Chapter Text
“Farewell, brave knights. Have fun executing that bandit fella!” The Princess of the Candy Kingdom fixedly beamed at the ragtag band of her ‘saviors’.
Pomni eyed the Princess, slightly unnerved. None of the circus members had even suggested the idea of killing Pomni’s new ex-bandit friend. The most that had been said was that Gummigoo was going with the ‘knights’ to be ‘judged by God’, as Ragatha had diplomatically explained to the Princess. Jax had kept relatively quiet outside of a few sarcastic remarks, but had not contradicted her, probably still sulking over the lack of violence today.
The princess’ voice and smile betrayed no sadistic glee, but Pomni assumed that her programming probably didn’t allow her to express such emotions. Visibly, anyway. “Yes,” Pomni said slowly. “That’s… what we’re doing.” The lie was transparent as glass.
Just behind Pomni, Gummigoo threw up two awkward thumbs up in a lackluster attempt to reinforce the idea. Pomni wondered how the Princess could believe it – he had no restraints, for one, and that wasn’t even considering the logic of the condemned gladly going to their death.
The haphazard ruse must have passed the Princess’ A.I., as she questioned nothing as they walked towards the return portal, cheerfully giving them all a farewell.
Almost in the clear, Pomni thought desperately. Just a few more steps…
A loud, deep boom came from the vicinity of the city gates. Everyone paused, looking back and amongst themselves in various states of confusion. Pomni froze, unable to even form a question to the others. She really didn’t need to, for whatever the source of that noise, it wasn’t good.
Pomni heard Ragatha chastise Jax once again, but she was too preoccupied to really focus on their words, straining to crane her neck to see what exactly it was. She silently cursed whatever algorithm made her incredibly short. Something massive was moving in the distance, laughing deeply, and it was enough to set her nerves on edge.
“Wait, you did what now?” the princess asked, all pretense of regality gone.
“Well, love to help you again sometime! Bye!” Jax sprinted to the portal and hopped through without a thought.
Finally, the cause of the commotion at the gates came into her view. A massive, dark brown mass with the consistency of slurry was steadily rising above the roofs and the treetops. Momentarily, Pomni was absolutely confused as to what it was, but it suddenly clicked.
So that was the fudge creature Ragatha had mentioned on the return trip. But how did it come back to life? The doppelganger syrup tanker had killed it; Pomni had been behind the wheel of said tanker.
The programming of the garishly colored mannequins finally appeared to have kicked in. While some fled, many others remained in place, screaming and gesturing at the tidal wave of doom advancing -slowly - towards them. The jawbreakers that served as the creature’s eyes swiveled wildly as it swooped its head down, like a gloopy heron, consuming anyone too close to it.
While Pomni had seen the Fudge’s model in the asset room, she had barely given it a passing notice, considering her priorities at the time. Her only on-map experience of it was wading through an ankle-high puddle. Now, seeing it in motion and scaled up to its true size, the Fudge, despite its understated name and design, was far more disturbing than Pomni could have imagined.
Ragatha overtook Pomni, turning around to face her. “Come on now, Pomni, let’s get out of here,” she said gently, with the air of one trying to distract a child from seeing a car wreck. “You don’t have to see this. The world’s going to reset once we get through the portal.”
Pomni didn’t respond, blinking bewilderingly at the ragdoll. Her second day in the digital plane had already been full of chaos and breaking people’s realities, and now apocalyptic destruction of an NPC civilization was being added to the list. Ragatha couldn’t understand her disillusionment – was this going to be a daily occurrence for the jester?
Out of horrified fascination, or a little spite, or maybe both, Pomni continued rubbernecking at the carnage before her. She wondered vaguely if any of those mannequin NPCs had the same A.I. program as Gummigoo. She hoped not.
Ragatha sighed and patted Pomni gently on the shoulder for her to follow her, and at last Pomni decided she had seen enough. She could hole herself up in her room just like the night before try to decompress and process just what she had gotten herself into. The only good thing to come out of the day, she reflected briefly, was meeting Gummigoo and bringing him back to the Tent. This had been his home too, sort of, so he had to feel something about all of…this. She’d ask him about it, when the time was right.
Shuffling after Ragatha, Pomni flinched as a fudge-stained mannequin limb flew overhead, splattering at the feet of the candy Princess, whatever her name was. The Princess was nervously backing away, her asymmetrically placed eyes darting from her hands to her surrounding environment, as if she had only realized where she was.
Looks like the Princess had gained her sentience, Pomni realized. Of course it was at the worst possible time. Pomni looked back at Gummigoo, who was eyeing the Princess pitifully.
He shot Pomni a knowing look, and momentarily, Pomni thought of calling out to the distressed Princess. Before she said anything, the Princess turned and ascended the castle stairs, breaking out into an undignified, panicked run. The portal’s hum grew louder in her ears, pushing away her half-baked idea.
Just a few steps more, and soon, she’ll be reset with everyone else, Pomni thought desperately. If she could be reset, it was a small mercy, really. It was already bad enough that Gummigoo’s life had been wrecked, and she was certain that this incident could be much worse. And, she reminded herself, would inviting the Princess really help her? Pomni had no connection to the royal in the same way that she did with the gummi crocodile.
One NPC was also enough, she figured. It was a small selfish thought that came with a bit of guilt. Two NPCs, no matter how real Pomni believed them to be, coming to the Circus might cause an upset. She had unsure how Caine felt about breaking his A.I. creations. Hopefully there wouldn’t be some sort of punishment for that once she returned.
“Hey, Gangle, what’s this over here?” Jax’s voice came through the portal, slightly distorted.
Gangle’s high-pitched shrieks warbled. “JAX! NO! GIVE THAT BACK!”
“Fine. Here,” he sighed.
A moment later, a purple arm came through the portal, seizing Ragatha and yanking her in with a yelp. Jax’s taunts were now mixed with Ragatha’s protestations about being manhandled. Pomni squinted at the portal’s shimmering metallic surface, trying to make out anything beyond it. Her pace slowed, anticipating some antic of Jax’s to come through at any moment.
Jax’s voice came through again. “But Gangle, I’ve got Ragatha right here, I’m sure she’d like to see-“
Rocketing through the portal, a blurry object struck Pomni square in the forehead, its force and heavy weight throwing her backwards onto the fuchsia paving stones. The orange-tinged teal sky and its bubble-shaped clouds fused into a motion-sickness inducing smear. The jester rolled onto her stomach to push herself off the ground, and to combat her nausea. But Pomni couldn’t summon the strength to do so, and so she lay there, trying to regain any of her senses.
If it had been reality, it slowly crossed her mind, the impact would’ve probably killed her. The ringing in her head mostly drowned out the screams of the candy citizens as all virtual hell broke loose, but she could sense the vibrations of them passing around and over her. She was vaguely aware that she needed to get up before she was trampled, but she just couldn’t move.
Suddenly she was hauled up through the haze back onto her feet and spun about, her vision now dominated by the blurry, concerned face of a green-yellow gummi crocodile.
“POMNI! Ya there!?” Gummigoo was gripping her shoulders tightly, his eyes hollowed into rings. “Say somethin’! Anything!”
“Um, I’m okay, I think,” her voice sounded distant. As her eyesight stabilized, her gaze fell upon an articulated heavy figurine with red yarn hair and a blue dress fashioned from a dish towel. It took her a moment, but she recognized it was a DIY Ragatha model.
However, Pomni’s attention was drawn to something far more important. The portal should have been right behind the unexplainable Ragatha figurine, but all she saw was the paving stones and foundation of the castle keep’s staircase.
“The portal’s gone,” she gasped weakly, “It’s GONE!”
Gummigoo’s head swiveled between her and the portal site. “It can just go without everyone!?”
“I don’t know!?” Her head was spinning from both her injury and her confused fright. “I didn’t think it’d leave without me…” She twisted about as one of the decorative arches tumbled to the street with a deep thud quite dissonant to its light, sugary appearance.
“Poms!” Her head turned back to Gummigoo, pain spiking as she reconcentrated. “We’ll need to hunker down and hope it comes back soon. Can ya walk?”
“I think so. I might be a bit slow.” She felt a metallic taste in her mouth, her tongue resistant to cooperate. “I don’t know where we should go.”
“That’s alright.” Gummigoo looked upwards. “The castle’s our best bet.” He pulled her to his right side, away her from the general direction of the increasingly frantic citizens, looping his arm about her. “Stay close and take it easy!”
Linked together, Gummigoo and Pomni pushed and hobbled their way through the crowd. The Fudge roared and taunted the kingdom behind them as it entered the square, and the sounds of the population’s despair only increased. Despite the keep’s sturdy appearance and its incredibly visible curving staircases, fleeing candy citizens passed inches from the stairs as if they were invisible.
Tottering up the stairs, Pomni figured hazily that either their code or an invisible boundary wall kept them from the terrace. Onceat the terrace level, Gummigoo partially tucked Pomni under his arm and scurried for the doors. As he shouldered the doors open, Pomni glanced upwards to the stained glass rose window of Caine, its colors darkened in the shadow of the keep, the sun setting behind the building.
“Please, please, get us out of here.” She desperately whispered to it. She hoped Caine heard her. He’d saved her once already, but the window continued observing the chaos indifferently.
Passing down a short corridor, Pomni found herself in a cavernous entrance hall. A decorative colonnade ran about the edges of the room. Behind it, the walls were studded with tall double doors fashioned from chocolate bars, and opaque windows lined the external walls. The room lacked the elaborate detail of the castle exterior, feeling more of an afterthought than anything else. In the center of the room, a wide staircase climbed up several tiered flights to another series of doors. The light from the rose window made a watercolor-esque Caine shaped pool upon the floor.
That confounded Pomni briefly, as there shouldn’t have been any direct sunlight pouring in at that angle. It must be an ambient setting that was always kept on regardless of time of day, as the interior existed in a separate loading space from the rest of the map. She could think of several RPGs that did that.
That, or Caine’s immersion only extended to his A.I. creations, not the environments.
At least her rational explanations were showing that the fuzziness in her head was slowly wearing off, and Pomni slipped out of Gummigoo’s hand, her head gingerly swiveling between all the options.
“Ya alright, Pomni?” Gummigoo asked, his eyebrow ridges worriedly furrowed. “That was a nasty hit ya took there…”
“I’m fine,” Pomni said, but Gummigoo knelt slightly, to get closer to her level. She tried to hold his concerned gaze but glanced downwards to the floor in slight embarrassment. And pain, definitely pain.
“Mate, your pupils look like one of Max’s attempts to tie a marshmallow rope. Ya want to sit for a tick?”
“No, I’m good,” Pomni shook her head gently, hoping that her eyes returned to normal, as much as pinwheel eyes could be considered normal. “They do that a lot, apparently.”
