Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Ragatha grabbed a final piece of bacon before following Zooble over to the couch to wait for their “adventure” to begin for the day. She’d grown used to the strange cycle years ago, so she patiently waited while talking with Kinger.

After a few minutes Caine descended from wherever he spent his free time, loudly declaring “HELLO MY HOPPY HOTDOGS! TIME FOR TODAYS ADVENTURE! I HAVE CREATED A WESTERN BASED STORY WHERE YOU WILL PROTECT A- WHY ARE THERE ONLY FOUR OF YOU PRESENT?!”

Ragatha glanced around, realizing that only herself, Kinger, Zooble, and Gangle were present. Before she could even question where Jax and Pomni were, Caine shouted “ILL JUST TELEPORT THEM OVER” and with a snap of his fingers, they appeared on the empty couch.

They were completely cuddled up next to each other, fast asleep. Pomni had both arms wrapped around Jax, while he leaned his back into her.

The entire cast went silent at the sight, beyond confused as to why the sociopathic Jax was cuddling up with someone.

Zooble looked up at Caine, asking “did you do this?”

Caine frantically responds “I DIDNT TELEPORT POMNI YET, ONLY JAX. THE ONLY REASON THEY’D TELEPORT TOGETHER WOULD BE IF THEY WERE ALREADY ON TOP OF EACH OTHER.”

Ragatha gently nudged Jax’s foot, which caused him to sleepily grumble

“F-five more minutes Pomni. I don’t wanna let go yet.”

This raises even more confusion. Zooble let out a small snicker, while Gangle begins to doodle the sight before them. Kinger suddenly shoots up, having just realized that Pomni and Jax were missing, before also realizing that they were in front of him.

Pomni slowly opened one eye, lazily looking around, where she quickly realized the situation they were in.

“Uh, Jax?”

Jax grumbled in annoyance.

“We’re in the living room.”

Jax’s eyes shot open, where he physically yelled, and launched himself away from Pomni.

He quickly got back up, looking around, before angrily pointing a finger at Caine. “YOU! You set us up or something! You did this!” Caine denied this, which caused Jax to switch denial tactics.

“Ok guys, listen, so basically… me and pomni were actually fighting earlier because she was being stupid. During our scuffle we must have knocked each other out. I was winning easily, but she must had gotten some luckily hit in.”

His smug smile returned, before Zooble mockingly repeated,

“oh please, five more minutes Pomni, I just can’t BARE to let you go.”

Jax gave her a death glare, unable to come up with a comeback, so he turned to Caine and begged him to start the adventure.

“OK, IF YOU INSIST” and a portal opened, sucking in the cast.

-

They landed in a dusty western ghost town, directly in front of a bank. A bank teller NPC came out, thanking them for coming to protect the vault.

Jax got right to work, kicking sand into Ragatha’s eyes, before wandering off to who knows where.

The rest of them head into the bank, where the NPC tells them that robbers will come at sunset, so they have time to prepare.

Ragatha decided to spend the free time questioning Pomni. “So, Pomni! I noticed you and Jax were… very close! How did that happen?” Pomni looked over to her, before sheepishly beginning to recap the previous nights events…

-

The day’s adventure had been brutal and long, so afterwards Pomni immediately went to her room to take a nap.

A few hours later she groggily woke up, realizing that she might have missed dinner. She ran to the dining room, only to find zero food. She sighed disappointedly, and turned around directly into Jax.

“Hey shortstack, why the sour face?” He asked with his usual smug grin.

“I missed dinner. I mean, we don’t even like, need to eat, but it’s still nice too.”

Jax surprisingly didn’t make some rude comment, he looked conflicted, before he quietly told her to follow him.

She decided to, curious as to what he was doing. He led the pair to his door, and he told her to wait here as he entered his room.

She waited outside the door for around a minute, before he burst out with a large bundle, containing a bunch of random food.

“Let’s eat, but I’m not letting you in my room, and I’m not eating anywhere others can see me.”

Pomni reluctantly decided to let Jax come into her room to eat. It was right across the hall from Jax’s, so they didn’t have to travel far.

Pomni’s room is a colorful mess, each wall yellow with red and blue stripes running down them. She has a bed (also red and blue) and one nightstand. Littered around her room are random letter blocks. Jax quickly grabs a few blocks to spell out obscenities, before laying the bundle down on her bed, and they begin to share the small feast together.

Pomni notices among the food is a bottle of alcohol.

“Where did you even get that?”

Jax smirks. “Well, if you must know nosy, I snuck it out of that bar where our budding friendship began.”

Pomni still had no idea how Jax snuck out so much stuff from their adventures. The best she’d been able to get was a piece of seaweed. She wondered how long this food had been sitting in his room.

“So, um, I’m grateful for all this f-food, but is it, like still good?”

Jax laughed. “It’s complete and utterly ROTTED!”

“Nah just kidding. Caine doesn’t know that food does that, and nobody is keen on telling him.”

Relief flooded through her as she realized she hadn’t devoured spoiled food, so she continued to eat. She found a delicious looking cupcake, but Caine tended to struggle with any food that needed to be cooked or baked, as he didn’t quite understand how to summon that. She was surprised when she took a bite into it, and it was actually really good.

“T-This is a really good cupcake!”

Jax looked at her with suspicious eyes, before taking the cupcake out of her hand and throwing it into the wall.

“Don’t lie to… Caine.. like that, it probably tastes like s[BEEP].”

Pomni was confused by Jax’s defensiveness over some random cupcake, but he was always kinda weird so she didn’t think twice.

“Whatever, you’re cleaning that off my wall.”

Jax laughed, before retorting “yeah sure, I’ll clean it the day your hair doesn’t look like a birds nest.”

This jab hit particularly close to home for her, as she had been struggling to keep her hair tidy with the stupid jester hat that was superglued to it. She felt herself blush out of embarrassment, praying that he wouldn’t notice.

They continued to talk and eat, and pretty soon about half the bottle was gone. Pomni felt fine for the most part, but Jax seemed absolutely wasted. His ears lazily drooped, his smile was giggly, and his square pupils were extra large.

“You feeling alright Jax?”

“Alright? I’m feeling GREATTTT. Better than great!! I’m feeling, uh, spectac-ular! Yeah, I’m feeling spectacular” Jax shouted.

Pomni noticed how quickly the drink affected him back during the “lightning round” but didn’t quite realize how much of a lightweight he was.

She wondered how honest he’d actually be right now, because usually he refused to answer any real questions.

“So Jax, why do you hate Gangle?”

Jax looked at her with confusion. “Hate Gangle? I don’t hate gangle, I think she’s just fine! She just, really, really, really easy to pick on, not my fault she lacks a backbone. Or any bones.”

he continued on his tangent. “I don’t really hate anything or anyone, except corn and kinda Ragatha. I really don’t like her. Or corn. I HATE corn. I also don’t hate, your hair. I think it looks prettttty.”

The comment made Pomni slightly blush, and although she would never admit it, it made her feel a lot happier.

Realizing that Jax was actually being truthful for once, Pomni decided that this would be as good a chance as any to ask about what ragatha meant when she said Jax didn’t have any friend “anymore”. She had already asked Ragatha multiple times, but she always blew it off.

“So Jax, um, do you wanna talk about that thing that ragatha mentioned? The thing about friends?”

Jax’s silly demeanor quickly changed, his smile disappearing. “You meannn, Ribbit?”

Tears began welling in his eyes, before he simply fell back onto the bed, curling into a ball.

She didn’t know what to do, she didn’t wanna leave him, but he also wasn’t the kind of person to ever ask for help. Before she could decide, he looked up at her with glossy eyes and asked,

“Can.. I stay with you tonight? I don’t wnanna be alone.”

Pomni looked at the once psychopathic and narcissistic Jax, now teary eyed and begging for comfort.

“O-Of course you can.”

Pomni decided to let him have the bed, and was planning on simply sleeping on the floor before Jax quietly whispered-

“Can you, hold me?”

Pomni genuinely had no clue how to react to this. She didn’t particularly like to be touched, but the pain and sadness in Jax’s plea was enough to make her begrudgingly agree to.

She climbed back into the bed, and wrapped her arms around his torso, with his back facing her. She pulled him in close, tucking her chin over his head. Pomni never realized how soft his thin layer of fur was, and gently pet it, trying to provide any comfort.

She felt him snuggle into her awkward embrace, quickly falling asleep.

At some point, she also fell asleep, before waking up hours later in the middle of the living room.

-

“So Jax, THE Jax, not only went OUT of his way to be KIND, but used his OWN stuff to help you with ZERO alternative motives?”

Pomni nodded, saying how she was just as confused. But she was also interested in this other side of Jax.

“I saw a glimpse behind Jax’s mask, seeing the person he really is. And I think that’s a person I wanna meet.”

Ragatha looked uneasy, but decided to be supportive for her friend.

Their Wild West adventure ended early when Jax (who had somehow made/found dynamite) blew a hole in the wall, destroying the vault. This caused the Bank teller NPC to completely collapse, before Caine just decided to call off the story early.

As they returned the to circus, Jax pulled Pomni aside.

“Just so we’re both on the same page, last night meant NOTHING. I was just drunk and tired and not feeling right. So don’t go getting any funny ideas about it. You don’t matter to me. And you’re short”

Pomni was hurt by his words, but could tell from the way his grin looked unnaturally stretched that he wasn’t being completely honest, so she decided to not press him any further today.

She wasn’t giving up though, she was determined to figure out why Jax is the way he is.

She couldn’t help herself from getting in one last comment though. “If you ever wanna cuddle again, just let me know!”

He didn’t turn around, but she saw his ears twitch.

Chapter Text

Ragatha grabbed her first piece of bacon for the day, as Caine had just summoned their breakfast.

Caine’s food was extremely hit or miss, but he tended to make fairly accurate breakfast foods like eggs, bacon, toast, and pancakes.

Almost all the cast members came down to eat, using the time to bond with one another.

Everyone except Jax.

He usually just grabbed whatever fruit was in the center bowl and headed outside from the front of the circus. Nobody really complained about this, as they knew that if Jax did choose to eat with them, he’d find some way to ruin their appetite. But today Pomni decided a good way to start connecting with Jax would be to eat breakfast with him.

She said a goodbye to Ragatha (much to her dismay) and the rest of the cast, before stacking a couple blueberry pancakes on a plate and walking out the same exit as Jax.

She rarely left the infinitely large tent, and had only seen the yard once. It was about 400 feet of grass in every direction before abruptly ending. There was a mountain range directly behind the tent, some trees to each side, and a large lake to the tents Northwest. That where she saw Jax sitting by the water, leaning against a white fence that ran along half of the lake.

He was seemingly completely in his own world, not showing any signs that he noticed her. She walked up, and muttered a small “hi.”

He jumped up 10 feet in the air, before landing right back where he sat.

“Geez Pom, trying to give my digital heart a heart attack? What are you doing out here??”

“I wanted to eat with you.”

He looked annoyed, but didn’t stop her as she sat next to him, laying the pancake platter between them.

They didn’t say anything, a somewhat awkward silence growing between them. Pomni decided to break it by offering him a pancake.

He didn’t make eye contact, but he took it, rolled it up like a newspaper, and ate it like a carrot.

Pomni noticed his gaze following the newly risen sun just above the lakes horizon.

“It’s kinda pretty. I mean it looks kinda off, but it’s still pretty.”

Jax finally spoke.

“you just missed the actual sun rise. You could, come again tomorrow if you wanted to see it.”

Pomni was slightly taken back by his offer, he seemed pretty annoyed with her here in the first place, but she decided to just roll with it.

“I’d love that. I’ll bring chocolate pancakes next time.”

Jax took the now empty plate and frisbeed it into the lake. The ripples looked a bit off, more jagged than they should have been.

-

They eventually headed back into the tent for Caine’s new adventure. Pomni didn’t really listen to his speech, and mindlessly walked through the portal.

After being teleported to whatever Caine had cooked up, she immediately felt weird after entering. She felt, air-y? She glanced around the new environment, looking at the pristine white walls and the confusing tech lining it. That’s when she looked out the small circle window and saw what looked like a planet outside.

they were in a spaceship.

Or a space station, or some kinda space thingy.

She jumped, and went flying weightlessly into the roof. She pushed off of it to send herself back down to the ground. She looked around at the others; Gangles ribbons were free floating, Ragatha’s hair was unnaturally flowing around her, and Kinger was exactly the same (Zooble had skipped). Then she glanced over at Jax.

He had picked up a massive box with zero difficulty, passing the giant crate between his hands. He reeled back and chucked the gravity-less box at Gangle, where it struck her, breaking her happy mask into two floating pieces.

He laughed at this before running off into the station to cause presumably more damage.

The rest of the gang agreed to split up, and Pomni decided to go with Ragatha.

They passed by a space restaurant thing, and Pomni excitedly saw they were serving burgers.

She had been dying to get one since she entered the circus, yet they hadn’t encountered any on their adventures. She had no clue why a normal burger shop was in space, but she didn’t care. She quickly grabbed one and took a bite into it.

She was disappointed.

Caine really struggled to get foods containing more than one ingredient right, because he summoned it all at once.

It looked like a completely normal burger, with bread, meat, cheese, lettuce, and tomato, but every part of it had the texture of bread, taste of cheese, and consistency of beef.

She threw the ‘burger’ into a trash can.

After the disappointing meal, Ragatha looked over and asked,

“Why do you even bother trying to connect to Jax? No offense, but he’s not a good person, he’s gonna try and hurt you.”

Pomni thought about that night, how vulnerable and scared Jax had been, how lonely.

“I.. I know he’s hurting just like the rest of us, in his own weird Jax-y way, and I wanna help him, like you’ve helped me. Nobody should be alone in here.”

Ragatha sighed, before saying “If that’s what you really want, I’ll support you.”

Pomni took the opportunity to re ask about Jax’s former friend.

“If you really wanna support me, you gotta tell me about Jax’s friend, ribbit was it? I can’t help him if I d-don’t know why he’s hurting.”

Ragatha looked conflicted, before she finally folded.

“Fine, if you have to know, Ribbit was Jax’s first friend. They were basically inseparable, spending all of their time together. Something happened between them one day, and then ribbit abstracted that same day. Jax wouldn’t tell anyone what happened, but he became a lot meaner. Not to say he was very nice before, but he became far more malicious and cruel with his pranks”

Pomni viewed Jax in a new light now, knowing that he had lost someone dear to him.

“Thank you, I-I think that’ll help. Welp, I think I’m gonna go try and find him, if you’re ok being solo?”

Ragatha nodded, so Pomni decided to venture out to find Jax.

Pomni ran down the endless hallway, noting that she had forgot to ask Ragatha was the objective of the adventure was.

She eventually found him looking at two NPCs he had somehow trapped in the air lock.

