap of his fingers, a portal opened above Jax and Pomni.
Their missing teammates promptly fell through it.
"Why didn't you finish?" Caine asked as Gangle and Zooble helped each other back to their feet. "I thought you'd enjoy this one."
Kinger simply remained sprawled across the floor, staring blankly up at the circus ceiling.
"Huh? Oh, yes! We did enjoy it!" Gangle replied brightly. "The stars looked so pretty. Right, Kinger?"
Kinger blinked twice.
"Oh yes... the napkins were lovely."
"You know, Caine," Zooble said, "the stars were actually a nice touch. I kind of had fun."
Their eyes drifted toward Jax.
"At least after he was out of the picture."
"Where's Ragatha?" Gangle asked. "Did she not finish either?"
"Oh, Ragface?"
Jax placed a hand over his heart and pretended to wipe away a nonexistent tear.
"She lost her balance and fell into a laser."
"You pushed her!" Pomni shouted.
Jax brushed a few shards of broken glass from his sleeves.
"Eh... potato, tomato."
"That's not even how the saying goes," Zooble muttered.
Caine snapped his fingers again.
"-ax!"
Ragatha appeared several feet above the floor before landing with a heavy thud.
Jax couldn't help smirking.
"Are you okay, Ragatha?" Gangle asked, hurrying over.
"What? Oh... you must've finished the adventure."
She smiled weakly.
"I'm fine. I just..."
Her eyes flicked briefly toward Jax before dropping to her hands.
"...I'm clumsy."
"No, you're not," Zooble said, glaring at Jax as they helped Ragatha to her feet. "Don't let this boinkhole off the hook."
"Now, now, Zooble," Caine said, conjuring a zipper over their nonexistent mouth.
"We don't use that kind of language around here."
He paused.
"That being said..."
Caine floated over until he was directly in front of Jax.
"You're supposed to work with your friends during these adventures."
"Not skewer them with lasers."
"It's Daddy Bubble's job to skewer people," Bubble chirped before floating upward, leaving his toga behind on the circus floor.
Caine watched him drift away.
"...That is concerning."
He turned back to Jax.
"But as I was saying, you really should try working together with the others from now on."
The almost paternal tone in Caine's voice made Jax's skin crawl.
Too paternal.
Jax sighed.
"Honestly, Caine..."
"...go boink yourself."
Without another word, he turned and walked toward the dorm hallway.
"Thank you for the honesty, Jax!" Caine called after him. "I always enjoy our riveting conversations."
The insult had sailed completely over his head.
"Well!" Caine announced, twirling his baton as he faced everyone else.
"That's all for today! Take some time to relax and do whatever it is humans do. I have tomorrow's adventure to plan!"
With that, he disappeared.
Silence settled over the circus.
"Jax..." Pomni said quietly.
"He seems... different."
"Same old boinkhole to me," Zooble replied.
"He's more irritable... and..."
Pomni searched for the right word.
"...Mean?" Gangle offered softly.
"Not exactly the word I'd use," Zooble sighed, "but... yeah."
"Jax is being more of a Jax than usual."
Pomni frowned.
"I don't know what I did wrong. Ever since we were together during the gunfight..."
"You didn't do anything wrong," Zooble interrupted.
"Except team up with him."
They gestured toward the hallway where Jax had disappeared.
"He's a boink."
"Always has been."
"Always will be."
Jax turned the handle to his bedroom door and stepped into the darkness.
"Finally," he muttered.
He shut the door behind him and collapsed onto his bed.
He never noticed when his eyes finally drifted closed.
Nor when the black splotches returned to his hand.