“Got it.” Gummigoo appeared unconvinced, but he sighed. “But if ya need a rest, let me know. It’s not the best situation to collapse in, is it?”
“Sure isn’t.” Pomni exhaled, relieved the matter was finished. “I’ll tell you if I don’t feel well.”
Slowly making their way towards the pool of colored light, Pomni’s eyes roved over the many options. “So, any idea where to go? With you being a bandit and all, you’ve had to have robbed the royals at some point? Even in your, um, fake memories?”
“Ya know, even with the fake memories, I’ve never been in here,” Gummigoo said, tipping his hat up to better view the hall. “It’s a bit more…confusing than I thought. These doors must lead somewhere. Which one should we try?”
A loud thud from outside echoed throughout the hall, and the anxiety managed to partially clear her brain. “Just…just pick any of them, one’s bound to go somewhere.”
Gummigoo peeled off to the right, grabbing one of the distant doors. “This one’s a dud!”
Pomni sprinted for a set of doors across from her. She tugged on the handle, but it didn’t move. “This won’t open too!” Seizing the handles of its neighbors gave the same result. She let out a frustrated shout, her head’s pounding flaring up. “Try another one!”
Gummigoo had already seized another set of handles. “This won’t budge either!”
The remaining doors also remained as immobile as the walls they were affixed to. “They’e all locked!” Pomni gasped. “Let’s try upstairs.” Pomni mentally panicked as they hurried to them. We’re gonna be trapped in here. She raced up them, taking two steps at a time towards what was probably a doomed effort.
“Spare yourselves the trouble,” a weak voice said behind them.
The duo froze and looked down towards one of the landings. Slumped against its balusters was the princess, her pastel pink skirts rumpled and pooled about her. “I’ve already tried all the doors, and they do not lead to anywhere. They never did.”
Pomni felt her stomach drop. “Do you know?”
“I do know now, brave knight.” The princess looked up at Pomni, despairingly searching her face…for something. “The moment that the Fudge returned, something in me...broke. He was never supposed to return, and then…then… it all came at once. I realized that everything here was already built. Not through centuries of hardship and tradition, but –”
“Coded?” Pomni suggested, her head dully throbbing as she thought about navigating this new development. She wasn’t exactly ready to explain the virtual concept again, under duress no less. Caine made this space exist for a reason. She could explain all this once they were secure.
“Princess, there’s gotta be a safe room for a boss battle or something, right? With supplies or weapons or healing items? We can hold out there until the others come back.”
The Princess’ asymmetrically placed eyes stared at Pomni as if she had spoken in a foreign language. “I…do not follow, dear knight. What I meant was that everything was built all at once, all for one purpose. The thought just appeared into my head, and I cannot shake it. It…must only be true. Why now did God choose to remove the veil from my eyes?”
She gazed at the rose window. “For years, I’ve been praying for our suffering to end. He answered me just once. Now in our darkest hour, he is silent, unless…this is His way of helping me? His plans for us are always enigmatic. Can you interpret His gift for me, knight? Maybe that is why you are still here?”
Unsure how to answer, Pomni’s head spun from her to Gummigoo, who looked just as unnerved as Pomni. “Listen, your highness,” she said, scrambling to remember the royal’s name. “Princess Loo, right?”
The princess nodded. “I’m surprised you remembered. But is that even really my name? After all, my palace is fake.” Removing her golden waffle-grid crown, Loolilalu turned it absently in her hands. “So are my people, their history and culture, so why not something as trivial as my name?”
“I’m sure your name is real,” Pomni said, but the words echoed unconvincingly in the hall. The hall resonated with the distant sounds of cannon fire and frantic bellringing. At least the city was fighting back now. Perhaps she had a little more time to work here.
“I can recall the aspects of rituals,” Loolilalu continued, “but not performing most of them. Same with governing. Nothing beyond yesterday is vivid – and it hurts to even remember that for too long.” She started to weep softly, “Am I being driven mad!?”
Pomni flapped her hands nervously, the staircase trembling slightly from something (she presumed the Fudge) out on the plaza. “No, no, no, you’re not mad. Let’s not think about this right now-“
“Poms, I’m not fond of her,” Gummigoo leaned towards Pomni, his voice low, “and I wouldn’t wish this on anyone, even her, ever,” He pitifully glanced towards the Princess, now rambling incoherently. Pomni began to speak, but he interrupted her. “I get that ya want to save her, but she’s not coming ‘round. We’ve got to keep moving.”
The room shuddered again, dust settling on their heads. Pomni sighed. “I understand, but she’s hurting like you did. I could’ve ditched you, but I didn’t. I need to try.”
Gummigoo was momentarily silent. Shoulders slumping, he exhaled gently. “Fair point mate, but we’re in a bit of life-or-limb situation here.”
“Give me just a minute,” Pomni said, “If I can’t get her moving, we’ll go.” Nodding, the gummi croc hurried upstairs, presumably to check the doors. Pomni turned back to Princess Loo, who was rocking slightly, her eyes a mess of pink distressed swirling.
“…imnotrealimnotrealimnotrealimnotreal…”
“Hey, um, Loo…?”
The princess looked up at her expectantly, her gloved hands still tightly clasping her crown. “Yes, knight?”
Pomni inhaled, hoping to clear her own mind of her fog. “You’re real, sort of. You’ve got a personality, feelings, all of that, but this…you’re not supposed to know that this is all fake. Your kingdom, the landscape, the very room we’re in. Caine, uh, God to you, I guess, made everything here, and when it’s done, everything just, uh, goes...”
Pomni trailed off, as Loolilalu’s pink pupils shrank into swirls again. The room was silent, punctured by the occasional faint sound from outside or Gummigoo’s attempts (and his censored cursing) to force open the doors upstairs.
“You and your people are NPCs.” Pomni said nervously, jumping as a thunderous crash came from outside. “You’re here to make the world more alive, I guess. Give us, uh, knights, something to interact with. I’m assuming Caine – God - reuses you all for other adventures.” Pomni realized that she really had no idea how Caine’s system truly worked. Perhaps everything she was saying was a lie.
“I… Wait.” Loolilalu shook her head out of her stupor. “God has no grand design, no ultimate purpose for us? Just temporary playthings for His followers?” Her eyes started watering again.
Pomni struggled to word a response that didn’t sound offensive or dismissive. Explaining the concept of an adventure had been difficult with Gummigoo, but he hadn’t had his entire existence built around adoring Caine as infallible and all-powerful. “I…guess? This world is all going to go away once we’ve left. Caine just…”
“This Caine you keep speaking of,” The princess’s tearful eyes narrowed. “This is who has been our patron deity since time began? We have prayed to Him for deliverance many times in vain. He must find it amusing, to create a world and then hurt His creations. How much about Him do you know?”
The palace shuddered again, even more dust drifting down from the ceiling.
This…wasn’t the direction that Pomni had anticipated. “I mean…”
“When the Fudge guardian turned on us, devouring my subjects despite my pleas, I prayed to God to restore the Fudge to his old self. Nothing happened. I had to take matters into my imperfect hands. I thought there was a reason for it. He was too busy, or it was a punishment for our lack of devotion. I see that I was wrong about everything.”
The Princess’ voice hardened. “There was no reason for it to have happened. Perhaps He caused it, a way to torture us for His enjoyment.”
“Pomni, that thing sounds like it’s pretty close now,” Gummigoo called out, dashing back down the stairs. “She was right about the doors...” he trailed off as he realized what the Princess was saying.
“When God finally sent me a vision of His champions that would soon arrive in our time of need, I felt relieved that my years of prayer and sacrifice finally were rewarded. He did care about us after all. And then the next day, a terrible theft befell the kingdom’s syrup supply.”
Gummigoo scoffed derisively, crossing his arms.
“When my scouts told me of your sudden appearance on the plains, I wept. That vision was proof that God had not deserted us. But that vision,” she said bitterly, “was part of His mockery all along. Our faith, our adoration, and our lives seem to be the subjects of a cruel, careless prank. Perhaps, in His eyes, we ARE nothing but that. Just obstacles and playthings.”
“Well, that makes two of us who’ve had this journey today,” Gummigoo bluntly muttered, but Pomni saw his expression soften. She crept closer to Princess Loo, who was gripping her crown so tightly that Pomni feared she’d snap it.
“He willed the guardian into the city to just hurt us one last time, didn’t He?”
“He’s not intentionally trying to hurt you, I’m sure,” Pomni said quickly, feeling both Loolilalu’s and Gummigoo’s eyes boring into her. “Caine just sends us on little adventures he creates to keep us all busy. He stays back at the circus, where we’re from. Jax's Fudge monster attack was something that Caine didn’t plan for, I think-”
“He did not foresee that happening, yet He created everything in this world? Perhaps you are wrong, and this was His intention after all.” The Princess glared at her. “Perhaps you are in on it.”
Pomni felt her digital blood running cold. She couldn’t even stammer back an argument.
“You know better than anyone else in this room! You and the other knights,” the venom in her voice was palpable, “are His trusted servants following His bidding while getting joy from it. It all makes sense now.” She laughed coldly.
Gummigoo and Pomni shared an uneasy look. The keep trembled ominously.
“I cannot believe I almost fell for your god’s tricks again!” she exclaimed, clapping a hand to her forehead. “My people are already suffering for my naivety. He is certainly quite the crafty one.”
“Did ya even listen to Pomni?” Gummigoo interjected.
“Planting horrible thoughts in my head to make me doubt, to break me,” she said, absolutely ignoring Gummigoo, “NPCs, programs, and codes, and all that, this Caine thinks he found a new way to torture me. But he miscalculated.”
Pomni stared blankly. It was going even poorly than she thought.
The Princess regarded the rose window coldly, its multi-colored light shimmering about the room. “If I freed myself of this god’s evil magic, I will free my people too.”
“Princess Loo,” Pomni said slowly. “Gummigoo also got his reality destroyed,” the jester said weakly, realizing that she was losing the princess further with every word she spoke, “and he’s coming back with me to the Circus. Perhaps, you’d like to come too?”
Princess Loolilalu turned to gaze icily at Gummigoo, recognition dawning on her face. “You…”
Well, that had backfired.
“I’m sure Caine wouldn’t mind having another NPC,” Pomni quickly added, hoping to redirect her attention from the ex-bandit. “There’s plenty of room in there. You’d be more than welcome, and I’m sure Caine…would answer…any, um, questions…”
Whatever faint hope Pomni had left of salvaging the situation was snuffed out as the Princess fixed Pomni with an intense stare that she didn’t think that her candy model was capable of.
“Heavens, if this is your best attempt to trick me again, why even bother? Even if I and my people were somehow not real, why would I join the being that created us to be tortured and slaughtered endlessly?” The Princess rose to her feet, glaring at them.
