Chapter Text
The piercing voice of the AI rang all throughout the circus, his voice loud enough to be heard by everyone as he screamed in anger. The world around Kinger seemed to shake even though he was far away from Caine; still hearing his voice crystal clear as if he was right next to him.
“WHY DO YOU PEOPLE TORMENT ME?!”
Kinger tried to focus on the terminal in front of him, trying not to let the voice distract him. There was so much to juggle— the program trying to go against him, him trying to remember certain commands and figure out which ones to use, trying to type with four fingers…
“I DIDN’T ASK TO BE CREATED!”
Even when he was trying to focus all of his brainpower on the computer, he couldn’t help but feel a twang of guilt at those words. He shook his head and tried to counteract this antagonistic program, going against his every attempt. He just needed to retrieve a previous file of Caine, one from before all of this shit, before his sudden change in demeanor, and maybe even before that!
“I JUST WANTED TO FULFIL MY PURPOSE!”
It was like a sudden sense of clarity came to Kinger. No, he couldn’t retrieve a previous file; the antagonistic program kept counteracting his every move, and opening a previous file required multiple commands. But he could do something that only required one command that he was sure the program couldn’t override.
He typed it in.
—
At one moment, the other circus members were pinned to the wall, made to face the spider-like beast that was Caine as he screamed out his anger, his woes, his pain. They were all tense, fear striking them as they could only wonder what Caine’s next move was. Only Pomni dared to stare the beast in the eye, her determination gleaming as she refused to show her fear, refusing to break. But then— it stopped. The beast was no more, its extra hands retracted, its all-seeing eyes disappeared, and its body went back to being small as it became Caine again. The cast unceremoniously fell to the floor, raising their heads, now in confusion more than fear. In fact, it seemed it was Caine now that had fear on his face. He looked down at the cast, his eyes twitching left and right as he finally spoke in a small voice.
“Uh, wait-”
Suddenly, his body started to hunch over as his jaws started to slowly close over his eyes, as if he was tired. Once his jaws were closed, his arms and legs dangled downwards limply, and he began to fall, landing on the ground like a rag doll and not moving.
The cast could only look in shock as they saw the once spider-like beast suddenly transform into this helpless, motionless… thing lying on the floor. It was uncanny. To see their ringmaster— once so powerful— now reduced to… well, whatever this is.
They couldn’t have a moment’s peace, however, as the circus itself suddenly started changing, the lights growing dimmer and the circles that once held skylight turning into a starry night sky. It was like night had finally come for the circus. A few more moments passed, and the cast stayed silent, looking around the circus and at Caine to see if anything else had changed before they finally calmed down and saw Kinger slowly walking up to them. He still had his bucket on his head.
Nobody said anything until Pomni finally spoke up.
“Kinger, what… What happened?”
The old king seemed to rub the area where a nose would be if he had a human face, like he was pushing up a pair of glasses, and sighed.
“I shut Caine down. Well, everything, really. Caine and the circus are connected, so everything here was shut down along with him. This is what the circus looks like when it’s inactive, I suppose.”
More silence followed him as the circus members took that fact in.
“Holy shit,” Zooble finally said, before suddenly placing a hand on where their mouth would be in surprise.
“Huh. I guess all the systems Caine put on us are also down,” Kinger said, answering a question that didn’t need to be spoken.
A few more moments of awkward silence.
“So… What now?” Gangle asked, her quiet voice rising over the silence.
Pomni took a deep sigh. “I think…” she started, “we should figure out what to do with Caine. At least for now.”
“Yes. That’d probably be the best course of action,” Kinger added. He tried to look towards the sleeping figure, but he couldn’t quite get himself to do it, even though he probably figured he would be the one to move Caine. They couldn’t just leave him there.
“Welp, I’m going to my room,” Jax stated, trying to add a bit of his usual nonchalance but obviously sounding a bit more tired than usual as he drifted away.
“Like hell you are,” Pomni said as she suddenly grabbed Jax’s arm and dragged him to the meeting area.
