Chapter Text
Pomni was on one of the digital couches, quietly staring at the blanket fort they’d assembled for Jax, until a thought came to her.
“Hey, uh, Caine?” She called, waiting a few moments for the cartoon teeth to appear, eventually though, he appeared in a burst of confetti.
“Yes, Pomni?” He asked, looking at her thoughtfully with his mismatched eyes.
“I had an idea,” Pomni replied, sitting up properly, and placing her hands in her lap.
“Well fire away and we can get right to it!” Caine said cheerfully, clapping his hands and summoning a notepad and pencil.
“I— uh, it’s not quite the sort of idea you’re probably thinking,” Pomni admitted, rubbing the back of her neck and looking away.
“Oh? Well what’s your idea then?” Caine asked, raising his equivalent of an eyebrow in curiosity.
“Well, it’s hard to explain but, after Jax y’know… abstracted, I went to go find him and see if I could handle him, I broke all the lights in the room, and then I hugged him? Or her, it’s hard to explain that part, Then I sorta went into their brain, and there were these weird doors like their bedroom door, when I opened them I found these dreams of some kind, and then there was a door that seemed different and inside I found all these different versions of Jax.” Pomni explained, making gestures with her hands as she told the story.
“They were really rude to this one on the piano but that’s besides the point, after I’d talked to them a bit they just vanished into smoke, a-and then the last Jax on the piano handed me a key to an ominous door inside the room before that one vanished too, and when I opened it the door took me into their memories instead of dreams.” Pomni continued, meanwhile Caine was listening intently, seeming extremely interested.
“I saw Ribbit, Kaufmo, their friendship, why Jax ended up in the circus, and then at the end of it all I finally found them, it was really dark, and they were standing next to a lamppost that was glowing pink, they tried to get me to go away but I ran and hugged the real them, but that’s when it all went wrong, in the Circus itself something must have happened and I was thrown out before the others rescued me.” Pomni finished, looking over at Caine who’d furrowed his top jaw in thought.
“That’s… intriguing, nobody has ever tried hugging an abstracted character before,” Caine said, tilting his head at her, “What was your idea?” He questioned, putting his hands together.
“Well, it’s hard to explain but, I was looking at the pillow fort over there and I wondered, what if— what if we could “unabstract” the people who’ve abstracted, I figured that with you here again we might actually be able to accomplish it,” Pomni told him, trying not to get her hopes up just incase
“Hm,” Caine said, pondering for a moment before looking at Pomni again, “Well, I’ve certainly never tried to “unabstract” someone before, but with the story you told me, it could be worth a shot, if I could re-access their mind files I could possibly help whoever is inside the person’s head from the outside,” he added, eyes sparkling as he came up with new ideas, “Pomni, incredible idea, you gather up the others, I’ll be back soon,” he ordered, flying off out of sight.
At Caine’s instructions Pomni leapt up and started running to find the others, when Pomni finally spotted the others gathered up and laughing about something she ran up to them and skidded to a stop, sending up a cloud of dust despite the floor not being dirty. The first one who noticed her was Ragatha, she smiled warmly as she turned around and began to speak.
“Oh, hi, Pomni, did you change your mind about wanting to spend some time alone?” Ragatha asked, gesturing her over with a curious look.
“Yeah, we thought you just wanted to chill, perfectly fine if you wanna join though,” Zooble added, glancing up at Pomni for a moment before looking back at what they were doing.
“Well, Caine wanted me to find you all, we have something we wanna tell you guys about,” Pomni explained, rubbing a finger across the palm of her hand.
“Well, what is it?” Zooble said, focusing on Pomni, leaning back on their plastic limbs as they started listening, whilst Gangle was squinting at a sketchbook and making little marks next to them, and Kinger was also looking at her curiously.
“It’s hard to explain, but follow me to the blanket fort and I’ll start telling you what Caine and I just talked about,” Pomni said, and before she walked towards the blanket fort she waited for everyone to rise to their feet.
Once everyone had gathered in a semicircle in front of her Pomni started explaining what she’d told Caine, and then what Caine had said before disappearing. When Pomni finally finished the story everyone seemed shocked, except for Kinger, who nodded and put one hand up to his face in thought.
“I could also try to help Caine from the outside, I’m sure I can handle working on mind files,” said Kinger finally, nodding solemnly, but then turning wistful as he went back to thinking.
“You mean you really think we can fix all the abstracted people?” Asked Gangle, sniffling quietly.
“It definitely seems like a solid idea,” Kinger replied with a nod.
Just after Kinger finished speaking Caine zoomed into view, eyes darting between everyone before he nodded in satisfaction.
“Alright, you’re all here, now did Pomni already inform you guys of the thing, or do I need to tell you guys?” Caine asked, doing a fingergun motion, everyone nodded, Caine clapped his hands, “Perfect, makes this a bit easier, first, before we try to fix anyone at all, we need a game plan,” Caine said, crossing his arms and hovering a bit closer to the ground. “I personally thought we’d attempt to fix Jax first because they’re right here, and I was thinking Pomni here could be the one to enter their mind, since she’s already had experience being inside it, and seemed like the one who was closest to them before they abstracted,”
Kinger raised his hand and Caine turned and looked at him expectantly. “I was thinking that I could assist you and also help Pomni from the outside by helping you keep the mind files under control,” Kinger said.
Caine nodded, seeming quite pleased, “It would be nice having an assistant, that just leaves Gangle, Ragatha, and Zooble,” Caine said, wondering what they could do.
“Oh! We could be on standby to get Pomni out if things are going badly, that’s what we all did last time she went in,” suggested Ragatha, her hand jumping up.
“Aha, great idea, Kinger and I can help Pomni by keeping Jax’s mind files under control, and you three can get Pomni out if things go wrong,” Caine nodded, high fiving Ragatha with a hand he summoned.
“Before we do this though, shouldn’t we prepare?” we still don’t know if it’ll even work quite yet,” sniffed Gangle, raising a ribbon.
“She’s right, we should probably prepare and avoid rushing into this, I’m willing to try it though,” Zooble agreed, nodding their head, “And maybe Jax can get his friends back,” they added.
“You’re right, we should prepare, maybe tomorrow,” Caine said, nodding with the others in agreement.
The next day, after tons of preparation and making sure everything was ready, Pomni stood outside the blanket fort, swallowing nervously she stepped inside, seeing the amalgamation that had previously been Jax, it— or well, they were currently curled up, letting out a loud, distorted snore as they slept. Ragatha pumped her fist in encouragement and gave a slightly scared smile when Pomni looked behind her as the others followed her in, and outside Kinger and Caine were on this large console they’d set up.
Jax began to stir and stop snoring, they lifted their head, blinking their wild, colorful eyes at all the others but looking mostly at Pomni, Pomni put her hands out in front of her, whispering like you might to an animal. When she got close to Jax she took a deep breath, gathering her confidence.
“You can do this,” she reassured herself, and then she threw her arms around the buzzing bunch of code.