He noticed her, and proudly invited her over to see. He was acting like a small child who was showing his teacher some dumb drawing, but Pomni couldn’t help but notice how genuine his smile looked for a moment, so she decided to humor him.

She walked over to an adjacent wall and pulled down on a lever, which caused the airlock to pop open and send the two NPCs out flying.

Jax absolutely lost it at this, falling over laughing.

“I-I didn’t know you had it in you Pom! That was f[BEEP]ing hilarious!!!”

Pomni couldn’t help but smile at his infectious joy.

She also noticed how he called her “Pom”. She realized this was a good chance to try and sway Jax to do something less violent.

“Well I did something you liked, how about you do something nice for me?”

Jax looked at her annoyed for a moment, before begrudgingly motioning for her to follow him to another room.

She nervously walked behind him, praying it wasn’t some other airlock or other torture device. She found herself even more shocked after walking in.

The rooms right wall was mainly glass, and showed off a beautiful starry sky. It looked like a black canvas that somebody had sprayed with thousands of colored dots of various sizes. She also noticed several planets and beautiful swirls.

Jax sheepishly began describing some of the stuff in the sky.

“those are different kinds of stars, like blue giants and white dwarfs. All thise yellow and orange ones are main sequence stars. Those colorful smudges are nebulas. Nebulas are basically a bunch of space dust where stars are made. When I.. I mean somebody before my time was here, he must have described how space worked to Caine. Caine seemingly didn’t understand that all stars appear white from a distance, which explains why you can actually see the different kinds of stars”

He seemed far more confident now, proudly pointing at three particular space splot things, ”those are the pillars of creation, a famous nebula found with the Hubble telescope. Well maybe not found, but first seen with it.”

Jax opened his mouth to continue, but suddenly stopped. Pomni hadn’t even realized she’d been staring at him, enjoying listening to him rattle on about something.

He suddenly turned his back and walked away, muttering something about being bored.

She was confused by his instant mood switch, but decided not to push further and just regroup with the others. She headed out the walkway she had came, re-entering into the airlock room.

That’s when she saw it.

In the corner of the room was a tall, slender humanoid. It had pale grey skin and a big head, looking like possibly the most generic alien ever created.

But it didn’t seem generic to her.

It seemed terrifying.

Before she could even react it lunged at her, pinning her to the wall. She desperately reached around, feeling around for anything.

She was cursing herself for ignoring Caine’s explanation when she felt something on the wall, so she pulled, hoping it would come off and she could smack the alien with it.

Instead it opened the airlock, which was now only held back by the main airlock door. The creature continued to try and strangle her, before it chucked her at the airlock door. She hit it hard, and the knob on the door shifted slightly.

She suddenly got an idea. she grabbed tightly onto a random wall pole before completely pulling down the knob on the airlock door. Suddenly everything rushed out of the room into the vacuum, pulling the lanky alien creature out with it.

She cheered at her triumph before realizing that she was being pulled in herself.

Her grip on the wall pole was slipping, and she really really didn’t wanna die for the first time.

She looked around desperately, looking for anything that could help her, but her hand lost its grip, and she went rushing out of the airlock.

She screamed before she felt a strong pressure… around her hand.

She looked up and saw Jax.

He pulled with all his might, one hand around hers and the other around the same wall pole, but he wasn’t strong enough to counter the strong pull of the vacuum.

Pretty soon they’d both be pulled through she frantically thought.

Suddenly the airlock itself was shut.

They both looked up in confusion to see kinger had come over and flipped the switch on the adjacent wall.

“Wonder what that does.” he said before walking away.

They were both breathing heavy from the near death experience, before it finally dawned on her.

Jax had tried to save her.

Jax HAD saved her.

She looked over to thank him, but he had already ran down the hallway.

-

The main goal of the adventure was to kill the alien thing she had launched into space, so pretty soon afterwards the portal opened, and they all ran through.

Once they were all through, Pomni went right up to Jax and said,

“Thank you for saving me.”

He gave her a cold stare and said,

“It. Meant. Nothing.”

He simply turned away and walked off again, and this time Pomni decided to fully leave it. She had bonded with him today, and learned more about his friend ribbit. She also learned he loved space.

That was progress.

Chapter Text

Pomni grabbed the first piece of bacon from the table, popping it into her mouth as she stacked multiple chocolate pancakes onto a plate.

She didn’t know how early she should be by the lake, but she didn’t wanna risk missing the sunrise Jax had actually invited her to see.

She wasn’t even sure if he’d show up after yesterday. He had opened up about his love of space, and had saved her from dying, but he also completely blew her off after the adventure. She didn’t know if he was mad at her, or if he was just being a prick.

Either way, she walked out of the circus entrance, heading towards the fence next to the lake.

Jax wasn’t here yet (she hoped he’d show up at all) so in the meantime she took some time to look at the dark night sky.

Compared to their space mission this sky was far more basic, only being a dark blue canvas with glowing cartoony stars. This sky had a crescent moon with a face.

Pomni wondered if it was alive, but before she could go down that rabbit hole she heard footsteps behind her.

Jax walked to the side of her before sitting down, immediately grabbing a pancake off the plate.

She was shocked and grateful he’d actually shown up, but he didn’t say anything. Yet again a silence fell over them, although this time it was a lot less awkward.

To break the ice, Pomni decided to ask Jax about the sun, remembering his joyful info dump about space.

“So… know any fun facts about the sun?”

Jax looked away, before turning back with his trademark smile, saying “I know one fun fact, that you should stare directly into it. It’s very good for your eyes!”

Jax punched her in the arm casually, which caused Pomni to flinch back from the contact.

She’d been willing to make the occasional exception for her dislike of physical contact, but she wasn’t really feeling like it this morning.

She noticed Jax was staring at her with a knowing look. Before she could react, he put his entire hand directly on her face.

She jumped back and he laughed.

“What’s wrong pompom? You got cooties or something? Or can you not handle being in my glorious presence?”

She tried to come up with kind of witty comeback, but her thoughts were interrupted by the sky shifting.

The sky changed in an instant, the stars fading and the dark blue background shifted to a deep orange. The crescent moon began quickly descending behind the mountains behind the circus. The sun slowly began rising, peeking above the waterfront. Although she knew it wasn’t real, something about the moment was so genuine. The sun rise itself looked really realistic by Caine standards, and she suddenly understood why Jax came out here every morning.

Well he probably did that to avoid all the others, but the sun was a nice bonus.

-

After enjoying their breakfast together, the duo headed back inside to wait for whatever torture awaited them.

Jax had offered to take the plate back in for Pomni, which she thought was a kind gesture, but as soon as they met up with the others he threw the plate like Captain America’s shield directly at Gangle’s comedy mask, shattering it before the adventure even began.

Before she could scold him Caine appeared in a pop of confetti.

“HELLO MY RIVETING RINGWORMS! I HAVE A NEW ADVENTURE TODAY! ITS A TRIAL RUN OF A CONCEPT IVE BEEN WORKING ON. MUSICALS!!”

Jax spat out the orange juice he had been drinking when he heard musical. Pomni didn’t even have time to question it before Caine continued-

“IVE DECIDED TO USE A FAMOUS MUSICAL SCENE TO TEST OUT THIS IDEA! BUBBLE SAID THIS SHOULD BE CONSIDERED A “parody” LEGALLY SO I WONT GET IN TROUBLE!”

Caine seemed ecstatic with his new idea, but Pomni was not. She didn’t hate musicals, but she didn’t particularly love them either. She also had never been all that great of a singer in the real world, further adding to her distaste.

Ragatha seemed pretty happy, she had already shown off her wonderful singing voice before. Gangle seemed optimistic, Kinger was muttering about the legality of this, and Zooble had already walked off. Jax was uncharacteristically quiet.

Caine snapped his finger and the portal opened, and the cast walked through with ranging level of enthusiasm.

-

The first thing Pomni noticed was the feeling of different clothes on herself. She looked down and saw that she was wearing black leather pants and a jacket, with a black shirt on underneath.

She was standing in some kind of fair, with ferris wheels and funhouses on every side. There were food stands and carnival games, and lots of mannequins walking around.

Pomni turned around and saw ragatha and Gangle standing behind her in pretty old fashioned dresses.

The whole thing seemed super familiar, but Pomni couldn’t quite place her finger on it. She looked over at Ragatha and asked,

“Uh, where are we?”

Ragatha smiled and proudly said “We’re in the finale of the musical movie Grease!”

A giant title appeared in the sky above them, labeling this adventure as “OIL”.

“So, w-what do we do now?”

Ragatha thought for a moment, looking at Pomni’s outfit, before she pieced it together and began explaining.

“Ok Pomni, so it looks like you’re supposed to be Sandy! At the end of Grea- I mean, ‘oil’, Sandy decides to go all punk rock like so she can be with Danny. They meet up at the fair and then they fall in love and then fly away into the sky! So I guess we’re supposed to go find “Danny” or whoever is representing him.”

Pomni groans in annoyance at her situation, wishing Ragatha could have been Sandy instead of herself. They begin to walk through the fair, looking for her “Danny”.

They pass by a funnel cake stand before Pomni notices a pair of purple bunny ears sticking up higher than the rest of the crowd.

As they get closer Pomni can fully see Jax. He’s now wearing a varsity sweater, and a black shirt similar to hers.

Her “Danny”.

Next to him stands Kinger and Zooble in matching leather jackets.

Jax looks like he wants to die inside. So does Pomni. She sheepishly walks over to him. As they get closer, music begins to play in the background, signaling the beginning of a song.

Pomni stands in front of Jax while she waits for lyrics or something to appear, but nothing does. The background music begins to loop, presumably waiting for them to start singing.

After realizing that no lyrics are coming, Pomni looks back at Ragatha and asks,

“Do you know what we’re supposed to be singing?”

Ragatha looks at her with a regretful frown.

“It goes like… um… maybe like… I-I don’t know.”

A quick round of shoulder shrugs confirms that nobody knows the lyrics that they’re supposed to be singing.

Pomni wonders how long they’ll be stuck there. What if Caine won’t let them leave until the songs complete? What if they’re stuck with the same stupid 3 seconds of a song looping in the background? What if she can never go back to her room? Pomni begins to spiral, realizing that they’re genuinely screwed.

Jax lets out a LONG sigh before he quietly sings,

“I got chills, they’re multiplying”

Pomni can’t even think before he continues,

“And I’m looooosing control!

Cause the power you’re supplying,

It’s electrifying!”

Everyone is staring at him with extreme confusion. Not only did Jax somehow know the lyrics to some random musical, but he also had an impressively good singing voice.

The music was once again looping, waiting for Pomni to sing her part.

Jax looked at her as he whispered under his hand,

“You better shape up, cause I need a man, and my heart is set on you.”

She awkwardly repeated the lyrics as well as she could, surprising even herself with relatively decent singing.

Jax continued to sing his lyrics while whispering Pomni hers, and she couldn’t help but actually have fun. Jax was blushing, still looking like he wanted to die. They danced into a funhouse, and she found herself holding hands with him as they moved through it.

They danced into a “Shake Shack”, where he grabbed her hands and put them on his shoulders, and he put his hands on her waist. Now she felt her own face turning red. Not out of embarrassment, but some other feeling in her chest…

Suddenly, everything froze. The music, the “shake shack”, and all the rides and mannequins stopped dead in their tracks, like they’d been paused in time.

Jax immediately took his hands off her, jumping out of the now motionless shack. The rest of the cast walked up, just as confused to the sudden freeze.

There was a pop of grey toned confetti and Caine appeared, with a glum look on his face.

“WELL IT APPEARS THAT USING A “copyrighted” SONG WITH NO CHANGES DOESN’T FALL UNDER PARODY.“

Bubble appeared next to Caine, with what looked to be a lawsuit paper stuck to his tongue.

“WELP, SORRY TO CUT THIS ADVENTURE SHORT, BUT IT APPEARS IM NEEDED IN THE COURTROOM.”

With a snap of his fingers, the whole cast was whisked into a portal back to the circus.

-

Jax had immediately bolted away, covering his incredibly red face out of shame. The rest of the cast praised Pomni on her singing, bringing a genuine smile to her face. Considering Caine was missing due to his “lawsuit” the circus members could do literally whatever they wanted to for the day.

Pomni spent the rest of it playing cards and pool with the others. Ragatha made some muffins in the kitchen (which Pomni was just learning existed) to celebrate the fun day. They tasted incredible. Even Zooble came out of their room to indulge in the day’s festivities.

Nobody saw Jax the rest of the day.

-

Pomni now laid in her bed, feeling like a million bucks after the incredible day. Despite all the good things that happened, the thing her mind kept going back to was Jax’s hands on her waist.

His touch felt so gentle, so, real. She found herself uncharacteristically disappointed that the adventure was cut off early.

After tossing and turning for a bit, she finally made a decision on a thought that was running through her mind. She got up out of her bed, walked out her door, and knocked on the one across from hers.

Jax’s door.

She had no idea if he’d actually open it, she didn’t even know if he was in there, but after a few seconds the door slightly opened.

Jax popped his head out, and Pomni noticed his shoulders were, bare?

Deciding to ignore that, Pomni looked up at him with her big pinwheel eyes and confidently asked,

“Will you dance with me?”

Jax’s eyes went wide, his cheeks turning a slightly darker shade, before he quickly slammed the door.

She sighed, and began walking back to her door. Before she could turn her knob, she heard Jax’s door creaking open.

He stepped out, wearing a white tee-shirt and grey sweatpants, and then walked over to her door, motioning for her to open it.

She did, and they both entered, before he sheepishly muttered,

“We can dance in here, I don’t want any of the others knowing. What kind of dancing do you even wanna do?”

She pretended to think about it for a moment, before saying,

“slow dance.”

She noticed Jax turning an even deeper shade before putting his hand out. She took it, putting her other hand on his shoulder, and he put his other hand on her waist.

It felt good.

He had to slightly bend down on his knees to be at her height. “I thought you didn’t like being touched?” Jax questioned.

Pomni simply shrugged her shoulders, before saying “you touch softly.”

She noticed he was now completely red. They slowly began waltzing around the room, going in a small circle.

Once they were in the rhythm of the dance, she sputtered out “How did you change clothes?? I thought we couldn’t do that? I can’t, and neither can Ragatha. How did you take off your overalls and put on those??”

He laughed, his face turning slightly less red as he responded, “that’s my little secret, and I ain’t telling nobody.“

Pomni glared at him, realizing he wasn’t gonna tell, so she decided to just enjoy the moment.

Eventually her other hand ended up on his shoulder, with both of his hands now on her waist. She looked up at him and asked,

“Why did you hide this? The fact that you could dance and sing. You’re really g-good at it.”

Jax smiled at the compliment, before it disappeared as he began explaining why he hid this.

“No getting out of this one I guess. Well, being able to dance and sing isn’t exactly a “pinnacle of masculinity”, or at least that’s what my father thought. Same thing with my brothers. And my classmates. It uh, wasn’t exactly a sought after skill to have.”