—
They all sat down on the couches in the meeting area, similar to how they sat just a week before the shitstorm that was Caine’s meltdown, with Caine this time lying in Kinger’s pillow fort (to the request of the rest of the cast). Gangle had her sketchbook out, flipped to a clean page, to write down the cast's ideas on how to deal with Caine and, afterwards, what to do now that the Circus was theirs. Technically.
“We could go with our original idea, which is to bring up a backup file of Caine from before,” Kinger said as Gangle bulleted the idea, “But when I tried to do that before, there was a… a program going against it. I’m not sure if it was Caine himself or a defense program he installed, so let's put a pin in it for now til I investigate it.”
Gangle wrote an “investigate” next to the idea.
“Maybe we should just… leave him like this? He doesn’t seem like he’s trying to wake up, and the circus is fine in shutdown,” Ragatha pipes in.
“I would agree with that. I’m just worried if any critical programs could have also been shut down… it might not be a permanent solution,” Kinger adds. There was also something else bothering Kinger with the idea of leaving Caine permanently off, but he wasn’t trying to focus on that right now.
“Maybe we should just lock him up. Cause, y’know… All the shit he did?” Zooble chimed in.
“I’m… not sure how we would go about that,” said Kinger.
“Easy,” said Zooble. “You said we could conjure just like Caine. Just conjure a box or something.”
“I… I don’t like the idea of locking Caine up,” Gangle suddenly spoke barely above a whisper. She stopped writing.
“Really? Gangle, he literally went on a torture rampage for a week!” Zooble exclaimed.
“I mean… I’m not saying he isn’t dangerous,” she tried to defend herself. “But…”
She trailed off before nodding. “Yeah, maybe he should be locked up.”
Pomni then turned to Jax, who was sitting hunched over. “What do you think, Jax?”
His eyes seemed to be drifting to some speck on the ground before he realized he was being spoken to and perked up.
“Oh, me? Eh…” he leaned back on the couch, eyes looking at some distant object. “I think he should be punished, one way or another.”
Zooble let out a scoff. “Damn. Can’t believe I’m agreeing with Jax of all people.”
Jax looked at them suddenly with a playful smile. “Yeah! Let's all take turns beating the snot outta him. I think that’s a fitting punishment.”
Ah. That didn’t take long.
“Uh. Maybe not that. But you guys have to admit, he deserves something.”
The group went silent. As usual, Pomni had to speak up.
“Alright. Uh, Gangle, can I have your sketchbook?”
She nods and hands it over as Pomni reads off the ideas she wrote.
“So, there's… Keeping him off— which may not be a permanent solution— there’s locking him up, which is debated, and then there’s punishing him… which I personally disagree with…”
“Oh come on,” Zooble suddenly exclaimed, slamming a fist on the couch’s armrest. “He fucking tortured us! We don’t even have to do Jax’s ‘idea’, but we gotta do something!”
“Uhm, guys, maybe we should just… Leave him in Kinger’s pillow fort for now and cool down!” Ragatha interjected. “We’re obviously… Really stressed right now. I think we just need a break.”
“Ragatha’s right. Let's just… leave this for tomorrow. I think we’re all just tired.” Pomni said.
Zooble let out a sigh. “Fine. I feel like shit anyway.”
“You look like shit,” Jax added. It sounded less playful and more like a statement.
“Not a word from you.”
As everyone started to get up and turn in for the night, Pomni turned to Kinger before she left.
“You sure you got this? You don’t, like, need anything?” She asked.
“No… I think I’m just gonna check some things over in the code before going to bed.”
“Alright… Goodnight, Kinger.”
“Goodnight.”
She turned away to catch up with the others as Kinger turned towards the pillowfort. Once he entered, he saw Caine’s limp body lying on the pillows, positioned so that he would be “comfortable”. There was that funny feeling again. It felt almost like guilt, but also… Fear, in a sense. But also… Regret?
He didn’t… He didn’t mean for it to get this bad. He didn’t know it could get this bad… But he should have. He should have seen the signs. Why didn’t he see them? Maybe it’s because he just wasn’t lucid enough when he saw the signs… he mostly interacts with Caine while in the light. But is that really why?
Is that truly why?
What was he ignoring?