“ Playing along to bring lies and suffering to countless others, groveling thanks from being spared oblivion? And now….” She tilted her head disdainfully to Gummigoo, “you’ve invited the bandit that caused this crisis into your ranks. That speaks louder than any platitude.”
“But we’re not- you’re not listening!”
“I have listened enough.” The Princess replaced the crown upon her head with a decisive finality. “Too much, in fact.”
Gummigoo leaned towards Pomni. “Let’s just go now. We’ve done all that we can.”
Against her better judgement, Pomni took a step towards the princess. “Your highness,” the jester said. God, it felt so dumb playing along like this. How could Ragatha stand it? “Your people… They’re NPCs, they’re not real, they won’t get it–“
“Again you lie! They ARE real!” Loolilalu shouted, causing Pomni to jump. “A heartless servant like yourself cannot understand.”
“W-wait-wait,” Pomni sputtered, backing away from the approaching Princess. Her height, towering even over Gummigoo, made her sugary pastel form suddenly formidable in a way that Pomni hadn’t considered earlier.
“You and your dark god have no power over me anymore, and soon he will no longer have power anywhere here,” the Princess hissed. “I will purge the land of his presence, bringing his servants into the light. For the cruelties done upon them, my people cry out for justice. Unlike your Caine, I will not ignore them.”
She pulled out a cake knife from one of her skirt layers. Just like the ones stowed in the rig, it looked disconcertingly real against the sugary environment, its long blade glinting wickedly in the evening light. “Justice shall begin with you, Servant of Caine.”
Gummigoo stepped in front of Pomni, spreading his arms in a makeshift shield, slowly backing them both down the stairs. “Well, ya goin’ to have to give justice to me too, and we’ll be sure to wipe the floor with ya!”
He cocked his head slightly back to Pomni. “When she starts stabbing, run,” he whispered. “I can hold her off.”
Pomni slowly shook her head. “With what-?”
“No, I mean it, Poms. I dunno how badly she can hurt you here.”
Pomni wanted to argue that she’d probably be fine, but truthfully, she didn’t know. Did she have a health bar, or would injuries act like the real world? Could the NPC weapons even hurt her? She didn’t want to consider the possibility of what would happen to her if she’d ‘die’. Would she just respawn back at the Tent?
“Oh, how wonderful. It’s about time I get to execute one of you syrup bandits.” Grinning wildly, the Princess raised the knife and lunged down towards them.
The keep lurched, sending the three of them tumbling down to the stairs’ base. As they landed on the hall floor, the rose window of Caine exploded inward, showering them with glass fragments. Pomni flinched, expecting jagged shards, but they bounced off her harmlessly.
Sugar glass. She exhaled in relief.
What wasn’t so harmless looking was the oversized candy corn imbedded into the steps just above Loolilalu. The Princess momentarily gaped at it, but she recovered quickly, frantically scrambling on her hands and knees to find her cake knife amongst the debris. Gummigoo and Pomni scurried to their feet, looking for any place to hide in what was basically an empty box.
“If we split up and circle back,” Pomni exclaimed. “She can’t chase us both!”
“I think she just wants ya, Poms!” Gummigoo replied, as they dashed to the far side of the room.
“Get back here, demon!” Clutching her knife, the Princess had risen to her feet, but the room dimmed. Loolilalu froze, her eyes locked on something shifting just beyond the broken window. Like a liquid Angel of Death, the Fudge poured through the opening, streaming across the floor and up the walls, ultimately filling one side of the hall. Either the creature had gotten even larger, Pomni thought, or the enclosed space was messing with her sense of scale.
Once in the shadow of the colonnade, the duo peer around one pillar. It seemed the Fudge hadn’t noticed them, at least.
“Why hello, Princess,” the Fudge boomed, its candy corn studded maw salivating. “Nice to meet you again after all these years.” It barked out a laugh oozing with hunger and malice. “I’ve been saving my appetite especially for you.”
The Princess’ anger had been replaced with dread, but she kept gazing at the Fudge. “Guardian, I… I command you to step down in the righteous name of the Candy Canyon Kingdom. Return to your home in peace, and nothing will happen to you. In God’s name, I promise.”
A bit odd that she was keeping up the religious façade, Pomni thought, but maybe it would work on the Fudge.
Pomni felt a light tap on her shoulder. Gummigoo wordlessly pointed at the entrance corridor. They quietly skirted around the room, using the colonnade as cover. Luckily for them, the Fudge’s eyes were solely focused on the Princess.
“But Princess,” the Fudge purred, “if God really didn’t want me here, the Master of Unlocking Things wouldn’t have been sent by Him to free me.”
Taken aback by that new information, Pomni glanced at Loolilalu. Probably shaken herself, the Princess still held her ground, glaring into the Fudge’s eyes. “God, I’m afraid, made a mistake.”
She pointed the cake knife, now appearing pathetically small, back at the beast. It did not even react.
“S-stay back, if God cannot command you, obey me as my servant sworn to me and the kingdom.”
The Fudge’s laugh vibrated the castle walls. Now right next to the corridor, Gummigoo and Pomni bolted, hoping the Fudge did not spot them.
“Alright, then.” The Princess’ voice echoed slightly off the corridor walls. “No more mercy. I-I’ll kill you.”
The Fudge responded with a deep gurgling, either now too overwhelmed with feral emotions to respond, or it was just hungry, and then Pomni felt the air displace as it plunged. The Princess screamed – either in terror or defiance, Pomni was unsure – before the flood’s roar filled her ears. Splatters of boiling fudge shot past them, sticking to the floor and the walls, and appearing to eat slightly into the bricks. Behind them came the sounds of a torrent churning in the hall behind them, slapping wetly against the castle’s stonework.
“Faster, Pomni!” Gummigoo shouted.
“I’m trying!” the jester replied, panting. Despite Gummigoo’s stubby legs, his stride outpaced her own. A fudge ball soared past her and grazed Gummigoo’s left hand. He yelped in pain but didn’t slow down in the slightest. Fearfully she glanced back - the Fudge didn’t seem to be following them outside, focusing too much on devouring its royal meal.
They burst back through the doors into the evening light, their feet sticking slightly to the terrace pavers. Even the hot air, heavily scented with fudge, felt sticky. The plaza below was worse for wear, with pieces of half-consumed candy mannequins and rubble scattered about. Frightened citizens swarmed everywhere, but their number seemed diminished.
The Fudge had flung the war rig not too far from the terrace stairs. Its cab was crushed in, and its trailer had somehow caught fire, bright white smoke rising into the evening air. The doppelganger syrup tanker had vanished, presumably into the Fudge’s mouth.
Pomni gaped silently, a cold wave of shock hitting her. In their panic and her haze, they had forgotten about the rigs. Why had she forgotten about the rigs? She turned to exclaim something about them, but she froze when she saw her friend hunched over. “Gummigoo?” She peered around him.
Gummigoo was clutching his hand, panting rapidly. “Gummigoo, let me see it.”
He shook his head. “Ya don’t…”
“Please… let me see. I can handle it.”
Slowly, he uncurled his right hand, revealing that the two outermost fingers of his left hand were basically gone, now just bright yellow stubs.
“Oh God!” she exclaimed. Seizing his torso, she guided him closer to the stairs, letting the gummi croc lean on the chipped rail. Whatever basic medical knowledge she felt useless. How could she do any sort of first aid on candy? At least it wasn’t bleeding, she sighed. So, he wasn’t in imminent danger of bleeding out, and now that reality was beginning to set in again for her, Pomni wasn’t sure if she’d have the stomach to handle blood. Would he even bleed blood, or would be some syrup?
“It doesn’t hurt too much,” he said dismissively, before she could ask any questions. The wince he made when she touched it betrayed him. He gave her a reassuring smile. “Stings a bit, but I’ve had worse. Let’s go before that thing gets back out!” Candy adrenaline had to be keeping him going, Pomni presumed, as he barreled down the steps. She struggled to keep up.
“Where are we gonna go?” Pomni cried, skidding to a halt at the staircase’s foot. “The gatehouse’s the only one way out of here! The rigs are gone too!”
“That’s right,” Gummigoo said, gazing over the crowded plaza towards the ruined rig, his eyebrows furrowed. “The gate’s our one shot – if it’s closed, can ya climb, mate?”
Pomni shook her head. “I doubt it.”
“Well, there’s a first time for everything.” He began to move but stopped again when she didn’t move. “Pomni, we need to go now! There’s not much time!”
She gestured to the chaos unfurling down the plaza, and back at herself. “Are you crazy? I’m gonna get trampled! You can’t carry me with that arm,” Pomni said, knowing exactly what her friend was going to suggest. “What if I lose you?”
Gummigoo’s right, undamaged hand seized hers, intertwining his fingers his hers. “Hold on tight, mate,” he said. “I’ll clear the path through ‘em.”
Pomni gazed up at him doubtfully.
“Trust me. I won’t let go.”
She nodded, internally bracing herself – what else could she really do? Squaring himself up, Gummigoo shouldered his way into the throng of mannequins, Pomni just behind. Passing the remains of the war rig, Pomni briefly thought of stopping to check for any surviving weapons or supplies, but one look told her otherwise. The truck’s pancaked cab was pressing hard into the paving stones and was vibrating slightly with the telltale signs and sounds of an object collision glitch. Gummigoo must’ve noticed too, as he gave the rig a wide berth.
The crowd was denser now that they were on the main boulevard. Pomni had to twist and pivot to avoid running into people, but she couldn’t avoid everyone. One mannequin collided with her, falling to the pavement with a loud yelp. Apologizing profusely, Pomni turned her head back, to see if they were alright –
“Don’t look back and stay close, Pomni!” Gummigoo shouted, feeling her slowing down. “Just keep your eyes on me!”
They’re just NPCs, Pomni repeated in her mind, trying to disassociate. They’ll get better. Her conscience decided to give her mind a retort. Then what makes Gummigoo special? He’s no different.
Attempting to push that question away, Pomni’s eyes tunnel visioned at the back of Gummigoo’s head as they wove and crashed through the crowd, stepping over rubble and mangled candy figures, and splashing through cooled fudge puddles. They turned left to the wide entrance plaza, still being jostled by the crowd.
“We’re almost there!” she exclaimed. Frozen in place by fudge remnants, the drawbridge hung partly open at a steep angle, a tantalizing glimpse of escape. Some NPCs had the same idea – they were trying to claw their way up and out, with no success. Pomni wondered if Gummigoo could climb with his injured hand. If the mannequins were failing, he’d most likely too. She hoped she didn’t have to leave him behind, assuming that she’d even be able to scale anything with her noodle arms.
As they entered the plaza, the ground bucked with a thunderous roar. Turning her head, Pomni could see the castle keep had disintegrated, its remains showering down around the monstrous form of the Fudge, now dwarfing most of the kingdom’s towers and spires. The Fudge’s jawbreaker eyes swiveled in every direction, overwhelmed by the bounty of prey.
