Chapter Text
Gangle kicked her legs back and forth anxiously, dangling them over the edge of a plush plastic table. It reminded her of the many doctor’s offices she had been in and out of for a good portion of her life. She couldn’t explain why but that was the one thing that had stuck with her in this confusing reality. She couldn’t remember her real name, but she could still smell that awful sterile smell of pine scented cleaning supplies and rubbing alcohol. The comparison was almost one to one, the exception being the walls, adorned with posters of Caine in a doctor"s outfit delivering basic health advice, instead of informative charts and diagrams. “Caine says: wash your hands!” one read. “Caine says: watch your step!” said another. Looming behind her was the largest of the posters, a quite ominous picture of Caine holding a finger to his teeth stating: “Caine says: Don’t think about it!” Gangle could only guess what ‘it’ was referring to.
One of her ribbons bounced off the hollow table support, shaking her off that train of thought. She felt quite mopey, a side effect of her missing mask. Every emotion or thought that went through Gangle"s head ran like a filter through her faceplates, coloring them to the corresponding emotion she felt.
She wasn’t sure if this conjured doctors office was a preset template that Caine had laying around in waiting, or if he had created it exclusively for her current predicament. Either answer raised some peculiar questions. As if on cue, Caine popped into existence before her, adorned with the white doctor"s coat that each of his poster incarnations flaunted.
“GANGLE! Apologies, I had to make sure the others were properly distracted so that I could put my full attention on you!”
He slid in beside her, almost knocking her off the table with his enthusiasm.
“Now what seems to be the problem!”
He instantly conjured a clipboard from some invisible back pocket, flipping through the illegible papers that Gangle was sure read nothing legible. She could"ve sworn one of them just said ‘LOREM IPSUM’ in 7 point font repeatedly over the length of a page.
“Ah yes! Your mask!” Caine exclaimed, deriving the nature of her damage from a full page ascii picture of himself. “How horrible!”
Tossing the clipboard carelessly, he eagerly straightened his tie in preparation.
“No matter, I have certification from at least three online clinics! Let me take a good look at it…”
He gripped the top and bottom of her mask firmly as he stared intensely at the hairline crack on her forehead. His gaze bore into her, she shivered slightly as if he was seeing right through her, into the 1’s and 0’s that comprised her being.
“I see…” he finally said after a minute.
His gloved hands released their grip on her, letting her face wobble back and forth on its supporting ribbon as she stabilized herself.
“Well I’m going to be completely honest, I have no idea why that crack is there! Congratulations, you’ve stumped me!”
A pathetic burst of confetti shot out from one of his sleeves, slowly floating to the floor.
“I made extra sure this time to strengthen that second mask of yours but it is just not listening to me!”
“N-not listening to you? What does that mean?” Gangle stammered out.
Caine put his arm around her shoulder, shaking his teeth to and fro.
“Oh Gangle, if I tried to explain the intricacies of code to an… artist… then we’d be here all day and nothing would get done!”
He wrung his hands together with a surprisingly visible level of anxiety.
“The point being your body is behaving quite irregularly! Until this thing hopefully fixes itself I recommend a healthy dose of rest, relaxation, and complete and utter isolation!”
“Isolation!”
Gangle shook at the thought. If Jax’s repeated damage didn’t cause her to go mad, being locked up in this tiny room for hours on end absolutely would.
“That"s right, isolation! What a fun word! See? You’re already getting into the spirit of it!”
Caine looked down at his watch. He seemed quite eager to leave her there, whatever he had left for the other members of the circus in his wake must’ve been either very temporary and very unsupervised. Or at least as supervised as Bubble could manage. Either way his dismissive comments didn’t bode well for her.
“Wait!”
The Carnie suddenly froze, completely motionless. Without moving any of his limbs or features, his body slowly rotated perfectly on its x-axis until he was facing towards Gangle.
“Yes?”
“T-that"s it? J-just wait for further instructions?”
Gangle felt the volume in her voice rising uncontrollably, just barely tempered by her shaking head.
