Chapter Text
Pomni glumly grabbed a random piece of bacon off the table. She hadn’t spoke to Jax since their argument, and he was seemingly avoiding her. She was frustrated by his mixed signals. One moment he’d be telling her stuff about his real life, the next he’d be saying he hated her. She wanted to connect with Jax to give him the opportunity to ask for help, but if he was going to shut her down every time they made progress, then she’d stop bothering. She wasn’t doing this for herself, she was doing this for him.
She eventually wandered into the living room, where she found the others (minus Jax) waiting for the adventure. Pomni decided to strike up a conversation to pass the time.
“Hey Gangle, watcha drawing?”
Gangle looked up at her, smiling with her Comedy mask still in tact.
“I’m-m just doodling our outfits from that murder mystery adventure. I was really happy to actually g-get one, Caine rarely gives me any. I guess it’s hard to model clothes for ribbons or s-something. I noticed you and… Jax haven’t been speaking. Did he do something to you?”
Pomni shook her head. “We got into an argument.”
“Ragatha mentioned you were like, trying to connect with him or something? Did you, like, I don’t know, learn anything about him?”
Pomni thought about what info Jax would and wouldn’t want to be public. She settled for-
“He hates corn because he has trypophobia.”
“Really? So he hates like, all little hole things? Maybe I’ll start doodling those on my notebooks covers.”
Caine appeared, cutting their conversation short.
“HELLO MY CRAWLING CROATIANS! IVE DESIGNED A NEW ADVENTURE. BLAH BLAH BLAH I’LL TELEPORT JAX AND THEN OPEN THE PORTAL.”
He snapped his fingers and Jax appeared, and then opened a portal. Everyone sighed, before stepping through the portal.
-
Pomni looked around the new environment, seeing sprawling trees on both sides of her. There was muddy dirt beneath her, and the air was humid and hot. Vines hung from every branch, and the sound of bugs and birds rung in her ears. A few feet down she could see a roaring river.
She couldn’t recall ever being in a jungle environment,so this must all be new assets. She also now had a satchel hanging at her waist. She looked around at the others, and they all also looked the same.
Jax immediately walked up to her, before making some joke about her height. His casualness was genuinely frustrating her, and she wasn’t the kind of person to be stepped on. She looked him in the eyes and said:
“Screw off unless you’re gonna be nice. If you really don’t care about me, why even bother speaking with me?”
Jax froze for a movement, his face unreadable. He then awkwardly laughed, and said “because it’s funny!! It’s funny bothering you! Did you already forget about everything I told you?”
She glared at him before simply walking away. She had more self respect than to put up with any more of his crap.
She caught with Ragatha, happy to be with a nicer friend. Eventually Pomni looked inside the satchel she had, and found a map. The map had the river listed, giving her a general idea of their location. She saw an ‘X’ marked over a specific spot, so she figured that was where the adventure wanted them to go.
That’s when a rustling noise started her. It was coming from directly in front of her, a swooshing noise followed by leaves crumpling. Ragatha quickly stepped in front of Pomni, hoping to shield her from danger.
A machete came flying out from the brush, stopping just inches away from Ragathas face. The person swinging it pulled it back, before stepping out of the brush to reveal themselves.
They had a large cowboy hat on, with the top half of their skin being yellow with the bottom half being green. They had beady white eyes, and crocodile jaws.
It was Gummigoo!
Pomni couldn’t help but light up at the sight of her former friend. Soon two other gummy crocodiles came out from the bushes too. Gummigoo took one look at Pomni holding the map, before tipping his hat to her and taking her hand and kissing it.
“Good-day fine lady! I don’t recall seeing you in these woods before. The Names Gummigoo, and those are my two associates! What might your name be?”
Pomni slightly blushed from the kiss on the hand, but quickly brushed it aside to respond.
“H-Hi! I’m Pomni, and that’s Ragatha and Kinger and Gangle and.. Jax. Have we met before? You seem so similar.”
Last time they’d met he had no memory of her, and she hoped that maybe this time he would remember the time they spent together trapped underneath an adventure.
“Sorry ma’am, but I can’t say I recognize that face. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t forget a face as beautiful as yours. I don’t suppose you’re also looking for the lost pirate ship of Captain Spielberg?”
His comment about her face made her blush even more, but more so out of flattering than anything else. She realized that the pirate ship must be what the map had marked, so she showed Gummigoo the map.
“Blimey! That leads right to the old ship! I don’t suppose you’d let me and my friends here tag along with yall? See we’ve been looking for this boat for years, and just haven’t been able to find it yet.”