Without saying anything, Gummigoo and Pomni sprinted towards the gates, the crowd closing in around them. With a loud boom, a nearby waffle cone tower fired a salvo. Its peppermint ball ammunition took out a pathetically small portion of the creature’s side. The Fudge roared angrily, its eyes pulsating rings of violent color.
As Gummigoo and Pomni pushed their way across the crowded plaza, a faint breeze blew into their faces, coming from the gatehouse portal, and steadily increased. With a final gust of air and a sound akin to water backing up a drain, a surge of liquid fudge rushed through and over the gatehouse. The sugary tsunami engulfed all of the desperate mannequins at the gate in a single swoop and surged deeper into the square, rising almost to the second floor of the buildings.
“It’s summoning more from the moat!” A nearby mannequin screamed, the crowd turning and fleeing the way it came. As Gummigoo doubled back too, Pomni was baffled by this world’s logic. The idea of having a moat full of what comprised a kingdom’s enemy seemed poor defense planning, but she had more pressing concerns.
The moat fudge was fanning out as it went, steam rising off it. While the flood was now not much higher than the mannequins’ calves, any unfortunates caught in it shrieked in agony as the boiling fudge melted their legs. Flailing about and sometimes clutching each other, either out of fear or self-preservation, the mannequins toppled into the liquid, their writhing and screaming ceasing almost as soon as it began.
“What the [%$!#], Caine!?” Pomni hissed to herself, turning her head away in horror. Probably sensing her distress, Gummigoo said something, but she didn’t catch it over the pounding of blood in her ears and the commotion of the massacre behind them. Watching him nervously, she could see his breathing becoming rather labored. She assumed she’d be fine if the torrent caught up to her, but him? She’d prefer not watching her friend melt before her eyes.
Pomni didn’t have to worry about that unpleasant scenario for long. The moat fudge curved like a scythe, turning towards the castle square, surging down the side streets and through buildings, and the offending watchtower, so at least they weren’t going to be trapped and boiled.
But the Kingdom’s NPCs, however, were a different story.
Upon seeing the newest terror to strike the city, the mob scrambled to find any safety, their pathfinding now completely erratic. They forcefully barreled into Pomni, stepped on her feet, shoved her head with their hard M&M enamel coatings. She yelped with each collision, and each time felt her fingers slide slowly out of Gummigoo’s.
“Gummigo-ow! I can’t keep up- ow!”
With a final hit, Pomni was yanked out of Gummigoo’s grasp, staggering sideways, but her hands struck an NPC’s torso. She blindly clawed up it, and then another, and another, ignoring their protests and attempts to fight her off, and soon she found herself upright again, pushed along by the stampede. If she resisted them, she knew would be trampled by the NPCs. She didn’t want to experience that, or possibly be killed by it. And if she didn’t die from that, she rather not be incapacitated, vulnerable to the Fudge flood or whatever horror it conjured next.
“GUMMIGOO!” she screamed into the crowd. “HELP ME!”
“POMNI!” She could barely see Gummigoo’s hat bobbing about, as he fought his way back towards her, clawing and shoving mannequins in his path, but another two or three pressed into the void he created. Like a swimmer caught in a riptide, Gummigoo too was being carried off by the mob towards another street. She could see his arm frantically waving amongst the multi-colored crowd. “FIND SHELTER! I’LL FIND YA – I PROMISE!” Soon Gummigoo was swept out of sight, deeper into the city.
Herded along the crammed side-streets, calling out for her friend, Pomni saw no obvious cross streets. She realized with a horrified jolt that she had no idea how the Candy Canyon Kingdom was arranged. Caine never gave them a map of the city or even the kingdom. And where exactly was he? With increasing dread, Pomni grasped that her survival in the doomed kingdom was now solely on her.
>>o<< >>o<< >>o<< >>o<< >>o<< >>o<< >>o<< >>o<< >>o<<
“Welcome back, my little hard-shelled hamburgers!” exclaimed Caine, hovering above the returning circus members as they meandered into the center of the Tent. Ragatha and Gangle hovered near each other, upset by the day’s rather unpleasant conclusion. Kinger had long retreated into his own mind again, and Jax was unphased as usual. Perhaps a bit smug about his final shot at ruining Caine’s adventure.
“Wait a second, something’s wrong!” the ringmaster scanned the group intensely, floating in closer to better observe them. “My all-seeing eyes must be broken. Someone’s missing!
The group, save Jax, looked around and at each other, puzzled.
It dawned on Ragatha first. “Wait, where’s Pomni?” She swore that the woman was right behind her when Jax yanked her through the portal.
“She probably just took off on her own,” Gangle said, her voice barely audible. “She likes to be alone a lot, doesn’t she? Pomni doesn’t seem to like me a lot, so it makes…”
“Oh, she must be following that bug,” interrupted Kinger excitedly. “She was walking with that yellow one before we went through the portal, remember?”
In the blink of an eye, Caine swooped lower, looking intently at Kinger. “Whad’ya mean by that? Did Pomni bring back an NPC?”
“It wasn’t an NPC, it was a bug,” Kinger explained, unphased by the ringmaster hovering inches from his face. “It had a funny accent. It’d be more than welcome to join my collection.”
“Uh-huh.” Caine’s eyes barely moved. He was more worried, but Caine had a habit of getting carried away in his attempts at problem-solving, so Ragatha had to move fast.
“Caine, well…” Ragatha began nervously. “Pomni…made, uh… she wanted to…” Ragatha knew she’d have to start searching immediately for Pomni and find her before Caine found her. Hopefully Caine could buy whatever story Ragatha came up with and keep him distracted long enough.
If Pomni did run off into the Circus with that candy crocodile, nothing bad would happen to her. Physically anyway. Emotionally, Ragatha knew that would be a different story. Pomni had already had enough of a rough second day, no need to make it worse for her. Hopefully that NPC had wandered off on its own to explore, and its disappearance could be handwaved away.
Pomni would learn the truth eventually, but the blow should be softened by then.
“She brought in her new NPC boyfriend back through the portal,” Jax said nonchalantly, idly observing the back of his hand. “You must’ve just missed her.”
Caine’s face (mouth?) stared at him, perturbed. Ragatha shot the rabbit a dirty look, though it looked like he didn’t see it. Jax knew just how to push Caine’s buttons without overstepping digital boundaries, just like he did with everyone else. Of course, she had to rethink her hasty plan to locate Pomni.
“I didn’t realize Pomni had a thing for the bad boys, Caine,” Jax said. “They looked like they were planning unwholesome things.”
“What kind of things, Jax?”
Jax sighed. “God, Caine, you are so dense. They were holding hands.”
Caine leapt back into the air in abject horror.
“GADZOOKS!” he cried. “It’s worse than I thought! The Digital Circus is no place for inappropriate content! After I return that NPC to storage, I’ll remind Pomni of our terms and conditions!” He rapidly vanished into the depths of the Tent.
Ragatha frowned, her eyes following the path of the ringmaster’s flight. Something wasn’t adding up, but she could mull it over while walking. No point in her wasting time standing here. She took a few steps forward in a random direction. She might as well start somewhere –
“AGH!”
Bubble bumped into Ragatha’s face, filling her vision entirely. “What’s going on? Something fun, I hope.”
The ragdoll tried to see the best in everyone, even some of the more… eccentric members of the Circus. She would never dare admit it openly, but Ragatha preferred to not interact with Bubble, period. But swallowing her feelings, Ragatha needed to take the risk to ease her mind. “Hey, Bubble, have you seen Pomni since we got back? It’s only been a few minutes, but you know, you help Caine with things…”
“Nope. Haven’t seen her,” Bubble cut in, his voice chipper as ever, and still only inches from her face.
“You sure?”
“Uh-huh. You were the last one out.”
Ragatha turned to gaze back at the portal’s location. “So, wait…did…she…”
If this is what it was…well, Pomni was in deep [%$!#]. Not in trouble with Caine, but she was probably in some sort of distress. Oh dear.
Caine returned as suddenly as he departed, slightly sheepish. Raising a hand to signal him, Ragatha opened her mouth to speak, but the ringmaster was solely focused on Jax.
“Sorry to ask, but, uh, Jax, which direction did she go off to?”
“No idea, Caine. You should probably start with her room.” Jax’s toothy smile managed to get even wider. “She and that NPC are bound to be in there.”
“Er, right, you’re right,” Caine said, fidgeting with his cane, but he quickly recovered his bombastic tone. “Thank you Jax! Bubble, you go and fix the feast for tonight. I’ll be busy NPC hunting.”
The spherical lackey whined. “But I wanna see.”
“Shush, Bubble,” Caine said. “This is not a thing that innocent eyes like yours should ever gaze upon. Do as I asked.”
“Ugh, fine.” And with that, both A.I.s had vanished. Ragatha slowly made her way towards Jax, her worry turning to anger. She could just punch him, repeatedly, if what she suspected – no she knew, was true. There was no other option.
“POMNI!” Kinger exclaimed, gesturing in the air triumphantly, as if he solved a riddle. “Pomni might be hiding in my impenetrable fortress,” he said to no one in particular, “It’s the one place that Caine can’t get into. I’ll go check.” The chess piece shuffled off, presumably to inspect the pillow fort.
Kinger’s interruption snapped her back into reality. Ragatha took a calming breath to steady herself, feeling her rage dialing back. Keep calm, think positive. Perhaps Pomni did just wander off, and she was just overreacting to her own fears.
“Jax,” Ragatha asked, “where did Pomni really go?”
“Eh,” he said, shrugging his shoulders, “she probably never got through the portal. It’s probably why Caine’s eyes can’t find her.”
“How? She was right behind me with that NPC when we went through it. I saw her!”
“I’ve got a few theories…” he said slyly.
Ragatha could feel her temper climbing again, almost reaching its boiling point. “Did you do something? Because if you did, I swear, I-”
“You should ask Ribbons.”
Ragatha turned to Gangle, puzzled. The ribbon being was currently staring at the ground, lost in her own thoughts. “Why her, Jax? What’s she got to do with this?”
“What!? Why!?” Gangle cried, finally clueing into the conversation. “I didn’t do anything!”
“But you did.” Jax said, looming over the hunched ribbon creature, “That trash you took from me and threw through the portal?”
“Yes…?” Gangle shrank back. “It was just trash, I promise!” she whimpered at a confused Ragatha.
“Well, it looks like you clocked Pomni in her giant noggin and caused her to miss the portal closing. She’s trapped there forever now. She might have died, who knows? Good work, Ribbons. You should’ve kept ramming that truck when I told you to.”