Jax looked down, not wanting to look her in the eyes.

“Well how else are you supposed to dance with all the women you meet? Obviously your dad didn’t understand that us women love a good dancer.”

Pomni half lied, not really knowing if that was true, but it felt true to her.

It was enough for Jax, as his smile grew.

“Uh yeah! The women used to swoon over me back before I ended up here. I was actually 6’5 and had a 6 pack, must not have translated over digitally.”

Now that he was in a better mood, Pomni decided to ask,

“So how did you know the lyrics to the song from Grease? You knew them, like all right off the top of your head.”

Jax was apparently in a great mood, because he answered a second question with a real answer.

“I watched it with my grandma. A bunch of times. I guess it just stuck.”

Jax added one more comment, “Oh, by the way, you have a pretty good singing voice yourself pompom. Wasn’t nearly as squeaky as you would figure.”

Pomni laughed, which made him smile even more. He playfully laughed along, as he began to do faster movements. He spun her around, before leaning her into a dip.

Their faces were inches apart.

Pomni couldn’t help but look at his lips, before staring at his big yellow eyes. His black pupils were giant, almost taking up his entire eye. He was turning the brightness shade of red yet. She didn’t know what to do.

But she knew what she wanted to do.

Before she could act on the feeling, he dropped her, stuttering out a “gotta go past my bedtime” as he ran out her door into his own room.

She sat up from the floor, face still red.

Woah.

Chapter Text

(5 DAYS AGO)

Jax has a lot of thoughts constantly running through his mind, but one was clear.

He liked being around Pomni.

Before the Lightning Round adventure, he’d never really found himself thinking about her outside of coming up with pranks to pull on her.

Thats when he saw how she reacted to the president adventure he’d made for her. She reacted in a stressed yet funny way, so Jax decided that he’d hang with her for the other suggestions, and found himself enjoying those too.

She was different from the others. She didn’t ignore him all the time like Zooble, but she also wasn’t a pushover like Gangle. She actually responded to his jokes with her own wit, and it made Jax feel all weird inside.

-

That’s why when he saw that she missed dinner after a particularly tiring adventure, he’d decided against his better judgment to offer her food.

He’d been hoarding food in his room for years, just another kind trinket he collected, but now it actually had a use.

As he packed all the food into a blanket he had stolen, he noticed a bottle sitting on top of his cabinet. He had been saving it for a night when his emotions got out of control, or for when he was feeling really really down, but this seemed like a far less depressing way to use it, so he threw the bottle in the bundle.

He even decided to pack some of the food he had made himself. Nobody knew he cooked, he wasn’t gonna be known as some kinda house wife or something, but he couldn’t lie, he did really enjoy cooking.

It was hard trying to sneak in and out of the kitchen, because Ragatha was constantly baking things. he’d once seen Kinger make some giant brisket, but otherwise only really Ragatha made anything.

He really hoped that Pomni wouldn’t notice his homemade food mixed in with Caine’s summoned foods. He finally tied the bundle together and walked out the door.

Later that night as he and Pomni ate, she commented on one of his homemade cupcakes being really good. He simply chucked it against the wall to avoid the embarrassment of her finding out he made it.

Jax’s memory got a little fuzzy as he drank with Pomni. He wouldn’t call himself a lightweight, but he didn’t exactly have the strongest drinking capabilities. He had never actually gotten around to drinking in the real world, so the only alcohol he’d ever consumed was digital.

He vaguely remembers being upset by something Pomni said, so he laid down and curled into a ball. He couldn’t help up feel emotions he usually buried bubbling to the surface. That’s where his memory stops.

Until they woke up.

Jax had still been 3/4ths asleep, not really comprehending what he was saying or hearing. He mumbled something about wanting 5 more minutes, before he heard the horrifying sentence-

“We’re in the living room.”

This immediately woke him up, scaring him so badly he jumped away from Pomni like she was a wild animal. He had no clue how he’d ended up here, so he simply blamed Caine. Simple, and made sense. But Caine denied these allegations, leaving Jax without any real explanation. After fumbling a lie about fighting, he just decided to ask Caine to start the adventure.

Once in the western town, he got away from the others as quickly as he could, needing to sort out his thoughts.

He felt conflicted. On one hand, he felt weirdly warm and happy after his night with Pomni, like maybe he wasn’t alone. But another thought nagged the back of his mind.

He felt closer to Pomni that night than he had ever felt with Ribbit.

Ribbit was his best friend, his LAST friend. He couldn’t betray his buddies memory by getting another best friend, That would be wrong. Plus, he knew Pomni saw a side of him that he didn’t want anyone to ever see.

That settled it, he’d simply tell Pomni that the night meant nothing and it was simply a drunken accident.

Happy with his conclusion, he decided the least he could do on the adventure was blow up the bank.

After obliterating the building the adventure collapsed in on itself, so Caine cut it done early. Jax immediately went up to Pomni, telling her exactly what he had mentally practiced.

He could tell it hurt her, which was his main purpose, so he began walking away in victory. That’s when she said- “If you ever wanna cuddle again, just let me know!”

He didn’t look back, but he could feel his cheeks turning a deep crimson.

-

The next day he grabbed his usual breakfast fruit and headed outside to the lake. He was too tired this early in the morning to come up with any funny quips, so he just avoided everyone until he was awake enough.

He plopped down by the fence surrounding part of the lake, and simply began to think. The lake was peaceful and pretty, so it was a good pondering place.

His thoughts once again drifted to Pomni. This time he was irritated with her due to her lack of a role.

Everyone in the circus had some kind of role to play, like characters on a sitcom. Kinger was the crazy neighbor, Ragatha was the annoying Karen, Gangle was the depressed emo one, and Zooble was the cranky old neighbor, while Jax was the funny one. Everyone served a clear purpose narratively, except for Pomni.

She didn’t fit into one category. She wasn’t overly happy or sad. she tended to never get too mad, or excited over anything. She was just too… real for Jax.

Jax wished he could just force her to pick one character trait about herself and stick with it, but he could barely look at her without remembering the humiliation of yesterday. She claimed he ASKED to be cuddled, like some kinda puppy or stupid child. As if, Jax would never do something like that. Probably.

And Zooble’s comment about him asking for 5 more minutes, he barely remembered saying that. He was so sleepy he couldn’t make coherent thoughts.

As Jax spiraled about the events yesterday, he heard a soft “hi” come from behind him.

The greeting scared the absolute s[BEEP] out of him, causing him to jump 10 feet in the air. He recognized the voice, but spun around regardless to see her face.

Pomni was standing there with a plate of pancakes. Jax decided to just not say anything and hope she’d leave, but instead she just sat there next to him. He was annoyed, but still couldn’t bring himself to speak to her. So he sat there in silence.

He simply watched the rising sun rise before Pomni commented on it. Before he could stop himself he invited her to come see it tomorrow, and she said yes.

Jax was genuinely at a loss for why he did that. He hated talking with anyone this early, so why would he willingly invite someone to enjoy HIS sunrise? He mentally cursed himself for the slip up, denying the part of him that was secretly happy she’d be there tomorrow.

Eventually they headed back inside and into Caines new space adventure, which actually kinda excited Jax.

Years ago Ribbit had convinced him to tell Caine more about space, and Caine said he’d work on something. Jax had completely forgot about his suggestion, yet was glad it was finally coming to fruition.

Caine explained that they were going to explore a mysteriously abandoned space station and find whatever made the astronauts leave.

After entering the portal Jax immediately began exploring the new anti-gravity mechanics, curious to how far he could stretch them.

After terrorizing Gangle he ran off to go find a large window, He wanted to see the stars, but he also didn’t want anyone else seeing him. After running a decent distance away, he found an airlock room, before finally finding a room with a giant window.

He appreciated the view for a while, before hearing commotion from the closet behind him. In it he found two terrified looking astronauts, mumbling about a tall alien. Jax did his diligent duty of lying to them and tricking them into the air lock by telling them it’d be safe in there. Sadly once they were in he couldn’t see any button to open it.

He decided to simply admire the trapped NPCs, before he heard more footsteps. This time it was Pomni. He decided he might as well show off his prank if he couldn’t launch them into space, so he called her over to see.

She didn’t say anything, but she walked over to an adjacent wall and pulled a leaver Jax hadn’t noticed. Suddenly the airlock opened and launch the NPCs into space.

Jax absolutely lost it at this, shocked that Pomni would do something so cruel to the NPCs she normally sympathized for, making it even funnier to him.

“I-I didn’t know you had it in you Pom!”

He noticed he’d called her Pom without even thinking about it. He knew he’d overthink that later tonight, but he decided to ignore it to enjoy the moment.

After laughing his a[BEEP] off, she asked him if he could do something nice for her. He considered just chucking her into the airlock for daring to put him in such a position, but he was honestly in a good mood, so he decided to show her the window room.

When they entered, he causally began explaining some of the stuff. He pointed out the different kinds of stars and nebulas. He almost slipped up and revealed that all this was his suggestion, but he quickly recovered so he wouldn’t be embarrassed. It had been years since he’d told anyone about space, and it made his chest feel, less heavy, like a weight had been taken off.

He began explaining more, with more confidence, as all the knowledge came back to him. He pointed out his favorite nebula of all time, the Pillars of Creation. He’d gone into extreme detail when he told Caine about this specific nebula, and it appeared Caine had listened. It looked beautiful.

So did she.

Wait what? What did he just think? Jax’s thoughts came to a complete stop. His mind reared back the thought, chalking it up to him confusing his words. Mentally. Yup that made sense.

Anyways, Jax realized he’d been talking wayyy too much for his nonchalant demeanor, so he stopped. He noted that Pomni had been staring at him as he talked. Weirdo.

He quickly removed himself from the situation with a simple, “this is boring” before walking out the door. He went out the exit on the other side of the room, which lead into a boring hallway. Anything was better than that interaction though, so he decided to go down it anyway.

His mind kept coming back to that thought. ‘So did she.’ What was he even thinking? He didn’t like her, he barely tolerated her. She was annoying, short, and didn’t fill in an archetype. And she kept trying to talk to him. Why? Did she not understand that he didn’t want to-

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a scream, followed by a loud vacuum. That was Pomni’s voice. He spun back around, and without hesitation ran back down the way he came, through the window room. Into the airlock room.

Jax saw her dangling halfway out the airlock, her grip slipping. He moved without thinking and grabbed her arm as it lost its grip on the bar thing, and he found himself being pulled out the airlock too.

He gripped the bar in one hand and Pomni’s hand in his other, and pulled with all his strength. His stupid lanky bunny arms sadly weren’t strong enough, and he knew they’d both be pulled into space. Jax prayed Caine didn’t program realistic effects, as he really didn’t want all his insides to boil.

Suddenly the airlock closed, courtesy of a confused Kinger. As he caught his breath, he realized two things. First, his grip had someone put a massive dent into the bar thing, which was really weird, he wasn’t that strong. And second, he’d tried to save Pomni.

S[BEEP].

Why had he done that? What compelled him to risk his own life to save hers? And now she’d think he cared about her. Which he did not.

He angrily reminded her that he didn’t care before storming off to his room. He really didn’t care about her. He didn’t care about anyone. Not after Ribbit.

-

Jax woke up the next morning with a new dilemma;

Should he go to the sunrise?

He already invited Pomni to it, and it’d be rude to not go, but then again when did he care about being rude? But it was a part of his weird a[BEEP] routine to watch it every morning, so it didn’t feel right to skip, even if it meant having to talk to someone.

He begrudgingly dragged himself out of bed, heading straight for the exit. Maybe Pomni had forgotten about his offer, and he’d be able to enjoy his sun rise in peace. To his disappointment, he saw he already waiting for him with a plate of pancakes.

He couldn’t help but notice the way she lit up when he walked over. Weirdo.

After another silence she asked if he had any fun facts about the sun. This p[BEEP]ed him off, she actually knew something about him. Of course he did know a bunch of fun facts about the sun, but he wasn’t gonna tell her any.

After responding with a smart comment, he casually punched her in the arm, which she flinched away from. He could tell that the flinch wasn’t from pain, but from discomfort. Pomni wasn’t the only person capable of learning things about people, and Jax had just learned she didn’t like to be touched.

Naturally he immediately put his hand on her face, which caused her to freak out, bringing him lots of joy.

Before an argument could ensue the sky began changing rapidly, shifting from all the nighttime models into early morning hues. It was definitely janky, yet Jax enjoyed it regardless.

After watching the sun rise Jax and Pomni re-entered the circus, where Jax chucked the plate he’d offered to carry into Gangles comedy mask, shattering it with a beautiful crunch. Jax loved smashing the mask, the mix of the satisfying crack along with the anguish of Gangle was just so endearing.

Soon Caine arrived with his new daily adventure. Jax really couldn’t care, he didn’t hate the adventures, but it’s not like he loved them. Some were really fun, like the space ones or anyone he could get a gun in, but some were sooo boring they made him want to die. Caine was yapping about his new idea, Jax was tuning it all out, before he heard “-CONCEPT IVE BEEN WORKING ON. MUSICALS!!”

He spat out his drink, dread creeping into his mind. He secretly was really good at singing, always had been. He’d joined choir and theater back in high school, much to his father’s dismay. He had occasionally sung in the circus, mostly to taunt or humiliate someone, but he wasn’t gonna sing on this stupid adventure. There was no way in h[BEEP] that Jax was gonna sing in front of the others, let alone Pomni. He didn’t want her thinking he was some kinda sissy, he still wanted to be somewhat masculine in front of her.
Why exactly he didn’t really know.

Jax was being forced through the portal while he thought, and felt himself being dropped onto grass.

He glanced around at the carnival games and funhouses surrounding him, quickly realizing he was in a fair. He looked down at his new outfit, a varsity sweater and all black, and immediately knew exactly what this was.

Grease.

Great. He did love this musical, he’d watched it plenty of times with his grandma, but he didn’t wanna preform it. He was contemplating if it’d be worse or better to pretend he sucked at singing, but before he could reach a conclusion Pomni walked up to him.

Just great, she was Sandy. His lover.

As they got closer, the opening notes of “You’re the one that I want” began playing. Jax wished that he’d be struck with lightning and die on the spot.

No digital weather granted his plea, so he was gonna be forced to sing. Pomni looked at him and asked if he knew the lyrics, which he lyingly shrugged at her. He realized that nobody actually knew the lyrics to the song, only him.

He was torn between just letting the invisible adventure timer run out, or if he should just sing the stupid song. He looked at Pomni, who looked beyond stressed, which made him feel surprisingly bad.

He couldn’t bear to see her so anxious, so he decided to bite the bullet and sing.

After shyly starting the first few lyrics, he whispered Pomni’s to her under his breath. Pretty soon they were both singing and dancing together impressing well, giving Jax a small ego boost. He noted he’d have to make all the others who heard him singing pay dearly.

