Chapter Text
“Hello!” Caine gravitated toward a bunch of humans who were lying on the ground.
“What?” A dog character sat up, rubbing his head. “Where-?”
“Ugh…” The rest of the characters got up slowly, looking around.
“Who are you guys?” A queen chess piece slowly stood up.
“What is happening?” A sorta rat looking thing had gotten up and was staring at Caine. “Who are you and why are we here?”
“Hello! It’s nice to see you have gotten up! My name is-”
“Wheres Abel?” The golden dog had also gotten up and was approaching Caine.
“Oh they’re… out to lunch.” Caine seemed slightly nervous.
“Bring them back! I don’t want your incompetent ass dictating the rest of my life!”
“I-” Caine was cut off by Kinger.
“Can someone please explain to me what is happening?!” The chess piece demanded
“You’re in the Amazing Digital Circus! And-”
“Can we leave?” The rat character demanded.
“I- uh… no…” Caine’s enthusiasm dimmed a little before vamping back up. “But I can make your time here more fun and excit-”
“What do you mean we can’t leave?!” A human that looked like a worm on a string asked
“I-” Caine was barely able to say anything before multiple humans began cussing.
The seven humans began to freak out, all cussing and asking questions, most at Caine but not all. After about thirty seconds of just straight cursing and Caine becoming visibly more and more uncomfortable and overwhelmed he ended up just porting himself away.
Echo had slipped off from the rest of the group when they all finally exited that room. She knew that they were all at high risk of abstraction but she also knew that they had each other. Caine didn’t.
Caine didn’t have anyone, he was completely and utterly isolated, no one cared about him. No one would check up on him. No one except for Echo.
She walked toward the grounds, to their meeting spot when Bubble got in her way, their demeanor as cheerful as ever.
“Hey there Echo!” She eyed them suspiciously as they lowered themselves closer to the ground. “Caine said that he wanted all humans to get a good night's rest to unwind from today's adventure!” Echo crossed her arms.
“Okay, I’ll head to bed after I’m done, I’m talking to Caine.” Bubble laughed and got right in front of her, way too close for comfort.
“Caine said that he also wanted to be left alone.” They were silent for a moment before continuing. “If you don’t know what that means, it means f%(# off.”
“He didn’t actually say that, did he?” She tried her best to keep the worry out of her voice, trying to sound as calm and cool headed as they did not feel.
“I might have interpreted the words a little bit but the message is still the same, he doesn’t want to see you.” Echo tapped her foot against the ground for a minute before trying again.
“Can you send a message to him?” Bubble sneered at her.
“What part of ‘he doesn’t want to see you’ don’t you understand?” Echo narrowed her eyes at them.
“The part that says that I can’t communicate with him at all.” Bubble looked like they were going to bite them. Echo wanted to see them try.
“Fine! He doesn’t want to hear from you either!” Echo’s foot tapping became even more erratic.
“You changed what he said.” Bubble got close to her face, their eyes narrowing into a hateful gaze.
“He doesn’t want to see or hear you, he needs some time to himself, okay?” Echo glared at the little ass hole before finally accepting defeat and walking back to her room to go to sleep. Although, even before she reached her room, she already knew that sleep would be far away.
Echo was the last one up. She joined the other humans in the lounge. No one talked. Everyone was just stuck in their own head. Echo started drawing. She drew for a while, she wasn’t sure what she was drawing, just started doodling.
The lounge stayed in silence except for the scratching of her pencil against paper. The silence stretched for what felt like hours but couldn’t have been more than thirty minutes before Caine arrived.
“Hello my little fortuitous fruitcakes! Today's adventure is-” Zooble interrupted Caine at the same time Echo tried to- except, she couldn’t speak.
“No Caine! We’re not in the mood.” Zooble gestured toward everyone else. “How about you answer some of our questions first, we have a lot of them.” Caine's smile widened. Echo grabbed her throat with her hand- why- why couldn’t she talk?
“Who has time for questions when there's a whole wacky world of hijinks out there to discover!?” Echo looked up at Caine in confusion, he was acting erratically,
“No one wants to go on one of your stupid adventures!” Caine’s jaws scrunched up slightly, his smile never fading before he looked down in a small chuckle that Echo didn’t think could even fool Caine.
