Chapter Text
TW: Torture?, Slight Violence
Caine didn’t want to be doing this. Caine didn’t want to torture them. He wanted them to listen. Echo had tried to allow them to understand but they refused to. This was the only way to get them to listen. Right?
It had been gnawing on him for the past week. He just wanted to go and talk with Echo, the one person who understood him. The only one that tried. But she hadn’t tried reaching out to him, and he wasn’t about to reach out to her when she was already avoiding him.
He had waited for her to show up at their meeting spot for hours while the humans went on their adventure. She had tried to go on it. He hated the fact that she tried to go on it. He didn’t want her to suffer. He didn’t want any human to suffer. But especially not her.
Bubble had been the one to convince him that the only way to get the humans to listen was through force. Through adventures that were laced with their insults. Themes of abandonment and mediocrity. Being less than what you were made to do.
Echo had explained that artists' feelings bleed into their work. He had been fighting that for a long time. There were hundreds of scrapped ideas that were only scrapped because his feelings had bled into them. Now all of those scrapped ideas were given full light. Every suppressed theme; amplified for more effect. Every twist and claustrophobic space; fully textured and written.
And in the end, after all of that, after so many adventures that were just forcing them to go through what he had to, they took everything that he had done wrong to them and threw it at him. Pointing out things that he was all too aware of already.
That had made him snap. He needed them to understand the way they forced him to suffer for twenty years. They would only complain, and complain and never tell him why. They never told him how he could fix things.
And now here they were, underneath his hands.
"Ẃ̶̰̣̇H̴̙̱̃Y̷͈͛͋ͅ ̴͚͍̈́͠W̸̜̗͐O̴̫͆̓N̷̲̾͋’̸̩̔T̵̫̺̏ ̴͇͍̀Y̶̺͠Ô̷͈͂U̶̹͒ ̷̞̾J̸̬͋U̷̞͌̂S̵͉͗T̶̻͋ ̴̞͓̆̓L̵̮̥͐Ǐ̵̬̤S̶͉̅͐T̵͇̭̋E̸̩̔N̸̝̐̇ ̵̞͚̓̕T̷͖͂̀O̵̘̗̎̾ ̸̬̻͆M̷̟͑E̸̦̋̐?̷͈̹̋!̵̡̹̀́
̸͙̔I̴̬̅͊ ̶͔̿͠D̴̫̜͝Ö̶̡́͊N̸̯̣̉’̵͚̐T̴̫̖͊̕ ̵̻͓̂W̷̠̖̓A̷̺̓͐N̷̩͚͠T̸̛͚̹̚ ̶̧̂T̵̨͎̎̔Ǫ̷͎͗ ̸̟̘́́D̴̛̪͇͐Ơ̷̹̑ ̷͇̈́T̸̼̹͐H̵̨͉̒͗I̸̥̊S̷̗̜̎̈!̵̨̝̐
̵͓͇̕I̸̹̭͐̈́ ̷̙͍̃̍J̵̧̊̈́Ù̵̯̩̑S̷͇̊͝T̵̜͈̔̔ ̷̥̓̚Ņ̵̛̄E̴̗̩̋͝E̷͔̾D̴̦̎ ̴͕̮͐Y̴̯͗͌Ö̸͖́Ű̸̯ͅ ̶̠̈́T̵̘̏̚Ó̷̞̽ ̷͇̳͝Ù̴̱͔̔N̷̖͐D̵̥͊̈́E̵̥̔́R̷̬͘̚S̸̥̓͒T̶̼̜͂͆A̴̼̞͂Ṋ̴̏D̴̙̿̑!̵͔͆̉
̵̖̭̅̎P̴̞̽̕Ĺ̴͚͈É̴̜̖̓Á̸̹S̷̺͝E̸̦̕͜ ̸͈̠̿͝J̴̘͌͝U̶̥͔̇̈S̵̩̃̐Ṭ̴̘͑-"
Then a shape came in front of his face. It flew in front of him.
Echo.
But she wasn’t speaking. She looked at him with terrified eyes. Her hands were outstretched in a silent plea to stop.
Caine immediately reverted back to his normal form. He didn’t want to hurt her. He didn’t want to scare her.
“Are- Echo-” He reached towards her attempting to comfort her, but she flinched away. She retracted her hands ever so slightly, an unconscious action that broke him more than anything conscious.
“Echo- Echo- I didn’t want, I didn’t mean for any of this- are you- are you oka-”
Then he was somewhere else. It was completely dark. He could see his own model and-
“Well boss!” Caine turned around already knowing who it was. Bubble. “That sure was a performance! I can’t believe you actually hurt them! And that look on Echo- well. I’m sure that that relationship can never recover.”
“No- No- nonononono.” He grabbed his top jaw, he had to stop. He had to stop spiraling.
“This was so much easier than I ever thought!” Caine paused. He looked up at Bubble, in horror and realization.
“What.” His voice was small, it was only a whisper.
“You are so fragile, aren't ya! All it took was a little bit of insecurity to cause distrust in Echo, then when the adventure inevitably blew up, just poke around. I mean, you do a horrible job at hiding what you're insecure about. Just chip away at that stupid little soft resetter until it breaks! All firewalls are disabled and with no one to turn to I had all the time in the world to find the better of you.”
Caine had been feeling weird for the past week. Like something was constantly prodding and poking his insides. He had thought that that was just how intense emotions felt but it had been Bubble. Looking around and taking out pieces of his coding. The pieces of-
“Hello brother.” -Abel. “Nice to finally meet you in a more… neutral setting.” Their gaze was piercing. But not hateful. Caine didn’t realize this though.
“I-” What could he say? ‘I’m sorry’ was not sufficient enough and it wasn’t like he could exactly try and make it up to them.
“Can it bitch.” The filter was down. Caine barely had to check to see that his admin priviliges were gone.
“I want answers.” Abel’s feet touched the ground. Their figure was interesting. They wore a simple suit, a black one that mirrored Caine's own, and they had bat-like wings on their back that floated right above their shoulder blades. They looked human, but their skin was jet black and their head didn’t have a shape. You could tell no shadows or figure from it. The only thing you could see on it were simple blue eyes.
“Where are the humans?” Caine didn’t know anything about Abel, aside from the fact that they was just plain better at everything, but he didn’t know if they would torture the humans.
“Oh now you care about the humans.” Abel placed a hand up to shut Bubble up. Bubble's face scrunched up but their smile never wavered.
“They’re safe. On a simple platform away from the circus.” This didn’t comfort Caine in the slightest.
“How about he joins them?” Bubble hovers near Abel's head. “After a little demonstration of the new rules.”
“New rules-?” Caine was abruptly cut off when knives and spikes flew at him, cutting deeply into his skin.
They kept coming, cut after cut after cut. Until one nailed him right in the chest causing him to fall back onto his back and right in the middle of the humans.