With a distressed gasp, Gangle burst into tears. Ragatha gently reached out a hand to comfort her. “Gangle, she’s not really going to be there forever.” Or die, she thought. Gangle, you should know that by now.
But upon seeing Ragatha approach, Gangle fled in the direction of the entrance to the grounds.
Ragatha’s gaze turned from the retreating, sobbing figure to Jax, astonishment and anger boiling inside her. “Jax, you saw it all and did nothing!? I can believe this, but I can’t at the same time! This is a new low-”
Jax rolled his eyes. “I thought you were looking out for Pomni, or were you too busy admiring my handiwork to even notice she was missing?”
“Jax, I would never! What you did was -”
“Terrible? Vindictive? Completely expected?” He smirked. “Don’t pretend to have some sort of feelings about that ‘kingdom’ back there. They’re fake – you know, I know, everyone here knows. Even Caine knows, and he’s one of them!”
“Of course, I know they’re fake!” Ragatha spat. It hurt to admit it, to Jax of all people, but facts were facts. “But we should still treat them respectfully, like they’re real-”
“Really?” Jax asked. “Because they don’t. That lollipop princess you were failing to flirt with won’t remember you if we see her again. She didn’t even bother to remember your finger guns when we returned the truck to her.”
“I…I wasn’t,” Ragatha glared at him, cheeks burning from anger and embarrassment. She huffed in frustration, and she forced herself to a more affable tone. “Just because they aren’t human, I can still care, Jax. I mean, look at what empathy did today - Pomni made a connection with that crocodile bandit. He helped her open up - maybe she’ll be warming up to us soon. The NPCs are getting really advanced now, so we should try to treat them better.”
“Dollface, maybe you should follow your own advice first. What’s the name of Pomni’s NPC buddy, huh?”
Well, he got her there. Ragatha wracked her brain for an answer but couldn’t pull one. The [%$!#] eating grin Jax sported begged for her to punch it, but she didn’t move. Violence was never an answer, she reminded herself. Kinger would be disappointed in her if she did hit him, if he was in his right mind. That theoretical disappointment kept her from acting, so Ragatha said nothing.
“Gotcha. If you actually cared about the NPCs or Pomni, you had plenty of time to warn them about what would happen to it on the way back. At least while Pomni’s in there,” he gestured at the portal’s location, “she’ll learn faster about why she shouldn’t get attached to NPCs than she’d learn from you.”
Ragatha narrowed her eye at him, trying to recall the little she remembered of socratic questioning. “Why do you have any interest in this?”
“I don’t, dollface. Gangle’s the one who threw her trash blindly into the portal. I just yanked you through so we could be done with Caine’s dumb adventure.”
“But you got what you wanted, why didn’t you stick around to watch that kingdom’s destruction?”
Jax shrugged. “Been there, done that. It’s not much fun just being a passive observer to that. That fudgeball would overshadow my work. I can’t have that.”
Ragatha sighed. Of course, she should have expected an answer like that.
“We haven’t had someone trapped in an adventure for a while,” Jax said. “That’ll be fun to witness.” He sauntered away, chuckling. “Pomni won’t be happy when she returns, that’s for sure. Even more so when she finds out you knew Crikey wouldn’t last more than nine seconds in here. Kiss that two-day ‘friendship’ goodbye.”
“I…uh…uh…” Unable to retort, Ragatha sank to the floor, attempting to ground herself against a flood of thoughts. She failed as a guide and a guardian, again. She’d been trying her hardest to make the jester feel welcome, perhaps a bit too hard. Maybe giving Pomni the breathing space to talk about her feelings would’ve improved things, but Ragatha had done that with other new arrivals. They rarely lasted much longer after that – vocalizing their fate probably made them despair faster. How could she do that again?
And now her precautions had made things worse. She had failed Pomni as a friend, too, she thought bitterly. Pomni must be feeling abandoned. A horrible dread crept through the doll as she imagined Pomni believing her stranding was retaliation for attempting to escape the circus alone the day before. And of course, there was no way to contact her, and post-rescue apologies could only do so much.
And if Crikey (that was certainly not its name, but it was better than a simple NPC) somehow made it back too, she was certain that Pomni would never speak to her again. It would be a new personal record for losing a friend.
In the distance, she could hear Jax and Zooble verbally sparring, but her own self-accusations of guilt drowned out their argument, each thought worse than the last. Try to breathe slowly, Ragatha thought, but she couldn’t slow down. Pomni was still out there – alone and scared, she was sure. Her first day had already been traumatizing enough, but now this…
“[%$!#] off, Jax.” Ragatha heard Zooble’s footsteps approach her over the sounds of her hyperventilating.
“Uh, Ragatha, what’s going on?” The amalgamation asked quietly. “Caine’s on a warpath right now – he just trashed my arrangements for Kaufmo’s funeral. Rambling about a family-unfriendly NPC, whatever that means-”
“Pomni’s trapped back in the Candy Canyon Kingdom, and it’s my fault!” she started to sob.
Zooble knelt on the ground next to her. “Ragatha, I really doubt that,” they said.
The doll slumped. “You weren’t there. You didn’t talk to Pomni like she was a child. Act like everything was wonderful, fail to keep Jax in line. Keep up the lie that her NPC friend would be fine here when it was doomed all along.”
“Well, no I didn’t,” Zooble answered, after a brief pause. “But I doubt you being…uh… you caused Pomni to get stranded.”
Ragatha didn’t answer.
“Jax had a hand in it?”
Ragatha wiped her face on her sleeve, nodding.
“Of course he did,” Zooble huffed. “And he’s an [%$!#]hole, right?”
“Right.”
Zooble helped Ragatha to her feet. “Well, maybe Caine will punish Jax for once. He won’t be able to worm his way out this time,” they said. “It’d be something family-friendly, though. But still something.”
Ragatha snorted, her mouth attempting a smile. “Sure, Zooble. I wish I had your optimism.”
“If that’s coming from you, you must be really upset.”
It was then that Ragatha realized that she was truly upset. The realization made her feel squeamish, with a heavy helping of guilt. Why was she being so selfish when others were hurting more than her?
Pomni was out there, trapped and alone, probably scared out of her mind. When Pomni returned, there’d be plenty of time to have a heart-to-heart chat about how she had treated the jester. Let her talk out her worries and listen. Hopefully she’d be able to salvage any chance of a friendship, if Pomni wanted to.
And right now, Gangle was in throes of emotional torment beyond what Ragatha was in, and she needed someone to reassure her. The ragdoll looked over to the Tent’s entrance. Gangle had long since fled into the Grounds - trying to find her might take a while.
And here she was crying over potentially losing a friendship, emphasis on potentially. Wallowing in self-pity wasn’t going to help anyone, let alone her.
“Y’know, we should go find Gangle.” Ragatha rose to her feet, muscle memory causing her to brush off nonexistent dust from her skirt alongside her own feelings. “Jax is trying to blame her for Pomni being stuck, and I doubt he’ll let up.”
Zooble sighed, crossing their arms. “Believe me, I’ll make him let up.” The amalgamation turned and began hobbling towards the Tent entrance. “Gangle’s probably sobbing in a tree by the lake again. It took me hours to coax her down last time Jax bullied her. And this NPC Caine’s looking for is related to Pomni, I’m guessing.”
“You’re right. But it’s a long…” Ragatha trailed off.
“Uh, Ragatha?” Zooble turned around to look at the ragdoll.
Ragatha’s eyes had fallen upon the spot in the monochrome tile floor where the portal had been. Frozen in her tracks, she stared intently at the floor, as if she could bring the jester back by sheer positive willpower alone.
One of Zooble’s limbs brushed her shoulder, snapping her out of her trance.
“Pomni should be fine.” Zooble said. “No one’s been trapped in a map for very long, and they’ve always come out unharmed, or so Caine says. We’re going to be hearing that like a broken record when he does realize she never came back.”
“I hope you’re right, Zooble. Pomni should be fine,” Ragatha said, turning back to Zooble. The doll tried to smile reassuringly, more for herself than Zooble. “Pomni will be fine.”
>>o<< >>o<< >>o<< >>o<< >>o<< >>o<< >>o<< >>o<< >>o<<
Pomni was not fine.
Blindly running in any direction that she could, Pomni’s head spun in every direction as debris rained from above and candy people left and right were being devoured by the Fudge. The creature’s slurry-like tendrils had mostly ignored her, probably because she wasn’t candy, but she wasn’t going to try her luck, given her track record.
At some point, the Fudge moved further away to attack other sections of the city, giving her a break to put more distance between her and it. Marshmallow ash drifted about from fires throughout the city, their smoke columns piercing the sky. The city walls still loomed in the distance, still relatively intact despite the Fudge’s environmental havoc, so finding a breach to climb through hadn’t been an option.
It’s keeping us trapped in here, Pomni thought. Like fish in a barrel. Pick off his food one by one.
The Fudge was more intelligent than she thought, and that did little to ease her terror. Adrenaline, time and fear had at least cleared her mind enough from her concussion, though the jester wished some of her thoughts, like that one, had stayed in the brain fog.
She crossed a wide street, its pink bricks spattered with cooled fudge droplets. She glanced about for Gummigoo, but all she saw was candy citizens. Mentally she lined up the street she emerged from with its counterpart opening across the way, counting openings back to a street that she guessed was the one Gummigoo had been forced down. Or at least it was closer in that direction, if her deductions had been a bit off.
The mannequins around her were still fleeing, but had slowed from their panicked running, as the Fudge was a distant threat. Some of them were even carrying candy bindles and luggage, as if they expected to flee the city. Pomni had to slow too, though she still outpaced them, and pushed her way through them, muttering an occasional apology.
Ahead, the crowd suddenly parted as a line of catapults trundled towards Pomni, each loaded with minivan sized truffles. The guards (which looked indistinguishable from its civilians) barked orders and waved, redirecting the terrified crowd elsewhere. However, the street she wanted was now behind the staging line, but Pomni kept walking in that direction.
With a cry from their captain, the truffles soared over her head towards the Fudge. The creature was currently emptying a house into his maw, and from what she could tell from the impact, the truffles either missed or did nothing.
The anachronisms still surprised her a little – if only the Kingdom had more modern artillery along the lines of their trucks, perhaps the Fudge would be defeated by now. Really it wasn’t their fault. Caine, after all, slapped this place together without a second thought. Perhaps the Princess was right about his careless cruelty, after all.
A second salvo did little except turning the Fudge’s hungry eyes towards her street. She quickened her pace, as the catapults frantically loaded a third round.
“Civilian, turn around now! Keep clear of the royal defense!”
A guard, she assumed an officer of sorts from his sash, pointed a hand at her from his catapult platform. “Keep her back!”