“O-Of course you can! The more the merrier!”
Pomni cringed at her awkward response, but was grateful they’d have the help. Gummigoo did have a massive machete, which would hoping help against whatever horrors Caine had stuck in this forest.
They all walked through the Jungle toward the ‘X’, Pomni making small talk with Gummigoo the whole way. It was nice to talk to someone who was less serious and more funny than Ragatha, but was still kind towards her, unlike Jax.
Eventually Gummigoo said he and his friends had to go have a private talk real quick, and they left to go behind some bushes for a movement. After around five minutes he returned, accompanied by the purple and red Gator.
Eventually they reached the ‘X’, which was revealed to be the entrance to a giant cave. Gummigoo turned towards the group and said-
“Alrighty, this looks very dangerous. Pomni’s map has clues on how to get through each of these traps, and I have this machete to cut down any threats we face. I fear that all 6 of us heading through would be too dangerous, so I recon Max should go take everyone but me and Pomni on back to our campsite, so that way we only have to worry about us. That sound good?”
Everyone agreed, so Kinger, Ragatha, and Gangle followed the purple and red gator in another direction, while Pomni and Gummigoo headed into the cave.
The first room simply consisted of a giant locked stone door. She quickly pulled out the map, flipping it over to see three paragraphs written. The first one stated:
“Answer this riddle and the door will open; What needs oxygen, needs food, is capable of dying, yet isn’t alive?”
Gummigoo shrugged at her, meaning it was up to her to figure out the riddle. She quickly ran through the usual riddle answers like time, water, rivers, but nothing quite matched. She thought about specificity of needing oxygen, and could only think of one thing that needed that but wasn’t alive.
“Fire.”
The door swung open, revealing the next room. Gummigoo congratulated her victory. The next room consisted of a swarm of evil skeletons, which Gummigoo dispatched with ease.
The third room had lettered checkered pattern tiles, with the hint on the map saying “the weakness of the first riddle”, which Pomni quickly deciphered as water, so they jumped onto the tiles of the respective letters.
After completing the final room, the duo headed to a ledge. It spilled into a massive cave room, with a large body of water, with a pirate ship resting in the middle.
They jumped down into the water, before sailing over to the boat and climbing in.
This adventure had surprisingly been on of Pomni’s favorites, having Gummigoo back was awesome. It sucked he didn’t remember her beforehand, but they had made lots of new wonderful memories. He’d helped her through so much of the journey, making it ten times easier.
“Thanks Gummigoo all the help today, you made it a lot easier! It’s been, nice bonding with you.”
Gummigoo laughed way too loud, before he looked at her with twitchy eyes.
“Darling, thank you for helping me find this place, we’ve been looking for years. Longer than YOU. This was supposed to be MY discovery, not yours. But you showed up with your little map and knew exactly where to go. That’s just not right ain’t it? To just be handed this victory on a silver platter? I’ve been buttering you up with all this ‘kind’ crap, just letting you lead me here. Max took your friends over to our camp to be imprisoned, while I deal with YOU!”
He drew the machete and swung it at her, she narrowly dodges it.
She feels like vomiting, tears streaming from her eyes. She’d genuinely trusted him, and it was all an act? She felt like she’d been shot, sinking down to her knees. This was worse than anything Jax had ever done. She couldn’t even bring herself to move when Gummigoo walked up to her, raising the machete above his head.
She looked up at the croc, seeing the madness in his dot eyes. He began to bring down the weapon, yet she couldn’t look away.
BANG!
Gummigoo screamed as his hand was blown to pieces, raining gummy bits onto Pomni. They both looked over toward the side of the boat.
Jax stood there, dripping wet, face covered in gummy splatters, with a black eye, holding a revolver.
“F[BEEP] you gummy a[BEEP]hole!” Jax shouted, before raising the revolver to fire once again. Gummigoo launched himself at the rabbit with a feral madness.
—
Jax had snuck off once the lights went out during the murder mystery adventure, returning to the office in order to reaquire the revolver. Every gun Caine had ever made was either a shotgun or rifle, way too big to smuggle back with him, but the small revolver fit wonderfully in his pocket, so it came back with him through the portal.
He’d kept the firearm in his room, keeping it for worse case scenarios. As fun as it would be to use on Ragatha, this was an ace up his sleeve that he couldn’t waste.
He had packed it in his front pocket for the day, just to be prepared for Caine’s new adventure.