“Welllllll… I can’t just have you running around the circus and risk getting your mask broken again! Who knows what could happen! I don’t even know!”
“I can’t just stay in this room forever! I’ll- I’ll go crazy! What if I abstr-”
Caine zipped next to her, slapping a firm hand over her mouth.
“NONSENSE!” He declared. “That would be quite impossible! To the point you shouldn"t ever bring that word up again!”
His oversized eyeballs bored into her with an unblinking stare. After a beat Gangle finally nodded, seemingly satisfying him.
“Good! Look Gangle, as much as I’d hate to keep you locked away from everything, I"m worried about your code being… corrupted…”
Corrupted. Like Jax. She shivered at the thought. The rabbit had refused to let go of a memory he couldn’t handle, but Gangle hadn’t done anything worthy of self destruction. Yet here she was.
“It’s just not responding to me, and if that’s the case I can’t have you losing it like Jax around the others… or doing the other thing…”
It just wasn’t fair.
“I promise I"ll be very careful… just please don’t keep me here…”
Caine wrung his gloved hands tightly in indecision.
“I’ll miss out on your adventures…” She tried.
The ringmaster let his hands fall to his sides in defeat. Try as he might he couldn’t let someone miss out on the one thing he could do to help.
“Fine! You’ve twisted my arm enough! However… I have a compromise…”
_____________________________
Ragatha sighed with hopelessness as she pried yet another eel off of her leg. If this was Caine’s brilliant way of keeping them preoccupied, it was working.
“Stop jumping you &*%$#!@” Jax screamed off in the distance. From the shore she could still see him wading in the shallows, angrily thrashing against the water as he searched fruitlessly for the slimy pest that continued to bite at him.
“This is why I don’t go on Caine’s adventures…” Zooble grumbled beside her, substituting a missing arm with a bendable one.
Ragatha shrugged with a forced smile. “At least we’re out of the tent! Some fresh air never hurts.”
“I don’t know if this can really be classified as air.”
She didn’t know either. Thinking too deeply about any of the circus"s inner workings was an exercise in futility and frustration. Discovering how seemingly average things worked would always lead to finding unforgettable new features, akin to being stuck blinking manually after thinking about it. She had to unlearn holding her breath as a stress relief tool after discovering that it caused her hair to shoot straight up. For about a month Jax used that as a gauge to see how effective his torment was. Fun times. As much as she hated to admit it she was glad that the persistent rabbit focused most of his efforts on Gangle. She hated seeing the constant torment that the poor woman was subjected to, but deep down inside she was glad it wasn’t always her. She felt horrible to be thinking that way. She wasn’t a bad person, not really, it was just those days where Jax wouldn’t let up that she felt deep in her chest that she was going to explode. Ragatha hadn’t told anyone how close she felt some days to abstraction, it was scary to acknowledge even to herself. She could only imagine what Gangle was feeling inside.
“Hey… you okay?”
She turned to see Zooble staring straight at her with a concerned look in her disproportionately shaped eyes.
“Y-yeah of course!” Another fake grin plastered on her doll face. “Just worried about Gangle is all…”
Zooble seemed to accept that, leaning back as she nodded in agreement.
“Yeah me too. Caine’s been gone for a while, the whole eel thing definitely strikes me as a last minute distraction.”
Zooble nonchalantly leaned to the left as a thrown eel suddenly flew past her.
“Huh I missed.” A quite drenched Jax staggered out of the water looking quite exhausted for once. Lake water ran down his slick purple fur as he flopped down on the sand beside the two. He shook himself slightly, flinging water droplets on anything in his vicinity. Ragatha shrieked in annoyance, while the pile of shapes to her left just sighed absently.
“Jax!”
“Hey check your privilege Rags, I’m covered in fur, y’know how hard it is to get water out of this.”
He brushed the remaining water from his fur by hand and he fell on his back. From his spot, he could see where Pomni had fallen facedown on the shore after clawing her way out of the water and hadn’t moved from the spot. He wondered to himself if she had been thinking about the last time they had been there on the beach, when she was dangling over the edge of the void. By the way she wouldnt look at him straight he assumed so, everyone else had pretty much put the incident out of their minds by now, yet Pomni especially seemed to be keeping him at arm"s length, despite all assurances that his glitching couldn’t happen again. Not even Gangle was avoiding him as much, and he spent most of his waking hours tormenting her.