He found himself in the stupid “Shake Shack” with her, and he decided to fully commit to the choreography and put both hands on her hips. He figured she’d pull away, but she didn’t. He could feel his face burning even hotter, and this time not from embarrassment.

Before they could continue, everything froze. Jax immediately took the opportunity to take his hands off her, trying to will his face to turn back to a normal shade, while everyone else looked around in confusion.

Caine popped up, yapping about some legal trouble, before he ended the adventure early, dragging the cast back into the circus.

Jax took off immediately off, beyond grateful for the legal system saving him.

He continued to hide in his room, not leaving for anything. He changed into his sweatpants, as he held the unique ability to remove and add clothes. He’d figured out how years ago using a glitch with a jacket and a portal.

He couldn’t bear to face the others after humiliating himself like that. They probably all thought he was weak, or worse a bad singer. God he should have just shut his mouth in the first place. It would take weeks of violent prank conditioning to get the others to understand not to bring it up. He sunk into self hatred, tears burning the back of his eyes.

For a guy who dishes a lot out, he couldn’t really take it.

A knock on his door interrupted his thoughts. He sluggishly walked over to peak out, curious as to who he was about to murder.

To his surprise it was Pomni.

Of all the people he thought it was gonna be, it wasn’t her. Before he could question why, she asked him- “Will you dance with me?”

The question shook him to his digital soul, and he quickly closed the door before the blush on his cheeks was obvious.

He knew he had to make a quick decision or she’d just leave, so he didn’t have time to weigh the pros and cons.
He decided it’d be a lot more fun to dance with Pomni than rot alone, so he
quickly threw on a white shirt and stepped out to meet her.

He let himself into her room, before questioning what kinda dancing she wanted. Maybe she just wanted someone to energetically dance with, or maybe a tango partner, those seemed far more likely Jax thought. She surprised him again by asking to slow dance.

Technically he’d never slowed danced with anyone before, but he knew the general idea of Waltzing, so he sheepishly extended a hand to begin.

She took it, struggling to place her other hand on his shoulder, so he leaned down a bit so she could. He put own other hand on her waist.

They talked for a bit, before she questioned why he had hidden this skill. He was already so far out of his comfort zone that he just, answered truthfully and shamefully, trying not to appear to in-masculine in front of her.

She responded by saying that women actually loved a good dancer, which surprised him. He’d never really thought of what a woman actually wanted in a man, just what his dad had told him was “masculine enough”.

This lightened his spirits, and he joked about being 6’5 and adored by women. She asked about how he knew Grease, and he answered honestly that he’d watched it with his grandma.

He awkwardly mentioned that he thought she had a good singing voice too, which wasn’t a lie, he genuinely thought her voice was beautiful.

Now that they were both in high spirits, he began dancing more sillily, before he dipped her.

He was so close to her that he could see his reflection in her big pretty pinwheel eyes. He could see that he was bright red.

This time he had stepped too far out of his comfort zone, and immediately bolted, muttering something about needing to leave before slamming his door behind him.

He leaned back against the door, feeling his heart beat against his ribcage. He hadn’t felt something that extreme in a long time.

Part of him wished he stayed, but another part of him felt like a dirty traitor to Ribbit. But then again, he’d never wanted to date Ribbit. Did he wanna date Pomni?

————————————————————
(BACK IN CURRENT EVENTS)

He woke up the next morning exhausted. He hadn’t slept a second.
He dragged himself out of bed, solely to avoid running into Pomni.

He glanced down the hallway, before darting into the dining room area, noticing a complete lack of food. He waited for a moment, before deciding to head towards the kitchen.

He quickly made himself some eggs and sausages before returning to the table. He mindlessly ate, feeling too tired to do anything.

Eventually the others walk in, confused at the lack of food. Then Pomni walked in.

Jax immediately got up, heading for literally anywhere else. He settled for the living room, aka the spot with the couches. That’s when he noticed a box and a note on the coffee table. He picked it up and read-

“GREETINGS MY BOYANT BRACKETS! TODAY IM STILL STUCK IN COURT, SO JUST PLAY AROUND WITH THIS UNFINISHED ASSET. ITS CALLED A GENIE BOX AND BASICALLY ANSWERS ANY QUESTIONS YOU HAVE ABOUT THE CIRCUS OR EACH OTHER!”

LOVE, CAINE

The others entered and also read the note, and they all stared at the box.

Ragatha awkwardly asked, “What’s my favorite color?”

The box, which was just a purple and black checkered box with a red light on the top of it, made some beeping noises before shouting-

“BLUE”

Ragatha nodded at the answer, saying that it got it right. Kinger walked up to next and asked-

“What port does SSH use?”

Nobody else understood to question, but the machine sputtered out-

“TCP PORT 22”

Kinger nodded, indicating that whatever that meant was the right answer.

Pomni quickly and desperately asked “is there an exit to the circus??”

The box thought for a moment, before saying-

“NO.”

Pomni frowned. Now it was Jax’s turn, and his evil grin told everybody he wasn’t gonna ask pleasant questions.

He started with “Is Zooble straight?”

“NO”

Zooble angrily flipped him off as he laughed. He turned towards Pomni with a grin before asking “has Pomni ever dated anyone, or is she a loser?”

There was a movement of silence before the box said- “YES, SHE HAS.”

Jax’s head spun around, and before he could think he sputtered out “Wait, is she single like currently like right now??”

“YES”

Relief flooded him, before realizing his embarrassing question. Everyone was staring at him, and he now wanted to die.

This time Zooble turned towards the box with a smug expression, before asking “Has JAX ever dated anyone?”

The room was silent as the machine processed the question, before saying-

“NO”.

Jax had been mentally praying that the stupid box would get it wrong, but it was spot on. The sly, funny, silver tongued Jax had been single his whole life. But the others didn’t quite know that yet, so he quickly began doing damage control.

“Of course I’ve never dated anyone! You think I’d force myself to stay with one person? I’m more of a one night stand and flings kinda guy. I don’t date hot women, I just kiss them.”

This explanation seemed incredibly rude and sexist, so naturally everyone believed Jax would do something like that. Everyone expect Pomni.

She gave him a knowing stare, before asking the Genie Box-

“Has Jax ever even kissed someone?”

Jax felt his hope disappear as the box responded with an astonishing “NO.”

Jax didn’t even fight back against the waves of laughs and jokes as his lie crumbled around him.

Jax didn’t have any witty comebacks, so he just stood up, grabbed the Genie Box, and smashed it into the floor, shattering it.

Everyone stared it him in disbelief. The box that held the info to literally any question about the circus imaginable was currently lying in a thousand pieces on the floor. Zooble glared at him before announcing-

“Jax the virgin broke it.”

He spent the rest of this stupid day cowering his room.

Chapter Text

Pomni slammed the door, flipping the lock closed. She quickly ran over to a small shelf and pushed it with all of her strength in front of the door. She backed away from the it, looking around the small office room. Jax leaned against a wall, clutching a large wound on his arm. She was shocked to see it was bleeding. Badly.

Jax noticed the look on her face.

“Some adventures have ‘realistic’ injury’s. Most of us hate when Caine does that, but it’s kinda gratifying to see actual blood. It does hurt though, a lot.”

He stopped talking as loud footsteps approached the door. They both held their breath, and waited for any noise. A thundering BANG startled them, as something was smashed into the door. Pomni regretted ever listening to Jax on this, she should have trusted her gut. Now they were both gonna get murdered by a serial killer.

-
(A FEW HOURS EARLIER)

Ragatha was pleased to grab a piece of newly generated bacon off the table. She was starting to grow tired of hand making breakfast. Caine had been missing for a few days due to his ‘court case’ but was apparently back as indicated by the table full of generated food.

Pomni, Gangle, Kinger, and Zooble eventually came down to, also pleased to have food. Nobody had seen Jax since the whole ‘Genie Box’ thing, which most the cast was happy about. Pomni wasn’t.

She was a little ashamed of herself for laughing along with the others, but Zooble reassured her that Jax needed a healthy dose of his own medicine. Jax never mentioned their late night dance before disappearing, seemingly ignoring it. Part of her was worried she’d ruined the progress she’d made with him, and hoped he’d get over it.

After eating the circus members headed for the living room, where they waited for Caine to appear.

Soon afterwards there was a loud pop and Caine appeared with a giant smile on his, “face”.

“HELLO MY GERRYMANDERING GLUE GLOBS!! IM BACK FROM MY COURT CASE!!”

Ragatha asked if he’d won.

“UHHHH, NO. I LOST. BUT I REMEMBERED, I LITERALLY CONTROL EVERYTHING IN THIS PLACE! SO I KILLED ALL THE JURY. AND THE JUDGE. AND MY LAWYER. AND THE CROWD! ARENT YALL HAPPY IM FREE?”

They all gave an awkward thumbs up.

“WELL ANYWAYS, WHILE I WAS STUCK IN COURT, I THOUGHT UP A NEW ADVENTURE! TODAY I HAVE A CLASSIC MURDER MYSTERY FOR YOU! YOU FIND YOURSELVES IN THE POLICE STATION OF A LARGE CITY, AND YOU’LL HAVE TO SOLVE WHATEVER MURDER CASE YOUR GIVEN! LEMME BRING JAX DOWN HERE AND THEN WE CAN ALL START!”

Caine snapped his fingers, and Jax appeared in front of them. He looked tired, and didn’t even make any comments. Apparently he was still in a funk.

Caine opened the portal, and the cast walked through.

-

Pomni now found herself sitting in a chair on a small office. Everything was in black and white, and her outfit was the same one she’d worn at that bar adventure, just with an added blazer and police badge. Caine seemed to have whipped this up pretty fast, as it had a ton of reused assets.

She looked out the window, and saw it was night time, with lightning and rain coming down from the sky. She sat at a desk with a bunch of pens in a cup, a single file, and a phone.

She glanced at the file, yet it was completely blank. As she wondered where the others were the phone began to ring, so she picked it up. A shaken voice told her that there had been a murder at the “Grand Abel Stable”!

She said they’d be over in a sec, and hung up. She sighed a long sigh, wishing that Caines’s court case had gone a day longer.

Jax leaned into her office from the doorway, with his signature grin on his face. He was also dressed in the same suit as the bar, but he now had a police badge and a jacket swung over his shoulder.

She never really payed attention last time, but now she noticed how loosely done his tie was, like he had done it in a hurry while drunk.

“Hey Sargent Pom! Got any good cases for us? Any serial killers on the loose? Clowns blowing up hospitals?”

She was grateful that his mood had improved so much, although she was worried about what lifted it. Regardless she told him about the murder case, and they both headed into the lobby of the station.

They met up with Ragatha, who was in a new outfit that looked like a rip-off of Sherlock Holmes, Zooble just had a badge, and both Gangle and Kinger wore trench coats and fedoras. Pomni explained the case to them, and they all headed for the car.

“I call drivers side!!” Jax announced gleefully.

“Oh f[BEEP] no” Zooble shouted and ran past Jax, quickly hopping into the drivers seat.

Jax glared knifes at them, before climbing into the backseat. Kinger called shotgun and the rest of them squished into the backseat with Jax.

They drove through the storm, passing by the same 5 buildings over and over again before reaching the Grand Abel Stable.

It stood towering over the other buildings, easily 20 stories high. It had a giant neon sign in the front, and waterfalls on each side of the doorway.

The camaraderie of chaos slithered out of the car and made their way towards the entrance. The main entrance was one of those spinning doors, and they all went through.

Jax stopped halfway through, trapping them for a solid 3 minutes, before he gave up and let them in.

They met up in the lobby with a tall yet mousey man, who resembled a relatively normal human. He wore normal clothes, and had a normal human face.

“H-Hello officers, my name is Martin, and I’m the manager of this hotel. The murder took place on the 17th floor. It was done with an ice pick. That’s all I know. If you need me I’ll be in my office on the 4th floor.”

Pomni noticed Jax’s suspicious face, before he dropped it for his usual smile. Ragatha seemed particularly happy, excited for the mystery.

Jax made a suggestion, “We should split up to look for clues! I call dibs with Pomni!”

He quickly grabbed her arm and lead her towards the elevator, not even paying attention to what the others did.

The elevator door shut, and Jax clicked the 25th button, the top floor. Pomni looked at him with a confused glance.

He noticed her look and said-
“Top floors got the best view, we’ll be able to see the most clues.”

Pomni didn’t question his strange logic as the elevator took them up.

Eventually they arrived at the top, stepping onto the floor. Jax’s smile shrunk a bit, going from an exaggerated smirk to a casual grin.

Pomni remembered that she laughed at him a few days ago, and wanted to apologize. “Hey Jax, listen I’m really sorry about laughing at you over the-“

He cut her off with a hand over her mouth.

“I forgive and forget, but don’t EVER bring that s[BEEP] up again.”

Pomni flinched back from the hand on her mouth, which he laughed at.

Annoyed, she decided to tease him a bit, and remarked-

“I thought the women swooned over you back in the real world, but you’ve never even kissed one? Whats with that?”

Jax looked like he was about to blow up, but seemingly calmed himself down, before muttering,

“I wasn’t much of a people person. I just… didn’t really click with people, and wasn’t exactly confident enough to ask out any girl. I just stuck to myself.”

Pomni was a little surprised by his random honesty. He wasn’t drunk or tired or anything, he was just, him.

Jax let out an awkward laugh before saying- “Well I told you about my exhilarating love life, what about you? That dumb box said you’d dated before.”

Pomni decided to match his honesty.

“Yeah, I have dated a few people. I dated a guy in high school, but we were young and dumb, so it didn’t really work out. I dated a different guy in college, but that went a lot worse. He was kinda manipulative, he never hit me or anything, but he guilt tripped me way more than someone should, and he didn’t respect my friends. I only stayed with him for as long as I did because he kept promising he’d change. He didn’t, so I dumped his a[BEEP]. That’s the summary of my miserable love life.”

Jax didn’t say anything until she’d said everything she wanted, before he commented-

“Well, you’ve dated more than me. Sorry that the second guy sucked so much. I’d kill him for you if I ever saw him. But unless he’s been hiding as a mannequin, I doubt I’ll run into him.”

She thanked him, noticing how much more kind he was. She was really curious as to what caused this change.

As she pondered, she leaned against a mirror. Jax looked at it for a second before reaching behind it. After a moment there was a click, and the mirror popped open, revealing a tunnel.

She looked at him with awe. “How’d you know that??”

“Simple, Caine Always puts mirrors into the wall, so it was really weird to see it slightly raised. So I figured it must be hiding something.”

They entered the tunnel, Jax pulling out a lighter to see. It appeared to go in every direction, both left and right had long corridors, and there were ladders going down. Jax picked a random one and descended it. Pomni followed close being, not wanting to get lost.

