Chapter Text
“Holy shit,” Zooble whispered, and Pomni’s eyes widened. She wasn’t looking, but she’s sure everyone else’s did too. For a second, everyone was quiet; the circus crumbling into nothing but ones and zeroes around them.
Jax broke the silence, spitting out, “What the fuck do we do now?”
She…had no idea. None of them did. Ragatha tried to answer—something about supporting each other—but Jax cut her off.
“No, I’m being serious,” he glared at Ragatha, and then wove his hands around, “look at this! Look at all this mess! We’re fucked ragdoll. Caine may be dead, but we’re still here,” his pupils dilated as he grabbed his ears, “We’re still in this shitty circus that just got even shittier. At least before Caine went nuts we had some entertainment, no what are we supposed to do? Sit around, wanting to die? No,” Jax clenched his fist, but she could still see how his hands were shaking, “I’m not doing that.”
Seemingly to himself, he whispered, “I’m not doing any of this anymore.”
Flipping Ragatha off, he stormed away. Or he tried too.
“Oh absolutely the fuck not,” Zooble grabbed his wrist, “We are sticking together, we’ve been through too much for—”
“Jax, you’re not abstracting,” Pomni cut in, deadpan “you’re not allowed too. I’m not letting you.”
“I’m…” he started, “I’m n—”
“The abstractions,” Gangle breathed out—quiet and fast. Everyone froze. Slowly, as if something would pounce on her if she made any sudden movements, she looked downwards. The cellar, with all the abstracted circus members, was open.
In the distance, a grumble shook the ground.
“Shit—Kinger,” Zooble turned to look at the chess piece, “Can you…conjure? something to keep them contained. You’ve been here the longest, you know how to do that.”
Kinger had turned away from them at the roar, completely bewitched by the abstractions in the distance.
“Kinger?” Pomni laid a hand on his shoulder—well, where his shoulder would be. She just ended up patting him on the back, “Are you up for that?”
“Wha…” he trailed off, still looking off into the distance before he straightened up and faced the rest of the group, “I—no, no, that won’t work. Not for long anyway. It’s hard to make things permanent, I’ve only managed it once,” he fiddled with the golden band on his third finger.
Horror dawned on all of their expressions; they felt the ground shake beneath them.
“I can’t do this,” Jax started to hyperventilate, “I can’t fucking do this.”
“JAX, STAY WITH—” Pomni snapped, panicked, but it was too late. Jax was sprinting in the other direction, ears drooped. Even as he got further away, they could still hear his ragged breathing.
The abstraction roared again, closer this time. Shit, what to do? The abstractions will do worse than kill them—the image of Ragtha glitching in pain is still burned into her brain—but Jax is her…friend. Yeah, fuck it, he’s her friend. But the abstractions might get him first if she chased after him. But HE might abstract and—
While Pomni was whipping her head back and forth, Zooble stepped up, “Fuck, I’ll deal with him.” they said, and then jogged off in the same direction Jax had left.
“Thanks,” Pomni smiled and yelled to their retreating back.
“So what do we do?” Ragatha asked Kinger in a small voice. Pomni swore she’d never heard her sound so young.
He pulled the bucket back over his head, but still answered her question, “We need to hold them off until we can find a way to trap them. The only way I can think of to do that would be getting,” he paused, and she waited on the edge of her seat for him to finish, “well—would be getting Caine.”
“Kinger,” Gangle said slowly, “Caine is dead. You remember that…right?”
“Not yet. He’s in the deleted files file, we can—” he stopped talking, right in the middle of his sentence.
“Kinger?” Pomni crept up to him.
“Kinger? Are you—”
“Don’t. Move,” He hissed. In the reflection of his bucket, she saw a massive black figure and many, many glowing eyes.
She froze. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Gangle and Ragatha do the same. The hair on the back of her neck stood up. In the bucket’s reflection, she saw the abstraction start walking. Not towards them, but not leaving them either. They weren’t safe
Fuck it, she wasn’t standing around here forever.
“Kinger,” she risked a whisper, and waited until she was sure the monster a few dozen feet away hadn’t reacted, “How do we get Caine?”
“Wait, we’re seriously getting Caine back?”
“Do you have a better idea, Ragatha?” Pomni genuinely, sincerely asked the other woman. Because if there was a lasting way to deal with this problem without making another, louder, problem, she’d go for it.
Ragatha’s grimace told her all she needed to know, though, so she waited for Kinger to tell her what to do.
Kinger whispered the instructions, and…of course it couldn’t be easy, “Someone will have to go to the recycling bin and get him before his programming is deleted permanently. Unless Caine changed something, we have seven days until then.”
The abstraction shifted, and Kinger rushed through the rest of his explanation, “Whoever goes will need to venture into the void. It doesn’t matter which direction you go, just stay there for long enough and you’ll end up in the recycling bin. It’s…well I won’t say it’s an easy journey. I don’t even know how long it would take. I could do it, but—”
But he’s the only one who knows the circus, and has the best chance of fighting off the abstractions. It’s obvious he can’t go.
“I’ll do it,” Pomni volunteered herself before she could think it through.
Kinger looked at her, and smiled, “Thank you, Pomni,” he whispered
“We’ll cover for you,” Gangle added and…wait what?
Oh shit, they’re doing this now. Like right now.
Before she could blink, Gangle whipped out a tommy gun and was firing in every direction. The abstraction let out a strangled cry that shook her very bones. Her feat beating the floor, she sprinted—not in any particular direction, just somewhere away. In the back of her mind she knew that she needed to get to the void, but all that existed to her was the sound of fighting behind her. Kinger’s screams, Ragatha’s cries, Gangle’s maniacal laughs, and the abstraction’s roars and rumbles.
The void. She has to get to the void. There’s a hole in the circus floor, halfway across the room to her right. She has to get there.
Turning on a dime without slowing down, Pomni’s feet somehow stayed under her. She ran as fast as she could for the hole in the floor—despite every instinct in her body screaming at her to help her friends.
“AHHHH!” That was Ragatha. Was she okay? Was she back to convulsing on the circus floor, desperate for help? Would she ever get it?
“STAY BACK!” Gangle shrieked. Pomni can’t remember ever hearing her be so outgoing, minus the "everyone gets guns” adventure. She hopes she’ll be okay—it’s nice that the other woman is getting out of her shell a little.
“Honey…” oh god no. Kinger, poor Kinger, could be fighting his wife right now. Could be running from her in fear. Or worse, not running—she thought back to Mildenhall Manor, when he thought the angel was his wife.
She couldn’t think about that for much longer, however, because before she knew it she had reached the hole in the floor, and plunged in.