“Oh Zooble, always such a kidder- this adventure will be one that’ll-” Jax jumped up this time and started yelling at Caine as well, like yesterday.
“They’re not kidding! Nobody likes your stupid adventures! No one’s ever liked going on them!” Caine flinched slightly. His smile became even more strained than it already was.
“I’m sorry that you think that, Jax, but this adventure is one that I think that you’ll find to be very interesting.” Caine turned his head slightly to the side as he continued to stare at Jax. Jax stiffened, everyone seemed to have the same thought- ‘very interesting’?
“And if we don’t?” Zooble asked hesitantly. Caine’s smile widened even more.
“When did I say that skipping was an option?” A portal appeared at the snap of Caine’s fingers. Everyone looked over at it and hesitantly began heading toward it. Although when Echo tried to move toward it, Caine stopped her.
A floating hand appeared in front of her, cessing her movement. Jax was the last one through the portal and shot a look at her. Envy? Jealousy? Disgust? Echo couldn’t figure it out.
She looked up at Caine as he closed the portal. His hat bells immediately unfurled and hung loosely by his bottom jaws. His entire demeanor relaxed before he looked at her and sighed. He floated there for a second just staring at her before snapping himself away.
Echo watched where he just was. Why- why did he revoke her ability to talk? They fidgeted with their hands as she started moving toward the grounds. Bubble appeared before them again.
“Caine doesn’t want to-” Echo didn’t even hesitate to pop them, although her solution proved to be futile as they immediately appeared again in front of her before they got even ten steps forward.
“Fine, try and talk to him, see what happens.” Bubble watched as Echo walked into an invisible wall. “I told you so.” Echo glared at them and tried tapping on the wall to see if she could find a weak spot.
Eventually she gave up on finding a weak spot and conjured a knife to drive into the barrier. Bubble laughed as Echo inspected the invisible barrier. Her ear flattened and she threw the weapon at Bubble, popping them.
She was so done with their lies.
Echo watched as the other humans came through a portal. They didn’t look like they had been hurt at all, they looked exhausted yes, but they didn’t look any worse than they would if it had been any other adventure.
The other humans didn’t really stick around though, they immediately either went to their rooms or went to the lounge.
She followed the four that went to the lounge. They all collapsed onto the couches. Gangle was holding back tears unsuccessfully, Zooble was attempting to comfort her while looking tired themselves, Jax had just faceplanted onto the couch and Ragatha looked shell shocked.
They all sat in silence for a few minutes, the only sound being Gangle soft sobs and the occasional sigh from somebody.
“That- that was a threat- right?” Ragatha looked over at Zooble and Gangle who had stopped crying but was still sniffling. “That- that had to be one, right?” Zooble nodded slowly.
“Yeah- I- I think it was.” They looked up at the ceiling and pressed their back into the couch. “I can’t think of anything else that could’ve been.” Jax had gotten up and was sitting on the couch before he pointed a finger at Echo.
“Why were you held back?” His glare was piercing, pure unfiltered, unbridled hatred. “Why weren’t you forced to go with us? Huh?” Echo didn’t respond, she couldn’t. “Well, then go tell us why? Don’t tell us too much now.”
“Jax.” Ragatha protested Jax’s mocking words with a tired glare, Echo could tell that her heart wasn’t in it though.
“No, he’s got a point.” Zooble was staring at Echo. “Why weren't you forced to go on the adventure?” Echo stared back, gesturing at where her mouth should be. “Wha-” Ragatha cut in, grabbing Echo’s shoulders a bit painfully.
“Wait-! Can you not talk?!” Echo stared into her horrified eye and slowly nodded. Ragatha let go of her and grabbed at her hair. “Oh my gosh.”
“So Caine made you unable to go on the adventure in exchange for your voice? What the f^(& kind of deal is that?” Echo glanced over at Zooble and shrugged.
“Okay so Caine is going insane, and we need to stop him right?” Jax’s pupils were constricted as he stared at the other circus members.
“How do you think we can do that though?” Zooble argued although there was no venom in their voice.
“I don’t know.” Ragatha grabbed at her arms and tucked in on herself. Echo worried about what the next few days would be like.