The guards nearest her tensed as she approached. Pomni didn’t waste time arguing, instead ducking beneath their arms and veering off down the side street. What could they really do? Kill her? They only had lollipop sticks for weapons, not even sharpened into spears. Pursue her? From the sounds of it, the Fudge was still quite alive, and quite angry. They had other priorities.
The street was mostly deserted, a few NPCS running aimlessly in either direction, either having spawned in gardens or from the buildings around her. They were all trapped as she was, in what amounted to a sugary warzone. Her eyes darted every which way, hoping the next moment she’d spot Gummigoo.
She passed one mannequin curled against a wall, weeping softly. Following the slight bend in the street, Pomni stepped around two more trying to frantically repack the contents of a spilled trunk. A small garden next to a gingerbread chapel had a few NPCs on their knees around a Caine statue, praying for a salvation that Pomni knew was never coming. A part of her wanted to scream at them the truth, to get them to run, but she needed to focus on finding her friend.
Still no sign of the gummi crocodile, and it wasn’t putting her mind at ease. Perhaps he just outran her again. Soon the telltale rumbling of the Fudge’s approach forced her to pick up her pace, the roof tiles of the houses rattling and falling to the street with a clatter.
Several shouts caused her to look back, and briefly, she thought the guards were stupid enough to try to seize her. Some still clutching their useless sticks, they overtook Pomni, bounding by without any sign of seeing her. Apparently even their programming had overriding fear built into them. If they were running, she should be too.
“Oh, don’t mind if I do!” The Fudge bellowed behind her. Its voice was deeper than before, but it also sounded multi-voiced, as if it had absorbed the voices of the devoured. It must have descended on the catapults, for there was a dreadful cacophony of screaming and smashing material. Debris bounced off the roof tiles, falling about her and the NPCs she was fleeing with.
For the second time that day, something heavy bounced off her head. Pomni stumbled over it, striking the sugary paving stones quite hard. Slowly raising her head, it wobbled away from her, and realized it was a brightly colored mannequin head.
“[%$!#] ! Oh [%$!#]” she screamed, backing away and scrambling to her feet. In her haste, she tumbled through a hedge into a marshmallow garden. Spinning about, she instinctively raced to a door. Just like the ones in the castle, they were purely decorative, and immobile. The windows were also solid, so she couldn’t just break them either. She desperately still pummeled the ‘glass’ with her gloved fists, but they barely made a noise corresponding to their presumed texture.
She was in Hell, that was for sure, she silently fumed. Every curse word that she knew passed through her head. Somehow, the inability to swear aloud was more infuriating and distressing than the apocalyptic scenario she was currently experiencing.
Jax deserved this fate, instead of her, she angrily thought. He wanted bloodshed and chaos. He’d get a kick out of all of this, probably, though the lack of gore and candy blood might be a disappointment to him. She wouldn’t be surprised. But for Pomni, somehow its absence also made the violence more disturbing. Like the simulation knew it was wrong, but still did it anyways.
The severed head returned to her mind’s forefront – her horror and disgust turning to a sense of grief for the NPC. It could have been one of those guards she had just pushed through, but she’d never know because of the design’s anonymity. She shuddered, pushing that feeling back down for now. Hopefully Caine could whip up an adventure in therapy, if he took requests.
A cannon barrage snapped Pomni back to her current reality. Looking up, several peppermint balls soared overhead. Tracing their path, she saw the monstrous form of the Fudge only a few blocks away, happily munching on the spire of the chapel she had just passed. Upon impact, the Fudge groaned and shuddered, blobs of it spewing outwards. Along with the globs landing in the garden around her were also bits of building debris and pieces of its hapless victims. She withdrew to the shelter of the house wall, but it did little. It certainly wouldn’t hide her as the Fudge bellowed and raced towards the offending tower, unfortunately coming far too close for comfort. Pomni tore through the marshmallow hedge, fleeing once more down the street, now littered with Fudge droplets and mannequin parts.
Visible through the connecting alleys and side streets to a nearby boulevard, the Fudge surged past in a dark mass, moving with a swiftness that she didn’t expect from a creature of that material and size. It latched itself onto a waffle cone tower (where she assumed the cannons were), snapping its upper structure like a twig and tipping it towards its gaping maw. Turning away from the horrible fate its occupants were facing, she sprinted left to put as much distance between her and the monster as possible.
As she ran, Pomni realized there were fewer people around. While she didn’t have to fear trampling or injury from the NPCs, their absence meant that she was a more likely target for the Fudge. Shoving out her dire thoughts, Pomni tried to keep to as many alleyways and gardens as she could, and whenever she crossed an open street or a courtyard, she felt incredibly vulnerable.
Finally, exhaustion hit her. Pomni sputtered to a halt in an alley, shrouded in deep shadows, the light of the setting sun spilling down the crossroads in rectangular shafts in the distance. A single lamp flickered to life, its faint white flame doing little to help illuminate its surroundings. As she lingered, panic welled up in her. The occasional sound of a faint shriek or a thunderous boom of a structure collapsing drifted over the rooftops, but otherwise the alley was silent.
“HELLO!?” Pomni called out, her voice echoing off the sugar bricks. There was no answer. “GUMMIGOO!? CAINE!? SOMEBODY!?”
Well, that had been her last great attempt at finding help. She slumped against a wall, her limbs aching dully. Within seconds of her attempt to rest, a low, heavy growl reverberated through the alley.
The Fudge sounded far too close, and turning behind her, she could see a dark mass between the roofs. Fueled by terror and adrenaline, Pomni ran again. Turning a corner, she now passed through an area the Fudge must have ravaged earlier, as many of its buildings were either crushed into goopy rubble or their upper floors had been decapitated.
“Gotta hide, gotta hide!” she muttered. Spying a break in the wall of a partially crushed house, Pomni clawed her way in, shoving aside fragments of waffle cone and frosting. It had been one of those shell houses, but now was transformed into almost a low cave, with crawling the only option to move. Around her, the house’s walls and floors were all jumbled and distorted, the exterior window and wall textures that had been mirrored on the inside warped - a demented, broken funhouse.
Hitting a solid wall of model geometry about a third of the way in, Pomni turned around to face the opening, pulling her knees up to her chest. The thuds and screams outside sounded far too close to comfort, and she hoped that nothing, even her breathing, would give her away.
She pleaded mentally to Caine, God, whatever that governed this universe, that Gummigoo was safe. She didn’t even want to consider the idea that he had been devoured by the Fudge – he was a fighter, after all. He had to be alright. She willed it to be alright, but that seed of doubt was steadily growing.
Caine’s absence, too, kept eating at her. She had expected to get rescued almost immediately, but hours had passed here, and yet there was no inkling of his presence. Perhaps he forgot about her? Even if the other members of the Circus noticed her absence, which they had to sooner rather than later, they might not be able to get his attention right away. The ringmaster did seem to run on his own strange schedule with his own strange priorities.
Part of her hoped that he didn’t arrive soon, so she could save Gummigoo from this sugar apocalypse. She could only imagine the betrayal Gummigoo would feel if he learned she had escaped without him. That was assuming he would have a moment of realization when the world blinked out of existence.
Pomni doubted Caine would hear her out to search. The ringmaster should be able to locate the NPC immediately, she guessed, since he created everything and everybody in this realm. But based on his casual banishment of Kaufmo, and general…everything, she could see him just running roughshod over her protests.
Or did Gummigoo find Caine and ditch her for the circus? It was a stupid thought, that Caine would willingly just grab anyone, but possibly Gummigoo could convince him that he was Pomni. Or some sort of human – the crocodile’s A.I. programming was remarkably life-like. Maybe enough to fool the ringmaster.
Despite that scenario’s inherent absurdity, it ran intrusively through her mind. After all, she’d known Gummigoo only a few hours – not that she knew her fellow human circus members all that well either. Befriending a bandit who had almost impaled her via truck collision earlier that day might not be her best character judgement, even if he was having an existential crisis that she could relate to. Perhaps he wasn’t ever really her friend-
“Hey, you!”
Pomni shrieked as a humanoid shape thrust itself into her face, and she pathetically batted at it. She quickly realized it was a candy mannequin and stopped swinging.
“You’re one of the knights! You can help us! Please,” it begged, grabbing at one of her stilled hands.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t,” she said. She tugged at her arm to free her hand, but the mannequin’s hand was like a vice. “Let go of me!”
“But you were sent by God! We’re in greater need more than ever! The Princess is dead - you can fight it…” Its breath was ragged, sounding on the verge of hysterics.
“I can’t!” she pushed it away, finally jerking her hand free from its grasp. “Get away! I’m sorry!”
She was not looking forward to fighting anyone, never mind of one these NPCs in a tight space, with nothing, even loose bricks, to defend herself with.
The figure moved in a way that was far too human. “Please, just help me then,” it pleaded, its voice lower but its desperation more pronounced, “My wife and kids are trapped in rubble a few houses back! Please! If we make in time, we might be able to save them before they get eat-agh!”
A tendril of the fudge had seized the mannequin, dragging it out of the ruins. Pomni lunged, seizing one of its arms, but the Fudge’s strength was slowly taking her to her doom. Yet fear and guilt kept her clinging to the mannequin. “I’ve got you,” she hissed through clenched teeth, straining to crawl backwards, her left hand wildly feeling about for something to anchor herself to. “Hold on!”
The mannequin nodded, and with its free arm managed to grip onto her right arm. One of its legs braced itself against the wall, and together they were slowly moving back into safety, however limited it was.
Another great tug sent Pomni sprawling forward, twice the distance she had retreated, and the mannequin was wrenched from her grip. With a terrified shriek, the poor wretch was spirited away to its doom. Pomni could still feel pressure, and she glanced down. The reward for Pomni’s last-minute heroism was a pastel-colored hand, its fingers still tightly clutching hers. Yelping, she tossed the hand away and crawled out of the now compromised hiding place.
Distraught, she stumbled over rubble and dodged the few NPCs still about. Night had now fully fallen over the ruined kingdom, and Pomni could barely see, in part because she was often looking for hazards on the ground. The city’s fires tinged the sky a faint orange-red, but her neighborhood was relatively intact The firelight barely illuminated the streets, but it was enough to cause Pomni’s eyes to struggle readjusting every time she looked downwards. A few glowing embers drifted past her.
She suddenly smacked into something large and slightly elastic. Pomni screamed, believing she had been caught, and it was all over.
“Pomni!?” exclaimed a familiar voice. Gummigoo’s arms pulled her into a tight hug. “I thought ya left me, or ya ended up in the Fudge.”
Pomni sniffed as they separated. “I thought you did the same.”
He scoffed gently. “Why would I leave my new mate, huh? I promised I’d find ya.”
Choking up on relief, surprise, and a whole range of emotions that she couldn’t quite explain, Pomni opened her mouth to say something, but a sudden crash snapped them back into reality. The gummi croc looked about. “We shouldn’t be out here, Poms. We gotta find a place to lay low.”