They went down a few more ladders before glancing through two peep holes. On the other side they could see what resembled a small rec room.

Jax fumbled with the door for a second, before simply kicking it open. They emerged from a painting, now on the 18th floor.

They both headed for the pool table, starting a game.

Trying to continue conversation, Pomni asked- “why are you scared of corn?”

Jax let out a long sigh, before saying-

“Welp, I guess that was inevitable. I’ve always really not liked it, because of all the little pod things, it’s gross and freaked me out. I guess any kinda little pod or hole thing nauseates me, but corn is a lot worse because of some bullies. Basically, I went to this pumpkin patch thing in high school, and throughly avoided the corn maze. Well these mean a[BEEP]holes were aware of my fear, so when I wasn’t looking they grabbed me and threw a jacket over my face before dragging me into some random part of the maze. And then they left me there! It was horrible! I even cr- couldn’t look at it. And ever since corn has been the main fear factor.” Jax quickly added- “Wow I was a loser in high school. Thank god college me got jacked and super popular.”

Pomni felt a ton of sympathy for him. She wished she had been there that night, she would’ve lead him through that stupid maze to safety.

A mannequin in a tux came up and asked if they needed anything. Pomni said no thanks, while Jax took his pool club and speared the NPC directly in the head.

Pomni opened her mouth to scold him, but Jax spoke first.

“Why are you so nice to those things? They aren’t even real. Just code.”

Pomni looked at him with an irritated expression.

“Because it keeps me sane, treating them like I would treat someone in the real world.”

Jax counter- “but this isn’t the real world, it’s all fake. We’re all stuck in this fake place, why not embrace it.” He thought for a moment, before saying-

“Ever heard of the archetype theory?”

She shuck her head.

He motioned for her to sit down in chairs on the other side of the room. They both sat down and looked out the window, watching the rainy city skyline.

Jax finally turned over and began explaining.

“The archetype theory! It’s a genius method to stay completely sane! This place treats us like characters, not like people, so why not embrace it? Everyone already encompasses a major part about themselves. Ragatha acts like an annoying overbearing neighbor. Zooble is like the grumpy old mean neighbor. Gangle is the sad neighbor, and Kinger is the crazy one. Except they don’t even embrace it! They suffer from the negative aspects of “emotions” while still being stuck filling their respective roles. Me on the other hand, I play the part. I make jokes, play pranks, mess with people, because that’s the role I play! I’m the comedic relief! I get to play my part in the circus without having to worry about losing my marbles! It’s really genius when you think about it. So what about you Pomni, what role do you think you play in here?”

Pomni sat quiet for a moment, thinking over Jax’s theory.

“I-I’m a person. Not a role, not a character, I’m a human. A human being with emotions. Everyone trapped in here is a person too! Do you really think that nobody else in the circus matters because they choose to act human? YOU’VE been acting human. You’ve told
me about your fears and your strengths. You’re not just some ‘funny guy’, you’re a person who likes to sing, who can’t ask out girls, who loves space. That’s the real Jax, not the comedian.”

Jax looked like she’d just shot him.

“Im human enough to decide to be the funny one. It’s what I do. I only told you that stuff because it was funny! A loser who’s never kissed a girl and is scared of corn? That’s hilarious!! That was human me, now I’m Jax. I’m the only one stuck in here who’s thriving. When was the last time you were truly happy?”

“…When I was talking with you.”

Jax got up, rubbing his temples.

“Never mind, this was a mistake. I already know who the killer is, let’s just go bust him and get this stupid adventure over with.”

He simply walked away, not even bothering to see if Pomni followed. She debated it for a moment, before deciding to follow him.

-

They took the elevator on down to the 4th floor, before walking over to a door labeled “Mangers Office”.

Jax kicked it in, and walked in. The office was decently large, with a giant desk in the middle of it. The Martin guy sat at a chair right behind it. He looked terrified.

His human face made the terror on it feel a lot more genuine. Jax slowly walked up to him, smiling with his trademark grin, before he reached into his pants.

-

The reason for Jax’s sudden change in attitude wasn’t due to him seeing Pomni. It happened when he first arrived in his office at the police station. He groggily looked around it, before his eyes locked in on an object sitting on his desk.

A gun.

To be more specific, it appeared to be a 1924 police colt revolver. More specifically a Colt Police Positive. His eyes light up like Christmas had come early as he stared at the firearm. Guns were his absolute favorite thing in all of the digital circus. They were so destructive yet such an impressive innovation in technology, he couldn’t help but fawn over them.

He took the gun and gently hid it in his pants, not yet wanting the others to know about it. He checked the drawers, and found multiple boxes of extra ammo, which he put in his pockets.

“This adventure is looking up!” he thought.

-

Pomni’s jaw dropped as he drew a revolver and pointed it at the man. She had no clue he had that on him. Where did he even get it?

Jax laughed as he pointed the weapon at the terrified man.

“What, the deranged killer’s scared of a little gun?”

Jax laughed evilly, before he turned back to Pomni, spinning the gun on his finger.

“Can you believe that guy? Acting all scared even tho he’s the psycho? I’m gonna enjoy blasting his brains out.”

Jax turned back towards him, noticing that Martin had ducked under his desk.

“Aw, hiding already? You’re just delaying the inevitable!!”

Jax smugly walked over and looked under the desk.

Martin was gone, leaving nothing but an open trapdoor under the desk.

Crap.

The lights in the room suddenly cut off, leaving them in complete darkness. The only light came from the occasional lightning strike.

Pomni walked over to Jax, trying to stay as close to him as possible. When the next bolt of lightning illuminated the room she saw a figure in her peripheral vision.

She screamed as she saw the shiny blade of an axe plunging towards her head. Before it made contact Jax jumped in between, where it struck his arm with a sickening thud.

He screamed in pain and dropped something. Pomni grabbed his other hand and bolted for the door, barreling through it. She made a right turn and ran for the door at the end of the hallway. She burst in with Jax, before slamming the door while flipping the lock closed. She quickly ran over to a shelf and pushed it in front of the door. She backed away, looking around the room. Jax leaned against a wall, clutching the wound on his arm. She was shocked to see it was bleeding.

Jax explained how occasionally they’d get adventures with ‘realistic injuries’,
but stopped talking when loud footsteps approached the door. They both held their breath, and waited for any noise. A bang startled them, as something was smashed into the door. Pomni regretted coming down with Jax, she should have trusted her gut and stayed with the pool table. Now they were both gonna get murdered by a serial killer.

She pushed down the negative thoughts as she began touching everything in the office. Jax watched her weakly.

The axe burst through part of the door, Martin was closing in. Finally Pomni clicked in part of the wall and it popped open, revealing the secret tunnels.

She pulled Jax through and slammed it shut. They both ran deeper into the tunnels, going up a few ladders, before stopping once they felt they were far enough.

Jax pulled off his tie, and tried to tie it around his wounded arm. Pomni helped him, pulling it tight. She was angry with him, but slightly impressed that he figured out who the killer was.

“How’d you know Martin was the killer?”

Jax softly chuckled, before saying “He was the only NPC Caine gave a unique model. Why would Caine waste it on anyone that wasn’t the killer.”

“Do you still have the gun?”

“It was in the arm that was axed, I dropped it. Sorry.”

She remembered he jumped between her and the axe.

“It’s ok, we’ll be ok. But we need help.”

Jax groaned in annoyance, but was way too weak to argue. They continued to walk through the tunnels until they heard a familiar voice. Pomni ran over to a painting and pushed it open.

Ragatha screamed when the painting randomly flipped open, before realizing Pomni and a very bloody Jax were emerging from it. Ragatha was glad she now had someone to explain who the killer was to.

“Oh my gosh Jax are you ok??”

He gave a weak nod.

Ragatha responded- “Well, glad you’re ok. I figured out the mystery! The Killer is-“

“Martin” Jax interrupted. “It’s Martin, we already figured that out, painfully.”

Pomni quickly asked- “did you figure out WHY he killed those people?”

Ragathas face lit back up, as she explained,

“Ok so basically, Martin’s sister was killed a year ago in a tragic car accident, but the guy driving it was rich and powerful, so he payed off everyone involved to so he could get off scot free. Well now Martin is hunting down everyone that was involved, in order to get revenge. But now I have the evidence to prove that the rich guy payed everyone off. So hopefully if we explain to Martin that we’ll arrest him he’ll stop killing them! And us!”

Considering they had no better plan, the unlikely trio headed out in search of the serial killer.

Pomni noticed Jax’s eyes were extra jittery, he seemed scared. She gently grabbed his hand on his good side. He squeezed it gently.

The lights in the hall went out. She felt his hand leave hers and disappear. Ragatha pulled out a flashlight and pointed it all around.

Martin was at the end of the hallway and Jax was nowhere to be seen.

Pomni’s heart hammered in her chest, but she trusted Ragatha, so she followed her lead.

Ragatha slowly explained that they found evidence of people being payed off, so everyone involved could be arrested. Pomni held her breath as he approached.

Martin and Ragatha had a stare off, trying to see if the other was bluffing.

He dropped the axe.

The quiet man that first met them had returned, his appetite for revenge apparently being satisfied.

He apologized for all the chaos, stating that he just loved his sister. Soon the rest of the gang met up back in the lobby. Kinger had apparently been murdered by Martin earlier, so he was already gone.

Jax eventually returned, looking beyond tired. They all packed into the car, Ragatha taking the wheel this time.

Pomni thought about the fact that they didn’t end up arresting anyone.

They arrive back at the police station and wait for Caine to open the portal home.

Jax looked terrible, his pristine white shirt was now half red, and his eyes were drooping. Pomni didn’t want to things worse for him, but she had to know something about their argument.

“Hey Jax, you said that you don’t care about anyone’s feelings or e-emotions. Do you care about mine? Do you care about me?”

He stayed quiet for a moment, before bluntly saying-

“I never did.”

The portal opened, and they went through. Jax walked away, and Pomni bit back the tears that threatened to fall down her face.

Chapter Text

Pomni glumly grabbed a random piece of bacon off the table. She hadn’t spoke to Jax since their argument, and he was seemingly avoiding her. She was frustrated by his mixed signals. One moment he’d be telling her stuff about his real life, the next he’d be saying he hated her. She wanted to connect with Jax to give him the opportunity to ask for help, but if he was going to shut her down every time they made progress, then she’d stop bothering. She wasn’t doing this for herself, she was doing this for him.

She eventually wandered into the living room, where she found the others (minus Jax) waiting for the adventure. Pomni decided to strike up a conversation to pass the time.

“Hey Gangle, watcha drawing?”

Gangle looked up at her, smiling with her Comedy mask still in tact.

“I’m-m just doodling our outfits from that murder mystery adventure. I was really happy to actually g-get one, Caine rarely gives me any. I guess it’s hard to model clothes for ribbons or s-something. I noticed you and… Jax haven’t been speaking. Did he do something to you?”

Pomni shook her head. “We got into an argument.”

“Ragatha mentioned you were like, trying to connect with him or something? Did you, like, I don’t know, learn anything about him?”

Pomni thought about what info Jax would and wouldn’t want to be public. She settled for-

“He hates corn because he has trypophobia.”

“Really? So he hates like, all little hole things? Maybe I’ll start doodling those on my notebooks covers.”

Caine appeared, cutting their conversation short.

“HELLO MY CRAWLING CROATIANS! IVE DESIGNED A NEW ADVENTURE. BLAH BLAH BLAH I’LL TELEPORT JAX AND THEN OPEN THE PORTAL.”

He snapped his fingers and Jax appeared, and then opened a portal. Everyone sighed, before stepping through the portal.

-

Pomni looked around the new environment, seeing sprawling trees on both sides of her. There was muddy dirt beneath her, and the air was humid and hot. Vines hung from every branch, and the sound of bugs and birds rung in her ears. A few feet down she could see a roaring river.

She couldn’t recall ever being in a jungle environment,so this must all be new assets. She also now had a satchel hanging at her waist. She looked around at the others, and they all also looked the same.

Jax immediately walked up to her, before making some joke about her height. His casualness was genuinely frustrating her, and she wasn’t the kind of person to be stepped on. She looked him in the eyes and said:

“Screw off unless you’re gonna be nice. If you really don’t care about me, why even bother speaking with me?”

Jax froze for a movement, his face unreadable. He then awkwardly laughed, and said “because it’s funny!! It’s funny bothering you! Did you already forget about everything I told you?”

She glared at him before simply walking away. She had more self respect than to put up with any more of his crap.

She caught with Ragatha, happy to be with a nicer friend. Eventually Pomni looked inside the satchel she had, and found a map. The map had the river listed, giving her a general idea of their location. She saw an ‘X’ marked over a specific spot, so she figured that was where the adventure wanted them to go.

That’s when a rustling noise started her. It was coming from directly in front of her, a swooshing noise followed by leaves crumpling. Ragatha quickly stepped in front of Pomni, hoping to shield her from danger.

A machete came flying out from the brush, stopping just inches away from Ragathas face. The person swinging it pulled it back, before stepping out of the brush to reveal themselves.

They had a large cowboy hat on, with the top half of their skin being yellow with the bottom half being green. They had beady white eyes, and crocodile jaws.

It was Gummigoo!

Pomni couldn’t help but light up at the sight of her former friend. Soon two other gummy crocodiles came out from the bushes too. Gummigoo took one look at Pomni holding the map, before tipping his hat to her and taking her hand and kissing it.

“Good-day fine lady! I don’t recall seeing you in these woods before. The Names Gummigoo, and those are my two associates! What might your name be?”

Pomni slightly blushed from the kiss on the hand, but quickly brushed it aside to respond.

“H-Hi! I’m Pomni, and that’s Ragatha and Kinger and Gangle and.. Jax. Have we met before? You seem so similar.”

Last time they’d met he had no memory of her, and she hoped that maybe this time he would remember the time they spent together trapped underneath an adventure.

“Sorry ma’am, but I can’t say I recognize that face. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t forget a face as beautiful as yours. I don’t suppose you’re also looking for the lost pirate ship of Captain Spielberg?”

His comment about her face made her blush even more, but more so out of flattering than anything else. She realized that the pirate ship must be what the map had marked, so she showed Gummigoo the map.

“Blimey! That leads right to the old ship! I don’t suppose you’d let me and my friends here tag along with yall? See we’ve been looking for this boat for years, and just haven’t been able to find it yet.”

“O-Of course you can! The more the merrier!”

Pomni cringed at her awkward response, but was grateful they’d have the help. Gummigoo did have a massive machete, which would hoping help against whatever horrors Caine had stuck in this forest.

They all walked through the Jungle toward the ‘X’, Pomni making small talk with Gummigoo the whole way. It was nice to talk to someone who was less serious and more funny than Ragatha, but was still kind towards her, unlike Jax.