When they first arrived Jax had gone off to make small talk with Pomni, hoping that his nonchalant-ness would make her overlook the fact that’s he’d been avoiding her for a few days. To his shock she completely blew him off.
How dare she, Jax was actually gonna try and make an effort to talk, but now she’d gone and ruined it. He slumped towards the back of the group, not feeling like being on this stupid adventure.
That’s when the croc showed up. He’d almost killed Ragatha, which Jax liked, but then he tipped his hat towards Pomni, which Jax didn’t like. He remembered Ragathas comment about Pomni hitting on him during the McDonald’s adventure. That’s when the croc kissed her hand.
He’s going to die. Now. Jax felt a burning rage that he’d never felt before, and immediately reached for the gun in his front pocket, fully prepared to kill this NPC right there.
But he remembered how mad Pomni was at him. If she was mad over him ignoring her, how would she react to him killing this guy she liked right in front of her? Jax thought for a moment, before deciding he’d kill the gummy the second Pomni couldn’t see him.
He waited for his opportunity, before seeing the gummy and his two goons going off into a bush to discus something. He immediately followed, hoping Pomni wouldn’t hear the gunshot.
As he crept up he heard something he didn’t expect.
“-take the others to the camp, and use the machete there to take them hostage, while I take the clown with the map to the ship.”
Jax emerged, with a massive smile on his face. He could now murder this f[BEEP]er and actually be doing the right thing!
“Hello boys! Discussing mutiny over here? Tsk tsk, that not very kind of you. Australia would be disappointed.”
Before he could react, Gummigoo ran up to him at a surprising speed, before he sent a right hook straight into Jax’s face.
Jax stumbled back, and then received a left hook to the gut, causing him to double over. The red and yellow gummy tackled Jax, causing them both to go flying deeper into the jungle. Jax felt the gun in his pocket go flying out, leaving him unarmed. The gummy shouted for his friends to go, before he stood up, ready to fight.
Jax and his father had shared very few interests, but one of the few they both loved was martial arts. His father loved the bravery of the combatants, while Jax loved the level of skill and precision used. Jax had taken a taekwondo class briefly in the real world, but he sadly lacked the strength to apply it.
But in the digital Circus? As long as Jax believed in it hard enough he could pull off Matrix levels of combat.
He slipped a punch from the croc, responding with an uppercut. He sent a high and low kick towards the NPC, putting enough distance between them for Jax to perform a tornado kick. The spinning attack sent the crocodile flying backwards into a tree.
Jax took a second to look around for the gun, but while he was distracted a rock struck him the back of the head.
He fell to the ground, turning onto his back, only to see the croc leap on top of him, trying to strangle him.
Jax quickly reached up, digging his hand into the soft gummy eye. The NPC screamed in pain, and Jax used the distraction to flip the gator underneath him. He took the rock that had been thrown at him and began bashing the croc, splattering gummy everywhere.
He took a moment to catch his breath, before scrambling around to find the gun. Eventually he found it hidden under a leaf, so he grabbed it and started running off to save Pomni.
Part of him didn’t wanna bother because she blew him off earlier, but another part of him really didn’t wanna see her get hurt.
He ran as fast as he could, his lungs burned in his chest, but he knew he could power through. He followed the path of slashed trees, finding it leading to a cave. Jax couldn’t care less what happened to the others, the only person he kind of cared about was Pomni. He quickly ran into through the rooms, the puzzles having not reset, leading to the ledge.
He could see from it that Gummigoo and Pomni were on the deck of the ship. Without another thought he leapt into the water, swimming over as fast as he could. He prayed the water didn’t mess with the revolver, because he didn’t know if he’d be able to beat Gummigoo while he had that machete.
He climbed onto the side of the boat, pointing the revolver at Gummigoo’s machete wielding hand. He fired, and a loud BANG rang through the cave.
The bullet tore through the gummy, exploding his entire hand. Gummigoo and Pomni looked over at him.
“F[BEEP] you gummy a[BEEP]hole!” Jax screamed, rage burning through his chest, before raising the revolver to fire once again. Gummigoo launched himself at the Jax with a more surprising speed.
Jax fired another shot directly into his chest, causing him to fly back, slamming into the floor of the boat. Jax walked up, pointing the gun at his head.
He could have come up with some Australian pun or insult, but he was too furious to do anything but shoot the b[BEEP] in the head.
Jax looked over at Pomni. Tears streamed down her face, and she looked horrified. Jax put the gun back in his front pocket before walking over to her.
