Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The members of the circus were just trying to sleep until Caine teleported them all to the main area.

Pomni immediately covered her eyes from the contrast between the darkness of her bedroom and the vibrant lobby lights.

"Caine, what the {BAZOINK} do you want at 7am?"

Zooble said, obviously annoyed.

"Ah, good morning to you too, mix and match! I just wanted to get a bit of a head start on today's adventure. Is that so bad?"

Caine said, feigning innocence.

"It is when I could be getting my beauty rest~."

Jax responded sassily... and zestily.

"That won't do much, twink."

Zooble responded bluntly, like always.

"Are you always this grumpy when you're sleep deprived?"

Jax asked mockingly, clearly trying to get on their nerves.

"ALRIGHT, my meowing milkmaids, what use is fighting when there's an adventure to be had?"

Caine interrupted, quite obviously not caring about the "very important" conversation he just stopped.

"How many times have I said not to {BAZOINKING} call us that?"

Jax said, clearly not liking the pet name.

"Calm down, guys, it'll be fine. What's the adventure?"

Ragatha asked curiously and also cautiously because Caine can be a real {BAZOINK} sometimes.

"Today's adventure isss—"

Caine paused to build suspense.

"You will have to go to a shutdown education center and museum and go with all the people there to do tasks."

Caine said, keeping the information to a minimum.

"I'm not doing that."

Zooble quickly stated, not caring about the stupid adventure at all.

"Wellllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll... You don't have a choice. Bye!"

Caine said and pushed them all into the portal.

Zooble looked irritated that they have to go on this dumb adventure against their will. So there they spawned... At Gardenview... Yay, I guess...

Chapter Text

All the circus members looked around, confused.

This... didn't seem like one of the worlds and NPC'S Caine made.

It felt oddly..

alive?

The toons were doing their own things and interacting with eachother, a task seemingly simple but in Caine's normal adventures they didn't really do anything with eachother often and normally only interact with the cirrcus crew.

Zooble felt surprised too.

One of the main reasons they stopped going to the pointless adventures were beacuse they are repetitive and boring.

Lifeless even.

But this one was different...

Zoobles thoughts and the others confusion was interrupted by a short flower coming up to them, Snapping them out of their thoughts.

"Hello! My name is Dandy! Are you a set of new toons?"

The short ass flower perked up and asked.

"Yeesh your short."

Jax says mockingly, not really caring about 'Dandy's' feelings.

"Rude," Dandy huffed.

"Anyway I take it that you're a new set of toons. Let me give you a tour of gardenview!"

"But we are not new-- WAIT WAIT" Ragitha screamed as Dandy dragged the group by the arms.

"Goddamn, you're strong for a shortie."

Chapter Text

The crew was being dragged down yet another corridor by Dandy, who seemed far too energetic for a humanized flower.

“These are the Toon Rooms!” Dandy announced, pulling the group along with unrelenting enthusiasm.

“Don’t worry! You’ll each get your own room soon enough!”

Zooble followed with their usual scowl, arms crossed. Pomni looked dazed, Jax trailed behind, clearly already scheming some repetitive prank he’d probably used ten times before. Gangle’s comedy mask clattered to the floor and shattered, scattering porcelain fragments across the hallway. And Kinger? Kinger was fascinated by a fly, eyes tracking it with deep, borderline spiritual curiosity.

Alright!” Dandy spun around, arms wide. “Every toon needs a name! So, what are yours?”

“…What’s a toon?” Gangle sniffled, kneeling beside the pieces of her broken mask that Bubble was slowly consuming.

Dandy paused mid-spin. His cheerful tone shifted—just a bit.

“Well, a toon is one of our dear resi—wait… wait a second.” His eyes narrowed. “This place is Toon-entry only and if you don’t even know what a toon is… then that means—”

He gasped.

“YOU’RE NOT TOONS! WHAT ARE YOU THEN?!”

“Been askin’ myself that my whole life,” Jax said dryly, smirking.

Dandy froze, stunned silent, petals trembling. Clearly, this flower had never spoken to anything that wasn’t 100% Toon-certified™.

“Do you know Caine?” Zooble cut in, arms still crossed.

“Whomst in the fuck?”

A beat passed. Everyone blinked.

Jax’s eyebrows shot up.

“Wait. You can swear? And it doesn’t get censored? No fair! I wanna swear too…”
“Ignore him,” Zooble deadpanned. “Caine’s our… handler, I guess. The ringleader of the world we came from. He forces us into these adventures to ‘keep us sane.’ Today’s chaos just happened to end here.”

Dandy looked like a flower mid-wilt. His voice dropped to a soft mutter.

“Oh… wow.”

“Anyway, we’re stuck here for the next… four-ish hours,” Zooble said, rubbing their temples.

“Well! That’s plenty of time for an ichor run!” Dandy chirped, immediately rebounding with a spin.

“What...” Pomni muttered, trying to avoid another existential crisis. Poor girl, she only arrived here a little while ago and already went though so much chaos.

Dandy sprinted off down the hall, beckoning the others to follow. Reluctantly, they did.

When they stopped running they were in a hallway with two stalls on each side, A strange clock-like toon stood behind one stall. His face had seven hour marks on his face, each one a different color of the rainbow. As the group arrived, he turned his head to follow a passing train… then calmly turned back.

“This is The Hallway!” Dandy proclaimed proudly, leaping onto a stool behind his stall. “And this is my store! You can buy toon licenses, fun trinkets, or just hear juicy gossip from yours truly, the best teller in Gardenview!”

“That sounds fun!” Ragatha said, trying to stay upbeat. “What’s the currency here?”

“Ichor for this shop. But tapes for my elevator shop!” Dandy replied with a wink.

"Elevator shop..?" Gangle muttered shyly, just as confuzzled as Pomni. By now Bubble has fully consumed her comedy mask.

“Find tapes lying around, open research capsules, or extract ichor from machines scattered across the map!” Dandy explained, counting each method off with a petal-finger.

“Alright. Noted.” Zooble sighed.

“Across from me is Dyle’s shop. He sells stickers, skins, and also dabbles in gossip.”

“...Stickers!?” Kinger lit up like a Christmas tree.

“Yes,” Dandy said, smiling with genuine amusement.

Kinger glanced toward Dyle’s shop, momentarily distracted from the bee he’d been observing moments earlier.

“Anywho!” Dandy clapped his hands together. “Let’s get you introduced to the other toons!”

The group collectively groaned, but followed anyway.