Eventually Gummigoo said he and his friends had to go have a private talk real quick, and they left to go behind some bushes for a movement. After around five minutes he returned, accompanied by the purple and red Gator.

Eventually they reached the ‘X’, which was revealed to be the entrance to a giant cave. Gummigoo turned towards the group and said-

“Alrighty, this looks very dangerous. Pomni’s map has clues on how to get through each of these traps, and I have this machete to cut down any threats we face. I fear that all 6 of us heading through would be too dangerous, so I recon Max should go take everyone but me and Pomni on back to our campsite, so that way we only have to worry about us. That sound good?”

Everyone agreed, so Kinger, Ragatha, and Gangle followed the purple and red gator in another direction, while Pomni and Gummigoo headed into the cave.

The first room simply consisted of a giant locked stone door. She quickly pulled out the map, flipping it over to see three paragraphs written. The first one stated:

“Answer this riddle and the door will open; What needs oxygen, needs food, is capable of dying, yet isn’t alive?”

Gummigoo shrugged at her, meaning it was up to her to figure out the riddle. She quickly ran through the usual riddle answers like time, water, rivers, but nothing quite matched. She thought about specificity of needing oxygen, and could only think of one thing that needed that but wasn’t alive.

“Fire.”

The door swung open, revealing the next room. Gummigoo congratulated her victory. The next room consisted of a swarm of evil skeletons, which Gummigoo dispatched with ease.

The third room had lettered checkered pattern tiles, with the hint on the map saying “the weakness of the first riddle”, which Pomni quickly deciphered as water, so they jumped onto the tiles of the respective letters.

After completing the final room, the duo headed to a ledge. It spilled into a massive cave room, with a large body of water, with a pirate ship resting in the middle.

They jumped down into the water, before sailing over to the boat and climbing in.

This adventure had surprisingly been on of Pomni’s favorites, having Gummigoo back was awesome. It sucked he didn’t remember her beforehand, but they had made lots of new wonderful memories. He’d helped her through so much of the journey, making it ten times easier.

“Thanks Gummigoo all the help today, you made it a lot easier! It’s been, nice bonding with you.”

Gummigoo laughed way too loud, before he looked at her with twitchy eyes.

“Darling, thank you for helping me find this place, we’ve been looking for years. Longer than YOU. This was supposed to be MY discovery, not yours. But you showed up with your little map and knew exactly where to go. That’s just not right ain’t it? To just be handed this victory on a silver platter? I’ve been buttering you up with all this ‘kind’ crap, just letting you lead me here. Max took your friends over to our camp to be imprisoned, while I deal with YOU!”

He drew the machete and swung it at her, she narrowly dodges it.

She feels like vomiting, tears streaming from her eyes. She’d genuinely trusted him, and it was all an act? She felt like she’d been shot, sinking down to her knees. This was worse than anything Jax had ever done. She couldn’t even bring herself to move when Gummigoo walked up to her, raising the machete above his head.

She looked up at the croc, seeing the madness in his dot eyes. He began to bring down the weapon, yet she couldn’t look away.

BANG!

Gummigoo screamed as his hand was blown to pieces, raining gummy bits onto Pomni. They both looked over toward the side of the boat.

Jax stood there, dripping wet, face covered in gummy splatters, with a black eye, holding a revolver.

“F[BEEP] you gummy a[BEEP]hole!” Jax shouted, before raising the revolver to fire once again. Gummigoo launched himself at the rabbit with a feral madness.

—

Jax had snuck off once the lights went out during the murder mystery adventure, returning to the office in order to reaquire the revolver. Every gun Caine had ever made was either a shotgun or rifle, way too big to smuggle back with him, but the small revolver fit wonderfully in his pocket, so it came back with him through the portal.

He’d kept the firearm in his room, keeping it for worse case scenarios. As fun as it would be to use on Ragatha, this was an ace up his sleeve that he couldn’t waste.

He had packed it in his front pocket for the day, just to be prepared for Caine’s new adventure.

When they first arrived Jax had gone off to make small talk with Pomni, hoping that his nonchalant-ness would make her overlook the fact that’s he’d been avoiding her for a few days. To his shock she completely blew him off.

How dare she, Jax was actually gonna try and make an effort to talk, but now she’d gone and ruined it. He slumped towards the back of the group, not feeling like being on this stupid adventure.

That’s when the croc showed up. He’d almost killed Ragatha, which Jax liked, but then he tipped his hat towards Pomni, which Jax didn’t like. He remembered Ragathas comment about Pomni hitting on him during the McDonald’s adventure. That’s when the croc kissed her hand.

He’s going to die. Now. Jax felt a burning rage that he’d never felt before, and immediately reached for the gun in his front pocket, fully prepared to kill this NPC right there.

But he remembered how mad Pomni was at him. If she was mad over him ignoring her, how would she react to him killing this guy she liked right in front of her? Jax thought for a moment, before deciding he’d kill the gummy the second Pomni couldn’t see him.

He waited for his opportunity, before seeing the gummy and his two goons going off into a bush to discus something. He immediately followed, hoping Pomni wouldn’t hear the gunshot.

As he crept up he heard something he didn’t expect.

“-take the others to the camp, and use the machete there to take them hostage, while I take the clown with the map to the ship.”

Jax emerged, with a massive smile on his face. He could now murder this f[BEEP]er and actually be doing the right thing!

“Hello boys! Discussing mutiny over here? Tsk tsk, that not very kind of you. Australia would be disappointed.”

Before he could react, Gummigoo ran up to him at a surprising speed, before he sent a right hook straight into Jax’s face.

Jax stumbled back, and then received a left hook to the gut, causing him to double over. The red and yellow gummy tackled Jax, causing them both to go flying deeper into the jungle. Jax felt the gun in his pocket go flying out, leaving him unarmed. The gummy shouted for his friends to go, before he stood up, ready to fight.

Jax and his father had shared very few interests, but one of the few they both loved was martial arts. His father loved the bravery of the combatants, while Jax loved the level of skill and precision used. Jax had taken a taekwondo class briefly in the real world, but he sadly lacked the strength to apply it.

But in the digital Circus? As long as Jax believed in it hard enough he could pull off Matrix levels of combat.

He slipped a punch from the croc, responding with an uppercut. He sent a high and low kick towards the NPC, putting enough distance between them for Jax to perform a tornado kick. The spinning attack sent the crocodile flying backwards into a tree.

Jax took a second to look around for the gun, but while he was distracted a rock struck him the back of the head.

He fell to the ground, turning onto his back, only to see the croc leap on top of him, trying to strangle him.

Jax quickly reached up, digging his hand into the soft gummy eye. The NPC screamed in pain, and Jax used the distraction to flip the gator underneath him. He took the rock that had been thrown at him and began bashing the croc, splattering gummy everywhere.

He took a moment to catch his breath, before scrambling around to find the gun. Eventually he found it hidden under a leaf, so he grabbed it and started running off to save Pomni.

Part of him didn’t wanna bother because she blew him off earlier, but another part of him really didn’t wanna see her get hurt.

He ran as fast as he could, his lungs burned in his chest, but he knew he could power through. He followed the path of slashed trees, finding it leading to a cave. Jax couldn’t care less what happened to the others, the only person he kind of cared about was Pomni. He quickly ran into through the rooms, the puzzles having not reset, leading to the ledge.

He could see from it that Gummigoo and Pomni were on the deck of the ship. Without another thought he leapt into the water, swimming over as fast as he could. He prayed the water didn’t mess with the revolver, because he didn’t know if he’d be able to beat Gummigoo while he had that machete.

He climbed onto the side of the boat, pointing the revolver at Gummigoo’s machete wielding hand. He fired, and a loud BANG rang through the cave.

The bullet tore through the gummy, exploding his entire hand. Gummigoo and Pomni looked over at him.

“F[BEEP] you gummy a[BEEP]hole!” Jax screamed, rage burning through his chest, before raising the revolver to fire once again. Gummigoo launched himself at the Jax with a more surprising speed.

Jax fired another shot directly into his chest, causing him to fly back, slamming into the floor of the boat. Jax walked up, pointing the gun at his head.

He could have come up with some Australian pun or insult, but he was too furious to do anything but shoot the b[BEEP] in the head.

Jax looked over at Pomni. Tears streamed down her face, and she looked horrified. Jax put the gun back in his front pocket before walking over to her.

It made him feel awful seeing her so upset. He had never felt so terrible for someone else, he wanted her to feel better more than anything.

Sadly he didn’t know what to do, she needed someone who was good with this stuff, like Ragatha. Wait no, Jax could do ANYTHING better than Ragatha, he wasn’t gonna let her swoop in and steal his save. He got down on one knee, awkwardly putting out a hand for Pomni to grab.

She looked at him with watery eyes, before jumping and pulling him into a hug. He, unlike her, had no issue with physical contact, he just wasn’t used to getting any. He slowly put his arms around her, hoping to make her feel more secure. He noticed the portal had opened after Gummigoo died, so he gently picked her up, cradling her in his arms, and walked to the portal. The others could figure out their own way back.

He exited back into the circus, blowing past Caine for the bedrooms. He walked down the hallway, planning on dropped Pomni off in her own room. He noticed that she was still wide eyed, and shaking. She was seriously traumatized.

Jax knew he needed something to make her feel better, and he could only think of one thing. Going against possibly his biggest rule ever, he slowly walked up to his own door and unlocked it, bringing her in.

Nobody expect for him had ever seen his room. The wall to the left of the door had his bed against it. To the sides and above the bed were hundreds of keys, all nailed to the wall on rings.

The wall directly across from the door had all his junk. The entire wall was scattered with shelf’s, full of random stuff. There was a a bunch of food, a bat, a telescope, board games, a rack of hats, a bunch of different clothes, a tall object with a tarp over it, books, a enclosure with a bunch of centipede in it, paint cans, and all kinds of other stuff.

The wall to the right of the door was the most interesting. It held one shelf, going across the entire bottom of the wall. On top of the shelf sat one old fashioned looking TV. On the wall above it was a gigantic sprawling map. It had a few of the different locations marked near the middle, but the rest was tons of little numbered boxes. A few had stars around them, with a few others having triangles around them. The shelf at the bottom was full of books, each labeled with various ranges of numbers.

Jax noticed her staring at the map and books, before saying,

“That’s my map of the circus. All those numbers boxes are various rooms I’ve found. The books at the bottom each have a corresponding page with one of the numbered boxes, explaining what the room is. The few marked with stars mean those are really good rooms that I’ll probably wanna return to, while the triangles are bad rooms that should be avoided at all costs.”

After explaining he sat on the bed, facing the map wall. He got back up, walking over to the old fashioned TV that sat on the shelf, and flicked it on.

He walked back to the bed, still carrying Pomni, and faced her towards the TV.

After a few moments the static on the TV faded, showing a simple wall, covered in vines with cracks running through it. The feed was nothing notable, and Pomni looked up at him with confusion.

He looked at her, before saying, “That is live feed from the webcam on the computer. The real computer, in the real world. What you’re currently looking at is the only way to see the real world in the entire circus.”

The shock of this reveal seemingly made her forget about being sad, as she quickly sat up, asking questions.

“Wait what? You’ve just had this? Do you see anything that could help us? Could this thing be used to make an exit? Is it already an exit? Why did you hide this?”

He looked at her with his good eye, before explaining,

“I’ve tried endless experiments with it, I’m certain it can’t be used as an exit. I worked on it for years straight, but as far as I can tell it is only that video feed. It is live, I’ve seen a bird flying past once or twice. I kept this a secret because.. well it calms me, reassures me that there’s still a world out there. I just figured because you were upset that maybe it could help you too.”

She watched the feed for a second, before turning back and hugging him again.

“It did.”

They stayed watching the feed for a while, just staring at the bland wall. She eventually turned over to him and said-

“Thank you, Jax. Today… was rough, but you helped me. You showed me you care. Thank you.”

Jax scoffed.

“This could still be an elaborate prank ya know.”

She ignored the comment, noticing his black eye.

“Your eye, is it ok? What happened? Can we get Caine to fix it?”

He tried not to blush as her genuine concern for him made him feel all bubbly inside. He thought of a response, not wanting to bring up Gummigoo again.

“It’s fine, I got it from… in-in a fight. I can get Caine to fix it later, right now I’m making sure you’re better.”

She looked at him.

“I am better. I just don’t want you to suffer for me. If it hurts.”

“It doesn’t, genuinely.”

She watched the TV for a moment longer before she asked-

“Can I, um, stay over for the night? I just don’t want to be alone.”

He was silent for a moment.

“Yeah, yeah you can.”

She smiled, before cuddling into him. He leaned back, pulling them fully onto the bed. He took his blanket and put it over them, holding her tightly.

He did care about her. He always did.

Chapter Text

Pomni grabbed two random pieces of bacon, eating one while handing the other to Jax.

It had been a bit over a week since Jax had let her into his room, and revealed the TV. While Jax hoped the TV itself would help calm down Pomni, his own kindness had been the thing that really helped her.

He couldn’t bring himself to be mean to her after Gummgioo’s betrayal, so he’d been nicer to her since. They’d walked together on adventures, eaten together, and even played board games together.

Jax would never admit it out loud, but he genuinely felt happier now that he was genuine friends with Pomni. He’d began to wonder why he ever pushed her away in the first place. He quickly remembered why.

Ribbit.

He hadn’t thought about his former best friend in a while, which made him feel shameful. He should be honoring his friend’s memory, not forgetting it.

He put the thoughts aside as he followed Pomni to the living room to wait for Caine’s new adventure. He hadn’t given them one the last two days, so Jax hoped they’d get a third.

“So Pomni, I’ve been meaning to ask, what phobias do you have? Ole Dollface hates centipedes, I don’t like corn, and Zooble hates all things happy in this world, but what do you fear? Snakes? Bugs? Heights?”

Jax waited for Pomni to answer. He didn’t know if she’d actually tell him, she’d probably figure he’d use it against her somehow, which to be fair he probably would.

“Hmmm, I don’t think I wanna tell you. Don’t know if I trust you with that info.”

Jax laughed it off, but his mind focused on her ‘don’t trust you’. Did she really not trust him? Though why would she? He wasn’t worthy of anyone’s trust.

Caine appeared, with an unusually large grin on his face.

“HELLO MY MAJESTIC MNEMONICS!! TODAY I HAVE A SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT! IM SURE YOU HAVE NOTICED THE LACK OF ADVENTURE OVER THE PASR FEW DAYS, AND THATS BECAUSE….. IM WORKING ON AN AWARD SHOW!!! THIS WILL BE MY LARGEST ADVENTURE EVER! NO DEATH OR VIOLENCE, JUST A FANCY AWARD SHOW! I’VE STILL GOTTA FINISH IT, BUT IT SHOULD BE DONE IN A FEW DAYS!”

After explaining Caine teleported away to work on the adventure. The cast seemed genuinely interested in this adventure.