“Where though?” she asked, gazing at their surroundings. Many of the nearby buildings were in rough shape or contaminated with fudge. The intact ones were certainly empty shells, but they were still quite flammable. As embers floated down, they scorched the gingerbread roofs and blackened the marshmallow plants. It wouldn’t be long before the ruins would be alight.
“Not on this street, that’s for sure.” Gummigoo gestured at a patch of mostly-standing buildings beyond the damaged area. “Maybe there?”
“I guess,” Pomni answered, but he was already moving, and she fell into pace behind him.
Passing under a teetering arch, the duo turned down an alley of terraced graham cracker houses, their small gardens opening onto it. She spied a small lean-to, a gingerbread facsimile of what might be a woodshed, visible over the waist-high wall. “Could that work?” she gestured at it.
Big enough to hide them, small enough to not get the Fudge’s attention. It was certainly a better option than one of the houses, or the distant chapel whose belltower loomed over the roofs.
“I don’t have any bright ideas, mate,” Gummigoo said. “That’ll do.”
Pushing open the gate into the garden, the two of them fled inside the shed and closed the flimsy door. It was less than ideal – the shed was almost pitch black, save for a thin sliver of light through a missing board on the less-than-stellar door. There was barely any room to move, and currently they were squashed against each other and the firewood, which smelled of vanilla. It was more a firewood cupboard than a shed.
“Well, I f[%$!#]d up.” Pomni said quietly, wedged between two stacks and the wall. “It looked better from the outside.”
“We’re at least far enough away from the fires.” Gummigoo replied, his leaning torso inches from her face as he tried to settle in a spot to her right. “It could be worse.”
The nearby bell tower sounded out a peal, before it was silenced with a metallic thud. She winced, trying not to estimate how far away that tower was. Pomni’s mood was not helped by the mild claustrophobia, and now in a near-stranger’s personal space, no matter how well they had bonded earlier.
“We’re gonna have to put off going back to the circus for now,” Pomni said slowly, talking more to herself than Gummigoo. “Once things calm down, or we get further away, Caine’s gonna rescue us. He should, right? He saved me before when I was in trouble.”
“It’s alright, mate. We’ll figure out something.”
Every so often there was another scream, or a boom, but they were getting further and further apart. Her fear levels rising again, Pomni decided to shuffle farther away from the door, even though it was a rather pointless endeavor. As she slid over the firewood in the near darkness, Pomni roughly brushed Gummigoo’s injured hand.
She heard him inhale sharply and groan, and Pomni recoiled, her hand flying to her chest. “I’m so sorry, Gummigoo, I couldn’t see-“
“It’s okay,” he replied hastily. “And don’t ya try blaming yourself for my getting hurt, ya couldn’t control that. We’ve still got plenty of time to fix it. And if we can’t, well, I’ve got a wicked battle scar to show off to the lads.” He lightly chuckled, but Pomni didn’t join in, guilt and confusion running through her head.
He sighed. “Poms, if ya are still beating yourself up over all…this, that lanky purple friend of yours let that thing in-“
“He did?”
“Ya didn’t hear him? He said he left the gate unlocked for the Fudge. When we survive this, Poms, I’m gonna let your friend -”
“Jax isn’t really a friend,” Pomni cut in, though the nickname she was starting to notice now. We’re at that level of familiarity already?
“He’s more of…more of an as-” The forcefulness of her tone caught her off guard slightly. She tried to find a diplomatic way to describe her dislike of him, but nothing but certain Caine-censored words came to mind. “He’s…not even an acquaintance at-”
A tremendous thud jolted the shed, and they pressed themselves against the far wall of their rattling, tiny shelter as tightly as they could. It sounded like one of the houses had been destroyed, and then another, and another. The Fudge’s booming laugh made their roof rattle on its supports, and it was humming to itself. It was enjoying the wanton destruction.
In the almost darkness, they dared not say a word or even take too loud a breath, afraid that even that might give their location away. Pomni turned her face towards the wall, hoping desperately that the Fudge wouldn’t see her pale face in the dark if it came to investigate. If it did devour her, at least she could shield herself from the horror.
A deafening cacophony of collapse washed over them. It had to be the house across the alley, as the sliver of light vanished. The screams and wails that came from the home were so dreadful that Pomni clapped her hands over her nonexistent ears, but to no real success.
“Please, guardian, spare us, please! We throw yourselves upon your mercy!” The candy citizen’s pleas fell on deaf ears, as they suddenly were screeching in agony as they were devoured.
The ground vibrated dully again, and with the sound of the garden wall collapsing, she just knew the…thing was just inches from either discovering them or unknowingly consuming them in its movements. The Fudge hummed curiously, a loud deep purr that rattled the door hinges, and she could just sense it hovering over their hiding place, peering at the house their shed was part of. Globs of fudge hit the shed’s roof and the sound of candy glass breaking almost caused her to involuntarily gasp. She could sense Gummigoo tense up, visualizing him placing a finger to his snout, hoping that she’d not give them away.
Sliding her gloved hands over her mouth, Pomni braced herself for the end, but the faint light suddenly returned, the Fudge humming some abstract tune as it shuffled wetly away.
Exhaling as quietly as possible, Pomni attempted to glue herself into place, expecting the Fudge would suddenly return. After what felt like ages, Pomni unfroze from her position, daring to turn her head back to watch the door. There was a scream occasionally, and maybe some passing footsteps, but mostly nothing. The door, thankfully, remained shut – she didn’t want to see the outside world just yet.
“It’s getting quiet,” she muttered, as loudly as she dared. She could feel herself shaking, and it was seeping into her speech too.
“Right ya are.” She looked up to Gummigoo’s white eyes glinting in the dark. He had shifted nearer to her at some point, either to try to keep her quiet himself or shield her if they were discovered. She wasn’t terribly fond of either theory.
“But that means…” she shuddered, thinking about the candy citizens’ fate. Just from what she’d seen, she could easily imagine the same horrible scenarios playing out, over and over across the city. Even if they were NPCs, it still bothered her. Gummigoo lightly placed his injured hand on her shoulder in a comforting gesture, but she could feel his trembling.
“Hey, try to not think about that now,” he said. “Neither of us should. Let’s… let’s think of trying to find a way outta here.”
“R-right. Perhaps that thing will leave soon. The whole town’s destroyed. That should make escape easier, right?”
“The walls were still up when I was out there. Doubt they’ve fallen yet.”
The ground reverberated with a dull thud, sending a few stacks of vanilla clattering to the floor. They hurriedly peered through the missing plank to see the source of whatever torment the Fudge was causing now. The creature had scaled a nearby tower, and in its gluttonous search for candy citizens, the Fudge had torn the roof clean off and was surging through it. In a cacophony of screams and breaking sugary masonry, the tower disintegrated and was absorbed into the goop.
“Well, it’s getting desperate,” Gummigoo said severely. “We won’t be able to stay in here for much longer.”
“But Gummigoo, where can we go? Have you seen that thing in action?” Pomni asked rapidly. “I’ve been running from it all day! It’s massive, and fast, and-” She scanned her surroundings from her limited viewpoint, not daring to open the door. The houses across the alley had been utterly flattened, their splintered timbers and sugar bricks dripping fudge.
Beyond them, Pomni spied a long, low building that resembled a garage. It was partially flattened on the lefthand side, its jujube studded roof resting almost at street level. Anything on that side of the building that could take them away from the Kingdom was surely crushed too. However, the righthand side was still standing, the doors to several vehicle bays still shut. “What about that?”
Gummigoo followed her gaze. “Well, I guess there’s our ticket outta the city.”
“Do you think anything’s still there?”
“Worth a shot, mate. It’s not like we have many options left.”
Pomni slowly pushed open the shed door, its creaking sounding more of a loud screech to her. The door was stiff too, from dripping fudge that had trickled down it, and her effort caused it to strike the wall harder than she intended. Panicking silently, her head swiveled in every direction, half-expecting the Fudge to rush out to attack them, but nothing came. “All clear,” she whispered.
Silently they sprinted from the woodshed and scrambled over the ruins, trying to dislodge as little of the loose debris as possible. As she scaled the rubble, Pomni slipped on the cooled fudge, and despite its general sticky, gloopy nature, it slid off her gloves and outfit like water off a duck. Gummigoo on the other hand, had to pull it off him every few steps. If it hurt him, he never made a sound.
Once down on the other side, Pomni and Gummigoo darted across the wide, pink boulevard, saturated with cooled fudge trails. A few blocks away, the Fudge lumbered about, still searching for more candy victims, its eyes whirling freely about its form to better scan the city. Pomni felt incredibly exposed under she was under the limited cover of the garage eaves. They crept along its wall, looking for a way to get in.
Pomni pressed her face against an opaque window. “I can’t see in,” she hissed, “Do we have to break it?” The noise would probably attract the fudge creature, if its hearing was that good. From the little that she had experienced of Caine’s creations, it was almost a certainty that he’d do something like that.
“We don’t,” Gummigoo muttered, gesturing at the bay doors. “No locks.”
Breathing a relieved sigh, Pomni mentally thanked the A.I. system had not been detailed enough in its worldbuilding to consider conjuring padlocks. She crept to the nearest of the bay doors. She slowly pushed it open and peered in, nervously expecting a trap, or aggressive NPCs that had the same idea as hers. Limited resources and desperation could turn people feral, and she was sure that the candy citizens followed that to some degree.
However, the garage was devoid of NPCs. Most of the lights were still on, though a couple flickered and sparked ominously. A small office sat along the back wall. Despite most of the garage being crushed, a half-dozen assorted candied vehicles were still intact, awaiting a driver.
“There’s still some left! Let’s go!” She sprinted to the closest one, a jeep fashioned out of green and red peppermint, but to her dismay found the ignition keyhole empty. “There’s no key! Why do these things need keys!?” she whisper-shouted in frustration. “This is a fantasy kingdom!”
Gummigoo rushed to the office. “Found ‘em!” he called, dangling a mass of garish fobs from his hand. “But they’re all lumped together.”
“Just test them! We’ll take the first one!”
Gummigoo pressed one fob, and a squashed vehicle answered, its chirping a shriek that surely must not have gone unnoticed. They both froze, too afraid to speak, or even breathe. A faint, gurgling growl echoed through the garage.
“[%$!#]” Pomni gasped, dropping all pretense of quiet now, “it’s a dud!”
Blinking confusedly at the censor noise, Gummigoo tossed the dud fob and activated another. Another crushed vehicle responded. The third time gave the same results.
“I’m tryin’, Poms!” he exclaimed, when her head swiveled back to him when he dropped one. “The fudge residue isn’t really helping me handle me!”
“Got it!” It was all she could really answer with. “You want help!?”
“No, just stay there once I find one that works!” he replied, “we’ll be needing to move fast.”