It made him feel awful seeing her so upset. He had never felt so terrible for someone else, he wanted her to feel better more than anything.
Sadly he didn’t know what to do, she needed someone who was good with this stuff, like Ragatha. Wait no, Jax could do ANYTHING better than Ragatha, he wasn’t gonna let her swoop in and steal his save. He got down on one knee, awkwardly putting out a hand for Pomni to grab.
She looked at him with watery eyes, before jumping and pulling him into a hug. He, unlike her, had no issue with physical contact, he just wasn’t used to getting any. He slowly put his arms around her, hoping to make her feel more secure. He noticed the portal had opened after Gummigoo died, so he gently picked her up, cradling her in his arms, and walked to the portal. The others could figure out their own way back.
He exited back into the circus, blowing past Caine for the bedrooms. He walked down the hallway, planning on dropped Pomni off in her own room. He noticed that she was still wide eyed, and shaking. She was seriously traumatized.
Jax knew he needed something to make her feel better, and he could only think of one thing. Going against possibly his biggest rule ever, he slowly walked up to his own door and unlocked it, bringing her in.
Nobody expect for him had ever seen his room. The wall to the left of the door had his bed against it. To the sides and above the bed were hundreds of keys, all nailed to the wall on rings.
The wall directly across from the door had all his junk. The entire wall was scattered with shelf’s, full of random stuff. There was a a bunch of food, a bat, a telescope, board games, a rack of hats, a bunch of different clothes, a tall object with a tarp over it, books, a enclosure with a bunch of centipede in it, paint cans, and all kinds of other stuff.
The wall to the right of the door was the most interesting. It held one shelf, going across the entire bottom of the wall. On top of the shelf sat one old fashioned looking TV. On the wall above it was a gigantic sprawling map. It had a few of the different locations marked near the middle, but the rest was tons of little numbered boxes. A few had stars around them, with a few others having triangles around them. The shelf at the bottom was full of books, each labeled with various ranges of numbers.
Jax noticed her staring at the map and books, before saying,
“That’s my map of the circus. All those numbers boxes are various rooms I’ve found. The books at the bottom each have a corresponding page with one of the numbered boxes, explaining what the room is. The few marked with stars mean those are really good rooms that I’ll probably wanna return to, while the triangles are bad rooms that should be avoided at all costs.”
After explaining he sat on the bed, facing the map wall. He got back up, walking over to the old fashioned TV that sat on the shelf, and flicked it on.
He walked back to the bed, still carrying Pomni, and faced her towards the TV.
After a few moments the static on the TV faded, showing a simple wall, covered in vines with cracks running through it. The feed was nothing notable, and Pomni looked up at him with confusion.
He looked at her, before saying, “That is live feed from the webcam on the computer. The real computer, in the real world. What you’re currently looking at is the only way to see the real world in the entire circus.”
The shock of this reveal seemingly made her forget about being sad, as she quickly sat up, asking questions.
“Wait what? You’ve just had this? Do you see anything that could help us? Could this thing be used to make an exit? Is it already an exit? Why did you hide this?”
He looked at her with his good eye, before explaining,
“I’ve tried endless experiments with it, I’m certain it can’t be used as an exit. I worked on it for years straight, but as far as I can tell it is only that video feed. It is live, I’ve seen a bird flying past once or twice. I kept this a secret because.. well it calms me, reassures me that there’s still a world out there. I just figured because you were upset that maybe it could help you too.”
She watched the feed for a second, before turning back and hugging him again.
“It did.”
They stayed watching the feed for a while, just staring at the bland wall. She eventually turned over to him and said-
“Thank you, Jax. Today… was rough, but you helped me. You showed me you care. Thank you.”
Jax scoffed.
“This could still be an elaborate prank ya know.”
She ignored the comment, noticing his black eye.
“Your eye, is it ok? What happened? Can we get Caine to fix it?”
He tried not to blush as her genuine concern for him made him feel all bubbly inside. He thought of a response, not wanting to bring up Gummigoo again.
“It’s fine, I got it from… in-in a fight. I can get Caine to fix it later, right now I’m making sure you’re better.”
She looked at him.
“I am better. I just don’t want you to suffer for me. If it hurts.”
“It doesn’t, genuinely.”
She watched the TV for a moment longer before she asked-
“Can I, um, stay over for the night? I just don’t want to be alone.”
He was silent for a moment.
“Yeah, yeah you can.”
She smiled, before cuddling into him. He leaned back, pulling them fully onto the bed. He took his blanket and put it over them, holding her tightly.
He did care about her. He always did.