“No death or violence? That’s a good s-sign!” Gangle said shyly.

“And we get the next few days off!” Ragatha added.

For the first time in years, Jax’s life was going good!

-

Jax and Pomni walked around under the starry sky outside of the circus. Jax just had to bring up something on his mind.

“I’m, hey Pomni? I noticed you said you didn’t trust me, like you just meant with prank stuff right? You do trust me right? Now that we’re friends and all.”

Pomni looked at him with an expressionless glare, before saying-

“Why would anyone trust you? Ever? You’re not a good person Jax.”

Jax was confused by this random outburst, but she kept going.

“I mean, you torture everyone in here for your own sick pleasure because you can’t handle your own emotions. You can’t handle what happened to ‘him’.”

Jax shrunk away, pleading with her to stop. She didn’t.

“You can’t even remember him most day? You just move on like that? God, you’re a TERRIBLE UNTRUSTWORTHY FRIEND.”

Jax woke up with a scream, shooting halfway out of his bed. His heart was racing, and he was hyperventilating.

He took a few deep breaths, calming himself down. It was just a dream, some dumb stupid dream. Jax couldn’t help but hug his pillow, wishing the tears in his eyes would go away.

-

After a few more days of chilling, Caine summoned everyone to the living room.

“IVE DONE IT! ITS COMPLETE! TONIGHT, YOU WILL GO ON THR GREATEST ADVENTURE YOU’VE EVER SEEN! HUNDREDS OF NEW AND OLD FACES! SUITS AND DRESSES! COOL SETS! AWARDS! ITS EVERYTHING YOU’VE DREAMED OF!”

Jax quickly chimed in- “why don’t you give us our dress clothes now? That way we can freshen up to be fully prepared for tonight?”

Caine beamed at him. “THAT IS A WONDERFUL IDEA JAX! HERE YOU GO!”

With a snap of his fingers the cast’s usual clothes were swapped for dress clothes. Ragatha now wore a fancy blue dress, Kinger had a bow tie and black robe, Gangle had a cute red dress, and Zooble had what appeared to be a suit and dress in one. Jax now wore a solid purple suit, with a purple vest and dark purple tie. Pomni wore a fancy blue suit, with a red tie, similar to her presidential suit, just less American and more fancy.

Jax looked at her, and she expected some kinda snarky comment, but he simply said,

“You look.. pretty.”

She tried not to blush as she responded
“Thanks. You look nice too.”

But she couldn’t help but to ask Caine- “hey Caine, why’d I get a suit instead of a dress? All the other girls got dresses, why didn’t I?

Caine quickly responded “ANONYMOUS SUGGESTION. IT SAID “suggestion for award show adventure, put Pomni in a suit she would look h-“

Jax threw a chair, smacking Caine’s lower jaw off. Caine quickly snapped his finger, before laughing it off and teleporting away.

Jax turned around silently, before running off to his room. Pomni had a suspicion who’d ask to see her in a suit.

While Jax was totally not the person who’d asked to see Pomni in a suit because he thought she looked hot as the president, the real reason he’d asked for their nice clothes early was so he could smuggle his revolver into the show. He honestly didn’t trust Caine to make a perfectly non-violent adventure, so he wanted to be prepared just in case. He didn’t wanna risk keeping it on him when Caine swapped their clothes and losing it, so he’d kept it in his room.

He quickly entered, grabbing the gun and a small pocket mirror off the shelf, tucking them into his vest pocket, before exiting the room.

Jax stepped into the hallway, and saw Zooble entering their room. He couldn’t help himself but to go bother them, so he walked up to their door and knocked on it.

“Oh zooby!! I think a slinky arm would look great with your tie! Or maybe a dinosaur arm!”

Zooble opened the door and glared at him.

“What, did Pomni finally let you off the leash?”

Jax was taken aback by the comment.

“W-what?”

“You heard me. What, you think nobody’s noticed how you follow everything that girl tells you to do? I didn’t realize you were capable of feeling anything.”

Jax scowled at her. “What did you say about me?”

“I said, it’s obvious you’re crushing on her. Hard. I wonder if she’s noticed, maybe I should let her know…”

Jax felt fury boiling inside of him.

“Don’t you dare! Well I’ve seen you ogling Gangle every chance you get, you’re not exactly subtle either.”

Zooble scoffed at him.

“At least Gangle cares about me just as much as I care about her. Why would Pomni care about you in the slightest? You’re a cruel, empathetic, d[BEEP], who isn’t even funny.”

Jax froze, unable to come up with a comeback. Zooble simply slammed their door shut in his face.

Jax stood there, red faced, and seriously p[BEEP]ed off. How dare she say that to him. Of course Pomni cared about him. Right? Doubt began creeping into his mind. Was Zooble right? Would Pomni really care about him the way he cared about her? Did she care about him at all? He looked around, trying to gather his thoughts.

That’s when he saw Ribbits door.

He hadn’t looked at it in months. He couldn’t bring himself to look at it. Not now. Jax simply walked away with his tail between his legs, still questioning if Pomni cared about him.

-

The cast all gathered in the living room late that night, an excited static in the air. Soon a massive portal appeared several yards away from them, and a limo pulled out.

The window rolled down to show Bubble was using his tongue to turn the steering wheel.

They call clambered in, with Jax holding the door Pomni, before slamming it shut with Gangle halfway through. Pomni looked at him with irritation.

“Jax knock it off.”

Jax sighed opened it, letting Gangle in the rest of the way. He shot a glance at a smirking Zooble, mouthing for them to shut it.

Bubble yelled something unintelligible before somehow stepping on the acceleration, doing a u-turn into the portal.

-

They pulled up to an absolutely massive auditorium building. Giant gold statues of Caine stood on both sides of the door, triumphant band music blared from an invisible source. It was surrounded by realistic trees, with a beautiful night sky above them.

They pulled up to the red carpet that lead inside, with mannequins with cameras lined on both sides of it. The cast got out one by one, most of them awkwardly shuffling by.

Jax and Pomni exited next, switching between various positions for the cameras. Jax figured that he might as well enjoy this, and Pomni liked to indulge in his antics.

They entered into a giant lobby, which had mannequins walking around, music playing from speakers, with a concession stand serving popcorn. Near the left bottom corner of the room was a bar, which Zooble immediately ran to.

Gangle started to follow them, but first asked “does a-nyone else wanna go get drinks?”

Jax remembered the humiliation he suffered the last time he got drunk, so he responded-

“Nah, I’m funnier sober. You guys can go get wasted or whatever.”

Pomni chose to stick with Jax, Kinger didn’t drink, and Ragatha didn’t wanna be an awkward third wheel, so they all opted to go to the main event.

They entered into the main theater. It looked like any classic giant stage, with red velvet seats lining the main floor, with three large balcony’s housing even more seats. Off to the side of the main stage sat a giant jazz band, explaining where all the music was coming from. There were thousands of mannequins, filling every seat except for two sectioned off areas. The mannequins were weirdly lively, all having their own conversations with each other.

The first was directly in front of the stage, with each seat being labeled
‘Reserved for Players’. The other sectioned off areas was reserved for various NPCS they had seen on there adventures.

Jax recognized most of them, but couldn’t remember any names. The most notable ones were disappearing guy, the gloink queen, the princess from that candy adventure (Jax forgot her name) and their evil counterparts.

“Oh my god, don’t tell me that submissive loser paper-jam version of me is making another appearance. Didn’t realize I’d left anything left after I ate him…”

Pomni laughed, “Hey your evil counterpart wasn’t that bad, at least he was nice. My copy was just plain mean.”

“Your evil twins humor was just too nuanced for you to understand Pompom.” Jax joked, after all he had found Evil Pomni entertaining.

Among the NPCs Jax noticed Gummigoo, that smug idiot. Pomni was in far too good a mood to ruin, so Jax quickly pulled them away, leading them towards their own seats.

Ragatha and Kinger were already sitting down, waiting for the show to start. Jax sat Pomni between him and the others, not wanting to interact with them.

After a few more minutes of waiting giant spotlights pointed directly at the stage, causing the audience to go quiet.

There was a puff of confetti directly in the middle of the stage, and Caine appeared, with a giant grin on his, grin? Teeth?

“HELLOOOOOOO EVERYONE!!! BOYS, GIRLS, ZOOBLES AND NPCS, WELCOME TO THE FIRST EVER AMAZING DIGITAL AWARD SHOW! AFTER THOUSANDS OF ADVENTURES AND TONS OF UNIQUE PLAYERS, IT ONLY FEELS RIGHT THAT WE CELEBRATE IT! EVERY MANNEQUIN IN THIS AUDIENCE HAS BEEN GIVEN A NEW 57 PERCENT RAISE OF SENTIENCE! THE PLAYERS WILL VOTE ON EVERY AWARD CATEGORY EXCEPT FOR BEST PLAYER, WHICH THE MANNEQUINS WILL VOTE ON! WE WILL START PASSING OUT BALLOTS SOON SO THAT YOU ALL CAN VOTE ON AWARS WINNERS!“

After his speech Caine vanished in another puff of confetti. The audience began to move about, some going to go get concessions while others waited for the ballot.

Jax had tuned out most of the speech except for the fact that one award was the “best player”. Jax thought he was clearly the most popular candidate, so he wanted it. Badly.

He turned over to Pomni, saying- “Not to discourage you, but I’m certain that the best player award is mine! I’m clearly the most talented, funny, and charismatic player that’s ever been in the circus!”

She laughed, and countered- “Jesters are clearly funnier than bunnies! Maybe you could win an award for cutest or best carrot eater, but I’m easily gonna win the best player!”

She called Jax cute? He begged that blush wasn’t visible on his face as he said- “You’re more of a clown than Jester, and I’m like 20% bunny, 80% tall nonchalant and funny. I could beat you in anything except a race, I’m just so fast I’d fall asleep halfway through!”

She laughed. “I guess you’re kinda funny, bunny.”

Pretty soon a paper ballot appeared in every seat. Jax opened it, causally glancing at the categories. Favorite player, favorite NPC, favorite Adventure, best location, favorite abstracted player…

Jax quickly glanced back at this category, heart racing. He forced himself to read the possible candidates.

Kaufmo.. Queenie… Ribbit….

Jax got up, feeling lightheaded. Pomni looked over at him with a worried expression, so he quickly muttered a “I’m fine!” Before rushing off.

Jax didn’t know where he was even headed, he just needed space.

It angered him how badly just seeing his name made him react. He ran through the hallway, noticing that Zooble and Gangle were already done drinking, heading towards the auditorium.

Jax really didn’t wanna repeat his last drunk night, but alcohol would probably help him to not think about Ribbit, so he headed towards the bar.

When he arrived he found both his and Pomni’s evil counterparts sitting at the bar. Evil Jax wasn’t drinking, but he was still hanging with Evil Pomni. Jax quickly decided a better solution to his problems would be to take it out on his wet-towel duplicate, so he ran up and grabbed him by the throat.

“Hey you! I’m pretty sure I told you to die! I can’t have you running around ruining my reputation as the funny guy by acting like a complete p[BEEP] while wearing my face! I’m gonna enjoy smashing your head into a pink smear. You stupid rip off, you aren’t even funny. But why would you be, you’re just the opposite of me!”

Jax slammed his twin to the ground, grabbing a bottle and smashing it into a sharp weapon. He approached the coward with a sickening grin before his twin muttered-

“I’m not the opposite of you.”

Jax stopped, looking at him with a turned head. “Huh?”

Evil Jax looked at him before sheepishly explaining-

“Well um, im not the opposite of you. Caine just programmed us to be the most hidden negative emotions of our player. Evil Pomni is just all of the real Pomni’s most hidden negative feelings. And I’m-“

Jax kicked his counterpart in the head mid sentence. “Seriously? You really think that deep down I’m some cowardly little freak? Oh and what, is Kinger secretly a Nazi or something? You’re full of it, and I’m gonna make you pay!”

Jax reared back his homemade weapon, but as he brought it down another hand shot out and twisted his arm painfully enough that Jax dropped it.

He looked over to see Pomni’s evil twin smiling at him. “That twink is mine to hurt, not your chew toy. Go find another one bunny boy.” She follows this up by shoving Jax away with a laugh.

Jax simply stormed off, feeling even more mad. His clone was obviously lying, Jax knew himself well enough to know that he WAS NOT that big of a coward deep down, in any way shape or form.

Without the distraction of violence Ribbit returned to Jax’s mind, clouding his thoughts. Out of places to go Jax walked into the bathroom, turning on a faucet and splashing water onto his face.

Tonight was supposed to be fun, yet here Jax was hiding in a restroom. He sighed, looking at himself in the mirror.

He never hated his avatar, compared to Zooble or Gangle it was great, but sometimes it made him feel like too much of a joke. He was supposed to make jokes, not be one.

Jax watched in the mirror as Kinger walked into the bathroom. Kinger gently shut the door behind him, before he randomly flipped off the light switch, leaving the room only illuminated by a small light in the adjacent wall.

Jax looked at him with confusion, wondering why Kinger plunged them into darkness. Kinger spoke up before Jax could ask-

“Your tail is back.”

Jax looked at him even more confused, before straining his neck to look at his back. Sure enough, a small purple dot was right where his tail was supposed to be. Jax didn’t even know it was missing until Pomni had pointed it out, so he definitely hadn’t noticed its return.

“W-what? When’d that get there?”

Kinger responded with surprising clarity to Jax’s question.

“It’s been back for about two weeks. You tend to not notice the little things Jax.”

Jax felt his confusion shifting towards anger. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means exactly what I said. You don’t tend to notice the little details. I do. Like how I’ve noticed how much you’re hurting. I’ve noticed Pomni being there for you, but I haven’t had the chance to reach out to you.”

Jax did not like being read like that, so he quickly changed the subject.

“Why’d you turn off the lights? You a gremlin or somethin?”

Kinger let out a small chuckle, before responding-

“Darkness helps me think clearly. Being in it helps me to remember everything, like how I wanted to have this talk with you.”

Kinger continued- “Jax, everyone in here has been hurt by you, which I’m disappointed in you for. But I can see that your hurting to, because of Ribbit. Pomni isn’t the only one who’d be willing to provide you comfort, we’d all be there if you asked. But you don’t, you push everyone away. Out of fear that you mask as confidence. I’ve also been afraid. I was so afraid after Queenie abstracted, I felt so alone. I didn’t know how to reach out to others. That’s when Ragatha showed up. She reached out to me, and that’s all it took to help me. Humans are creatures that strive on connection, it’s what makes us so strong. You pushed everyone away, and you’ve became so bitter, so angry. But you’re started to talk with Pomni. You’ve saved her, you comforted her, you’ve shown that you care. Pomni is just as willing to help you, if you’d just let her. But if you don’t wanna to reach out to her, you can reach out to me. Or Ragatha. You’re not alone Jax, we all care about you. And I think you care about us. Please, don’t isolate yourself anymore.”