Pomni nervously drummed her fingers on the wheel of the peppermint jeep, her eyes darting about for any sign of the Fudge barging right in. A cascading rumble of a nearby toppling building did little to ease her rising fright.
“Don’t panic, don’t panic,” Gummigoo rambled, more to himself than Pomni. He hit another and set off the alarm of a fourth buried vehicle.
There was a loud roar, and the ground trembled.
“Panic, panic, PANIC!” Pomni shrieked at him, and fumbling with the set, Gummigoo dropped several. He dove at one, squeezing it mid fall, and a graham cracker jeep two cars down from Pomni chirped in response.
“Got one!” he called, but Pomni was already clawing her way over the passenger seat and fell onto the garage floor.
Leaping to her feet, Pomni dashed to the new vehicle, Gummigoo not far behind. The entire building and its contents shuddered, tools tumbling off shelves and the hanging lights swinging violently– the Fudge was almost on top of them, and it sounded heavier and more ravenous than ever before.
As Pomni clawed her way onto the front seat, the key fob bounced off her head to the jeep’s floor. “Why me!?”
“You’re closer, just stick it in!” he replied, sprinting towards her. She reached for the ignition, but to her horror, it was a blank panel. Its controls were where she expected the passenger seat. The graham cracker jeep was an Australian configuration.
The simulation just wanted her dead, didn’t it?
Hoisting herself over the console and into the seat, Pomni turned the ignition as Gummigoo pulled himself across the jeep bed and into the passenger seat. With a horrible noise of parting material, the garage’s roof peeled away in a shower of crumbs. The lights sparked and died, plunging the space into darkness. She couldn’t see it, but she could sense the mass of the Fudge blotting the open sky that should’ve been above her. Pomni threw the gear into drive and slammed her foot down on the accelerator.
Only she caught air – she was far too short to reach the pedal.
“Just steer!” cried Gummigoo as he lunged to the floor, landing hard on the gas pedal. The jeep lurched forward, tearing effortlessly through the bay door. To Pomni’s right, the body of the Fudge blocked the road. Pomni spun the wheel hard left, and they were soon bouncing along the debris and fudge-strewn main road.
With a feral, deep roar, the Fudge followed in hot pursuit. Pomni could see it gaining in the rearview mirror. The jeep was quite sensitive, and even the smallest turns in Pomni’s hands caused the thing to careen and swerve with wild abandon, the gap between her and the gloopy monster closing with each jolt. The gear shift being to her left was also not helping her half-remembered familiarity with driving, never mind the bulk of the gummi crocodile currently sprawled over the console and under her feet.
Muscle memory caused her to hit the brake pedal, as an arch collapsed ahead of her, but she struck Gummigoo’s back with her foot. She momentarily lost her nerve, the wheel spun out of her grip, and the jeep swung wildly before thundering over the collapsed arch.
“Sorry, Gummigoo!” she exclaimed – all she got was a acknowledging grunt.
The street ahead was littered with rubble, and a gaggle of frightened candy people milling about the ruins, fleeing or trying to hide, maybe. As she sped around them and the collapsed buildings, she could hear snippets of terrified and angry exclamations. She clipped the edge of a burning, collapsed roof, flinching as sparks showered around her. Mostly into her face, though, so it was hard to see.
“Gummig- ah! Where should I go!? Oh God- Sorry!” she squeaked, as a fleeing mannequin soared over her windshield.
“I dunno!” he shrieked from the floor. “Wherever the gate is!”
The jeep rode roughshod over more rubble and candy corpses, plowing through an abandoned wagon at a crossroads. The passenger side mirror snapped off and imbedded itself in the fabric of the passenger seat.
“Just don’t crash!” he said.
Pomni grunted, too preoccupied with dodging debris to retort. The Fudge was still behind them as they raced into the entrance square, now a far cry from when she arrived there that morning. Fire leapt from ruined buildings on either side. Collapsed walls and grand arches spilled across the fudge-stained pavers.
Pomni aimed the jeep at the ruined gatehouse, draped in hardened fudge. The drawbridge had been partially forced down to a still steep, but much more manageable angle. Thankfully the Fudge hadn’t sealed it up.
“Floor it, Gummigoo, we’ve got one shot!” she nervously shouted over the roar of the Fudge and the engine.
‘I’m giving it her all,” he yelled. “It’s up to ya now, mate!”
Steeling herself, Pomni fought to keep the jeep as straight as she could as it rocketed to the gate portal, every bump and bounce threatening to throw her off course. Besides the debris, a surprising number of surviving candy citizens were darting about, looking for any remaining shelter. Whether they had lost theirs, or had simply no self-preservation skills, she didn’t ponder. However, their presence and lack of awareness forced Pomni to swerve several times to avoid striking them, and her window to stay on target was shrinking rapidly.
“What if I don’t make it!?” she cried, as the jeep forded a fudge puddle, the wheel fighting to escape her grip.
“We’ll deal with it if it happens!” Gummigoo replied. “I believe in ya!”
Pomni inhaled to brace her resolve but gagged on the smoke. Gummigoo’s confidence was misplaced, she was sure.
The walls and the gatehouse loomed overhead – this was it. All Pomni could hope for was that she had done it right.
“Hang on!” she yelped.
The jeep hit the angled drawbridge surface hard, nearing throwing Pomni’s head into the wheel as it ascended rapidly. The physics engine’s forces bent the suspension and axles, and they screeched in protest. The tires deformed but snapped into shape again, as they clipped into the surface of the drawbridge. There was an ominous rattling, and the jeep’s body vibrated. Pomni glanced down at Gummigoo, both their eyes wide in knowing fear. The next moment, the two were soaring through the air for a third time that day, screaming the entire flight.
The jeep slammed into the ground with a metallic thud, its suspension snapping back to form. It skip-bounced along the flat pink plain, thankfully not clipping through the ground. Pomni and Gummigoo kept going at full speed until they were almost near the cliffs that encircled the kingdom.
“Is it following us?”
Pomni scanned the landscape behind her. “No, it isn’t. Thank God.”
Gummigoo released the pedal, and the vehicle rolled to a stop. Pomni’s adrenaline was off the charts, but she managed to throw it in park despite her shaking hands. Her head was spinning from vertigo, and she was afraid she’d vomit for the third time in two days. (God, was this going to be a common issue for her?)
The duo slithered out of the vehicle onto the dusty pink ground and just lay silently there for a minute, trembling from the exertion.
“Crikey, Poms,” Gummigoo said, panting heavily. “Ya certainly gave me a fright.”
“You were the one giving me full power,” Pomni gasped, sitting upright. Her head lurched, but thankfully nothing happened. “I’m just lucky I didn’t steer us right into a wall. But we’re-“
“We’re alive, yeah.” Gummigoo gave her a shaky thumbs up from the ground. “Ya did great. With those wicked steering skills, ya should consider rally racing.”
“Well, as long as you can operate the pedals, and use the brakes for once, I might consider it.”
There was another loud boom, and the two friends looked back to Candy Canyon Kingdom, the atmosphere of the light ribbing now evaporated.
The Fudge must’ve decided that the plaza had easier, tastier targets, and now devoid of those, it had now gone deeper in the city, toppling buildings and bellowing in wild triumph. Pillars of light, bubble-shaped smoke rose into the air, lit from below by massive fires, with an occasional faint scream coming across the plain. Bits of burnt marshmallow ash and embers wafted above them, drifting to the dark pink ground.
“Ugh, that wretched lot,” Gummigoo said quietly. “I never liked them much, but I wouldn’t want…this… to happen to ‘em.”
“I wish we could do more for them,” Pomni said, wrenching her eyes from the ruined city to Gummigoo. “They didn’t ask for this.”
“No, they didn’t.” The crocodile sympathetically eyed her. “But going back there is suicide, and goin’ off your attempt to help the Princess, the people left might not be so keen on-”
A bright flash of light suddenly consumed all that Pomni could see. As it rapidly faded, the ground heaved. Gummigoo tackled Pomni, using his own arms to shield his head. From beneath him, Pomni screamed something, but she couldn’t hear it over the noise. The explosion’s shockwave, tinged with heat, rippled past and over them with a deep crack, kicking up dust in its wake. Behind them, several Necco wafer pillars snapped like twigs. Chunks of unrecognizable, burnt debris rained down, lightly plopping on the ground and bouncing off the cliffs and them. For a moment, neither of them moved.
Gummigoo rolled off her and sat upright. “Sorry, Poms, but there was no warning ‘bout that. Didn’t want ya to get hurt by it.”
She grunted in acknowledgement, but she felt there were more important things to be concerned about. “What was that?!” Pomni shakily asked, rising back up. “Did they bomb the kingdom?!” I didn’t realize they had nukes. She shook her head. The time period made even less sense if that was the case.
“No,” Gummigoo said, staring intently at the city, his eyes hollowed out. “I wish. It’s much worse.”
“What?” Pomni followed his gaze, towards the spot that was certainly the explosion’s origin. A vast, glowing inferno had swallowed up a large portion of the city, and a large amount of smoke and dust was beginning to shroud the ruins. A sweet smell drifted on the wind, bringing the faint memory of morning pancakes. Huh, strange time for to trigger that.
“That right there,” he pointed at the glowing mass, “was the maple syrup refinery. Its reserves were all there too.” Seeing the mostly uncomprehending look on Pomni’s face, Gummigoo added, “So if the entire syrup lot’s gone up, that truck headin’ back to the village is all that’s left, for who knows how long.”
Pomni could vaguely grasp the situation’s gravity from his words, but the troubled expression on her friend’s face told her enough that she didn’t fully understand. Another small fireball erupted from somewhere inside the kingdom’s walls, illuminating the surrounding plains with a brief golden-orange flash.
“Does that…?”
“I’ll have to explain later. First, we should probably put a bit more land between us and that thing. If the city’s been flattened, it’s probably going to search for more food. Other survivors or us.” Gummigoo turned away from the crumbling, burning kingdom. Pomni looked back, but she couldn’t see the Fudge through the smoke and dust. It could be coming for them now.
“Definitely agree on that part,” she said, trailing a pace or two behind him. “You know, this is the second time in two days I’ve dealt with giant, angry monsters. I’d be happy never to deal with another again.”
“Huh.” Gummigoo glanced back at her, eyebrow ridges raised. “Well, from how ya and your crew handled this one, I hope monster hunting’s a hobby. I wouldn’t claim it as a talent.” He climbed onto the jeep’s running board. “But ya should replace it with speed demon. Ya wanna give it another go? We’d catch up to the lads in no time with ya behind the wheel.” He extended his good hand.
Taking it, Pomni smiled slightly, climbing onto the running board beside him. “Well, I guess I got a lot of hidden talents. But, uh, you’re driving for now.”