“Where’s crybaby anyhow? It shouldn’t be that hard to make her another mask, he’s done it hundreds of times.”
Zooble angled her isosceles head towards him with an accusatory glare.
“Are you not worried about her, like at all?”
He shrugged.
“I mean, he fixed it last time…”
“Yeah and it was your fault last time too.” She countered, crossing her mismatched arms.
Jax placed his hands behind his head, cushioning his head as he laid there nonchalantly.
“Caine said it himself, I wasn’t in control of myself, can’t put that blame on me for that one.”
“I know being an aloof @##&*!$ is kinda your way of coping, but you somehow find a way to make me think less of you every single day.”
Jax’s ears twitched unconsciously.
“What do you mean coping… I don’t-”
From her spot on the lakeside Pomni silently thanked God as the incessant bickering was suddenly interrupted by a certain loud pair of teeth reappearing above the group, his booming voice practically causing the grains of sand to bounce around them.
“Well done everyone! You’ve all survived the leering lachrymose Eels of the digital lake!”
Holding up a gloved hand, Caine firmly snapped his fingers. The muffled sounds of screaming bubbled up from the lake before quickly fading into silence. One by one the dissolving bodies of hundreds of cartoon eels floated up from the depths, coming to rest on the surface in front of the horrified onlookers. Jax was the exception as usual, rolling his eyes completely unfazed.
“Took long enough.”
Ragatha managed to swallow back her anxiety, mustering up enough strength to ask:
“H-how is Gangle, is she okay?”
The animated figure paused, scratching at the back of his head.
“Well…” He started. “Besides her appearance, there doesn"t seem to be any real serious damage!”
Ragatha breathed a sigh of relief alongside everyone else. She could have sworn she even saw the edges of Jax"s false smile curl up for a moment.
“ButIHaveNoIdeaHowToFixTheCrack-” He spat out at lightspeed. “Now onto the real adventure of the day-”
“Wait, you can’t fix it?” Ragatha interrupted. “What do you mean?”
Caine threw his head back with an annoyed sigh.
“I guess I have to explain it again instead of sending you all on my wacky awesome adventure i planned for you!”
He looked to the group, as if waiting for someone to interject and demand that they go ahead with his previous plans. When no one spoke up he let out another, more defeated sigh, and snapped his fingers. In a flash, a slightly disoriented Gangle appeared before them, now sporting a comical cartoon bandage and several layers of bubble wrap taped across her forehead. She wobbled slightly, still adjusting the weight difference.
“Sooooo I’m not entirely sure why but her tragedy mask won"t repair itself, most likely a little leftover data glitch from her last injury…”
Everyone turned to look at Jax in unison, much to his chagrin.
“Yeah yeah, stare all you want, see if it does anything…”
Caine continued, ignoring the annoyed rabbit.
“However, it"s nothing to worry about! The problem should correct itself in no time! I’ve gone ahead and given her another comedy mask, however, let"s all give our circus best and let Gangle have a little personal space while she recovers alright!”
A thin arm jabbed Jax sharply in the side.
“That means you.”
“I got it, Zooble.” The rabbit forced out through gritted teeth.
“Excellent!” The floating ai eagerly declared. “Now! The adventure I spent several days working on: The Handle Heights Heist!”
A portal appeared before the circus members. From what Gangle could see it appeared to be some kind of bank, with plenty of robbery equipment laid out in the open.
“Enjoy!”
One by one the group filed into the new world, taking special care not to get too close to Gangle as they passed her. Gangle bit her lip as she followed after them, dreading the fragile treatment she knew was coming. Zooble’s gaze never left Jax as he walked beside her, studying him for any signs of mischief in behind those yellow eyes, but his stare never left Ragatha in front of him. If he was planning anything, she couldn’t tell.
“I hope there aren’t any more eels in this one.”