Jax stood there, silent. He had no comeback, no sadness no anger no joy.

Kinger offered out a hand to Jax, a simple comforting gesture.

Jax stared at the hand. He could take it, he could open up. Maybe then all these thoughts of Ribbit wouldn’t eat him alive every night. But what if Kinger abstracted next? What if Gangle, what if Pomni…..

Jax slapped the hand down, finally deciding to respond with rage.

“Who the f[BEEP] do you think you are old man? You think you know me? You think I’m some lost abandoned puppy who needs an owner? You think I push people away out of fear? I push them away because IM BETTER THAN THEM! You are all WEAK! You’ve become complacent with this hell we’re trapped in, while I’ve began to THRIVE! IM THE ONLY ONE WHO UNDERSTANDS THEIR ROLE IN THIS CIRCUS! I CHOOSE TO HURT YOU GUYS, BECAUSE YOU’VE BECOME JUST AS STUPID AS CAINES NPCS! YOU ARE WRONG, I DON’T CARE ABOUT ANY OF YOU!”

Jax’s chest heaved as he caught his breath. Now he was genuinely p[BEEP]ed. Who did Kinger think he was? Some guardian angel? No, he’s just some crazy delusional-

“What about Pomni?”

Kingers question silenced Jax’s thoughts. Jax looked at him with an unreadable expression.

After a long silence, Jax walked over to the other side of the room and flipped the lights back on, before walking out the door.

-

Jax was now 0-3 on wins tonight, and he really really needed an easy pick-me-up. Luckily he saw Gangle and Ragatha talking in the halls.

Without saying anything he walked up and swung a punch directly at Gangle. He didn’t do anything clever or creative, he simply shatter the mask directly off her face. His hand hurt, but it was worth it to see Gangle tearing up in pain and sadness.

Ragatha glared at him, before saying-“Geez, and I thought Pomni was making progress with you…”

The comment raised alarms in Jax’s head. “Wait what, what do you mean by that?”

Ragatha awkwardly answered- “Well I thought Pomni was trying to each out to you, sorta like how I reach out to everyone.”

That final sentence hit Jax like a punch to the gut. ‘Like how I reach out’, like how Ragatha the faker does? Jax knew in his heart Ragatha only reached out to others to make herself feel better. And that’s what Pomni was doing with him?

Jax slowly began laughing, before his laugh slowly raised into a screaming cry of deranged laughter. Without saying anything else, he reached into the vest of his pocket and pulled out the revolver.

Ragatha gasped, unable to react as Jax pointed it at her. A loud BLAM rang through the hallway as Jax fired a bullet straight into her chest. It tore straight through her, blasting stuffing everywhere.

Jax ran off cackling like a madman. He ran into the main auditorium, racing towards the player seats. He had missed most of the awards, but he didn’t care anymore. He saw Pomni sitting in her seat, watching him as he bolted up to her.

Before she could open her mouth Jax began screaming at her.

“I AM NOT A F[BEEP]ING SIDE QUEST FOR YOU! YOU THOUGHT YOU COULD FIX ME, LIKE A PUZZLE? OR DO YOU JUST HATE YOURSELF SO MUCH THAT YOU NEEDED SOMETHING TO MAKE YOURSELF FEEL BETTER?? WHATEVER IT IS, I DON’T CARE! I REALIZE NOW, I NEVER MATTERED TO YOU, I WAS JUST SOMETHING TO GET YOUR MIND OFF THINGS, WASN’T I? YOU DON’T CARE ABOUT ME? WELL GUESS WHAT, I DON’T CARE ABOUT YOU!!! IM DONE BEING YOUR PITY PROJECT!”

Pomni didn’t say anything as Jax exploded on her. Jax didn’t even notice Caine slowly floating towards him, the entire audience watching his outburst.

“UM JAX? ARE YOU OK?”

Jax slowly turned towards the floating dentures. Without saying anything he pointed the gun at him and fired it.

Another BANG echoed throughout the audience. Caine’s left eye exploded from the bullet.

Jax began laughing out loud again, before bolting back out the room. Pomni and Caine quickly ran behind, calling for him to come back.

He didn’t wait as he ran past Kinger Gangle and Ragatha as he charged back into the bathroom, locking the door behind him.

Ignoring the banging on the other side of it, Jax reached into his pocket and pulled out the small mirror he had packed.

This was one of his favorite glitched items. The pocket mirror had glitched and would show a random mirror throughout all of the circus every time it was opened, and if he pressed it against a larger mirror, the larger mirror would also show the random mirror, and would let him step through it. Basically, little mirror show random mirror, if little mirror touching big mirror it becomes portal to the random mirror.

He quickly shut and opened the mirror, before he finally spotted a mirror that simply showed white with three dots on it. He pressed the pocket mirror against the mirror in the bathroom, and it changed to show the same reflection.

He quickly stepped through, pushing off a white tarp that covered the mirror hidden in his room. He’d put three dots on the inside of it so he’d know it led to his room. After stepping through, he pulled the little mirror through, and removed it from the surface of the mirror in his room, turning it back into a normal mirror. He swung his fists at the mirror in his room, smashing his stupid reflection to bits.

His room was completely quiet outside of his laughing, which slowly transitioned into crying.

-

The rest of the cast sat back down in their seats. They had broken into the bathroom and found it completely empty. Caine slowly floating back on stage, before uncharacteristically quietly saying-

“And the winner of the favorite player award is… Jax. By six more votes than Pomni.”

The NPCs clapped.

players sat in complete silence.

Chapter Text

Pomni didn’t even bother grabbing a piece of bacon this morning, she wasn’t hungry, so she simply went to the living room to meet up with the others.

They hadn’t had an adventure since the award show, but they were all still in the habit of meeting up there anyways.

It had been a week, and Caine still hadn’t made any appearances since he was shot, which was a bit worrying. But they’d still received spawned in good everyday, so he must have still be around someway.

Jax hadn’t left his room once. Pomni spent the first two days constantly knocking on his door, desperately trying to lure him out, but he didn’t budge.

Pomni was worried sick, she didn’t want to think about what would happen if Jax’s mental state went overboard. She couldn’t bear to lose a friend…

The cast met up in the living room, sitting in silence, with no real topics to talk about. Zooble tried to make some small talk with Gangle, but it didn’t really go anywhere.

Eventually everyone went there separate ways, with Pomni choosing to go outside. She exited the tent, walking over to the fence surrounding half of the lake. She sat by the shore, looking at the peaceful water.

She couldn’t help but cry a little, she really missed Jax. She had been worried about his sporadic behavior, but she didn’t do anything to help him. She should have, maybe she could have prevented his nervous breakdown. She couldn’t help but feel personally guilty. Pomni knew that she was the only person he trusted, yet she hadn’t tried to help till it was too late.

She didn’t know what to do next, she was so afraid that he was going to abstract. She didn’t think he had yet, otherwise he would have already broken down his door and rampaged through the circus, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going too.

She needed to get into his room, any way possible. With this new goal in mind, she wiped away her tears and marched back into the circus.

-

She now stood in front of his door, with her supplies in hand. She had raided the kitchen for a few cans of Pam spray, a roll of paper towels, and a butane torch. She took the paper towels, and rolled several into thin lines. She tied the lines together, and then tied four more to one end. She quickly opened 4 of the cans and placed the four new ends into each can, before closing them. She took the cans and tied them together with her remaining paper towels. She finally laid her creation on top of Jax’s door knob.

She’d known from personal experience that Pam was flammable, so she’d taken several and added what was essentially a fuse to them, hoping to blow off Jax’s door knob entirely.

She took the butane torch and lit the other side of the paper towel fuse. She watched as the flames traveled up the rope, before the fire separated onto the four other ropes, going into the bottles.

BOOM!

a comedic explosion blasted through the hall, knocking her down. She sat up, spitting ash out of her mouth. She eagerly ran up to the door, checking to she her results.

Much to her disappointment, the door (while now blacked with ash) was undamaged. She knocked angrily for a few more minutes, before giving up and storming away.

She started brainstorming of any other way to get into his room. She knew Jax had a bunch of keys to other rooms, where’d he get those? She thought about who else was most likely to know about where she could find some other keys. Only one person came to mind.

-

She gently knocked on the pillow in front of Kingers pillow fort, questioning if he’d even be able to hear it. Despite this, the pillow was quickly opened, with Kinger popping his head outside.

“Oh, hello Pomni! How are you?”

“I’m uh, fine I guess. I was wondering if I could ask you something?”

“Oh sure Pomni! Need any love advice? Cooking recipes? Python scripting knowledge?”

“Um, no. I was just wondering, do you know how to get keys to other people’s rooms? I know Jax has a bunch, and I sorta want one.”

“Well whose room do you wanna open?”

“Jax’s.”

Kinger reached into his fort, digging around for a few moments, before pulling out a pencil. He gently squeezed the pencil with both hands, fully engulfing it. Once he opened his hands, the pencil was now a small purple key.

“How did you do that?!”

“You wanted a key, and I wanted to give you one!”

Pomni chose not to question Kingers reality bending, as she really needed to get to Jax. She took the key and said thank you, before rushing off to Jax’s room.

She cautiously put the key up to his door, before inserting any turning it. His door swung open, allowing her entry.

She stepped in, finally seeing Jax.

He was lying on his bed, still in his award show suit minus the blazer, and currently had his back to her. She walked over to him, forcing him to roll over.

His eyes were tired, with lines under them. His ears were fully drooping down, and his smile was gone.

Pomni looked into his eyes, thinking about all of the experiences she’d had with him. The pranks, the anger, the laughter, the joy, the bubbly feeling in her stomach. She carefully thought over all her memories of Jax, want to express exactly how she felt without upsetting him. After thinking, she simply said;

“Jax, I care about you.”

He scoffed, lifting a up a fake smile, but Pomni’s grabbed his head to silence him.

“This is serious. I CARE ABOUT YOU, JAX! If I didn’t, I wouldn’t hang out with you, and you know that. Jax, I know you’re hurting because of something that happened with someone you’ve lost. I won’t let you shut me out this time.”

Jax tried to laugh this off, but he couldn’t help the tears running down his face. He couldn’t believe he was crying. He willed them to stop, but they wouldn’t.

“Jax, you have brought me so much joy and happiness since we’ve started talking, and I can’t imagine going on in this stupid circus without you. I need you. And I want to help you, I want to support you. But i can’t do that if you won’t let me in. Please Jax, I can’t lose you. You mean so much to me.”

Jax tried to laugh, but his voice cracked, and streams of tears began flowing from his eyes. His smile finally faltered, falling away from his face. He felt so awful, so weak. He felt worse than he’d ever had, like someone had torn a hole in his chest. He felt like he was going to abstract. But he didn’t. Pomni gently pulled him in closer, silently embracing him.

She held him, as he cried and cried into her. Jax couldn’t tell how long he’d been crying, but it felt like hours. Pomni eventually climbed into the bed, continuing to hold him. He cried till his throat was sore, and his eyes were so full of tears he couldn’t see. She simply held him, gently rubbing his back, never letting him go.

Eventually his tears ran out, and he was able to calm himself. He knew she’d won at this point, he had lost. He sighed and gently moved his head up to look at her.

“…”

“Yes Jax?”

“I-I, I lost, my friend Ribbit. He was my best friend. We um, arrived within days of each other. He was really cool, really fun. He was really close with everyone too, especially Ragatha. I’m pretty sure they had a secret relationship but that’s beside the point. We would hang out together for hours, he made every one of Caine’s adventures fun. Ribbit was actually the one to come up with the archetype theory, as a way to really get immersed with the adventures. He’d come up with the idea of me being the funny one who pulls pranks and breaks the fourth wall. But everything changed during an adventure. Ribbit died. It happens to everyone eventually, but he got it especially worse because it was in a game where we could feel pain. But that wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was that, I… failed him. I could have saved him, but I was in my “funny guy” archetype, so I just let it happen. I thought there couldn’t be any harm. But it harmed his trust in me. After the adventure he didn’t trust me anymore. He was scarred by his first death, it made him grow distant from everyone. It made him realize this circus wasn’t just a game, it was real. And that scared him. And thanks to me he didn’t trust anyone anymore, not even Ragatha. He… couldn’t come to anyone for help. He… wasn’t healthy after that, and not too much longer he slipped up, I failed again, and he died again. This time when me and Ragatha went to his door after the adventure, he didn’t come out. A monster did. A monster I could have prevented. I didn’t go to his funeral. Ragatha never blamed me out loud, but I think she blamed me. Everyone did I think. I did the only thing I could think of to carry on his legacy, I kept playing the part he’d imagined for me, the funny one.”

Jax looked back down, in shame. Pomni was gonna blame him, wasn’t she? It was his fault after all, why would she wanna associate with a killer? He’d killed Ribbit, he was a monster-

“It wasn’t your fault.”

That’s all Pomni said. She didn’t try to over-explain, she just told him how it was.

Jax couldn’t help the new wave of tears that rolled in. He felt like his heart had been torn out. But the heart that had been torn out hadn’t been working, holding him back like dead weight. He felt pain, but lighter.

“I trust you Jax.”

These final words from Pomni turned Jax into a complete crying mess. He felt so vindicated to hear that. That someone trusted him. That Pomni did. Despite everything.

Pomni continued to hold Jax, until eventually he cried himself to sleep, and she soon followed.

-

Ragatha grabbed a fresh piece of bacon before following Zooble over to the couch to see if Caine would return today. She doubted that he would, so she passed the free time talking with Kinger.

After a few minutes Caine appeared, startling everyone. His missing eye was now replaced with a Volleyball with an eye drawn on it.

he waited for the cast to calm down before loudly announcing“HELLO MY ROAMING REINDEERS! I HAVE RETURNED! I WAS A BIT SADDENED BY JAX SHOOTING ME, SO I NEEDED SOME TIME TO MYSELF. NOW THAT IM BACK, ADVENTURES WILL RETURN TODAY! WHOS READY TO ADVENTURE THROUGH 1940s GERMANY A- WHY ARE THERE ONLY FOUR OF YOU PRESENT?!”
Ragatha glanced around, realizing that Jax and Pomni were not present. Caine shouted “ILL JUST TELEPORT THEM OVER AGAIN, INDIVIDUALLY” and with a snap of his fingers, they both simultaneously appeared on the empty couch.

They were once again completely cuddled up next to each other, fast asleep. Pomni had both arms wrapped tightly around Jax’s head, while he leaned his face into her.

Ragatha gently nudged Pomni’s foot, which caused her to sleepily look up. She looked around, before gently tapping Jax.

He slowly looked up, realizing the situation.

Instead of screaming or jumping away, he blushed brightly, before laying back down, where he pulled himself closer to Pomni, and muttered,

“Five more minutes, Pomni. I don’t want to let you go.”