Chapter Text
“That was [BEEP].”
That’s what Zooble says after a particularly long adventure gone wrong. After everything Zooble had personally gone through during that ordeal, Pomni has a better understanding of why they never bother going on these things.
To be honest, Pomni was pretty dissociated so she doesn’t remember all of it, but she does remember that it had been painfully slow.
Caine has just left them all to their own devices after awarding their efforts with a pizza party.
Pomni looks over at Zooble, not saying anything but sharing a tired look with them.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Ragatha responds to Zooble, always looking for the silver lining. “I feel like this adventure went smoother than usual, don’t you think?”
“That’s because Jax wasn’t there,” Gangle speaks up bluntly.
Pomni agrees, but can’t really bring herself to say anything. It just feels like it would take so much energy.
“Well, maybe,” Ragatha says with undeserved kindness, though Pomni suspects she’s thinking something similar.
“At least we didn’t have to deal with his [BEEP] for a while,” Zooble grunts.
“I had a great time,” Gangle says cheerfully, comedy mask still intact for the time being.
Pomni starts to break off from the others, drifting away towards the rooms, but as soon as she turns she sees Kinger in her peripheral vision. Her eyes widen in surprise and she startles a bit, but not nearly as much as Kinger who screams and throws up his hands. Pomni screams too.
This creates a brief feedback loop before Pomni gets ahold of herself, putting her hands up to calm Kinger. “It’s just me!”
Kinger’s startled eyes remain fixated on her for a second and then he says as if he wasn’t screaming seconds ago, “Oh, hello Pomni! Fancy seeing you here.”
Pomni puts a hand to her chest and takes a deep breath to recover from all that. Then she gives Kinger a little smile. “Anyway, I’m gonna go now. See you around, Kinger.”
Ragatha turns back, face worried. “You aren’t coming to eat with us, Pomni?”
“Eh, no,” Pomni says, scratching the back of her head. Kinger tilts his head at her. She shrugs. “I’m just gonna go catch up on sleep. I’ll see you all later.”
Ragatha continues to look concerned. Zooble meets her eyes again then glances away.
“Well, alright,” Ragatha says reluctantly, waving a little. “See you later!”
Pomni smiles slightly and waves back, then turns and heads off towards the living quarters feeling like she was lying.
It’s not like she was, though. She’s going to go back and sleep, but there’s still this feeling like she’s letting someone down, though it doesn’t feel like it’s any of the others.
Pomni walks a little numbly. Jeez, it’s really bad today. This place gets to her some days more than others.
It’s as she’s turning down a hall that she hears the sound of a TV. Weird. Then she notes an open door to her left. Ahh, that’s probably not good.
Still, she creeps over and peers with a little apprehension into the room.
The first thing that she notices is that the room is full of TVs. They’re all on and the flashing illuminates an otherwise unlit room. Then she notices a figure.
Jax is laid out on his side, head up and supported by his palm. He’s just laying there, watching all the TVs. Or maybe he’s fallen asleep in that position. His back is facing her. Pomni thinks it might be best to get moving.
But then she has the thought that it’s odd Jax didn’t come along. He doesn’t mind the adventures like the others. Revels in making them worse, if anything. Pomni frowns.
She turns to face the room, putting a hand on the doorframe but not quite stepping in.
“Jax…?”
Maybe it’s her imagination but Pomni swears she sees Jax tense. Then he rolls over lazily, grinning up at her. “Back already? How was Caine’s little adventure? Get to commit any war crimes?”
“Uh, not this time, no.”
Pomni’s eyes flick to the TVs. Then back down to Jax. She stares at his smile and even though it’s exactly the same as usual she can’t help but get the feeling that something is off. There’s a part of her that’s eager to go to her room, but she finds herself asking,
“Why are you laying on the floor in this weird TV room? This can’t be good for your brain.”
Jax’s expression doesn’t change but he just stares at her for a moment. Then he snorts, eyes rolling to stare upwards as he flops onto his back. Pomni’s gaze follows to see there’s a TV on the ceiling, too.
“I can scramble my brain if I feel like it. Who are you, Ragatha?” Jax scoffs.
Pomni watches the screen on the ceiling for a few seconds but it’s all unintelligible drivel that low-key makes her head hurt.
“What?” Jax asks suddenly, finally breaking her stupor. “Do you need something or…?”
Pomni blinks. Does she? What is she still standing here for? Her mouth pulls down into a deep frown for a moment before smoothing out. She knows she’s just going to get shut down, but she asks Jax,
“Are you okay?”
Jax looks over and it feels hostile. He’s still smiling but it doesn’t reach his eyes. Maybe it hasn’t during this whole interaction. “Why wouldn’t I be okay, toots? I’m in the amaaaazing digital circus. Aren’t you living out your wildest fantasies on the daily?”
Pomni’s brow knits and she stares down at Jax. “So, no.”
Jax’s eyes narrow, smile waning down into a frown. “Pomni, make like a tree and buzz off. I’m watching TV here.”
His face turns away from her and he lifts a hand, waving it in a lazy shooing motion.
Well, it’s not like there’s much Pomni can say to that. But it doesn’t sit right and she can’t help but say—
“If you need to talk about it…”
“Ha! Me talk to you? Jeez, getting a little self-important over there?” Jax gives her a sneering look.
Pomni flinches back and she hates that she did that. Any sympathy for Jax dries up.
“Fine, have fun watching your thirty TVs.”
You jerk, she wants to say, but keeps that inside. She turns and leaves the room, tense and irritated.
“Cry me a river,” Jax calls after her.
The trek to her room takes forever and when the door is shut she immediately falls on her bed face down. It’s a relief.
Stupid Jax. Stupid Caine for coming up with all these horrible games and making their lives a living Hell. Pomni rubs her face against the pillow and lays in her swirling thoughts for a while. It’s low key awful, but ultimately the thoughts she has before drifting off to sleep are about Ragatha and the others.
If she didn’t have them she doesn’t think she’d be able to stand this place. But Kinger was right. As long as they have each other…
—
It's that dream again.
At first she’s with the others, poking at her digital food and taking bland bites. The only way she really knows how to describe it is staticky and somehow not unlike La Croix. She eats it regardless because she wants to eat something.
She’s been getting used to it though. Bit by bit.
But then she realizes that the others are suddenly gone and she’s sitting at the table alone. There’s no food in front of her and when she looks down she notices that—
Something is wrong with my hand
It’s dark and pulsating, no, that’s not it — the edges jerk around and form hard points that sink the moment they arise and it takes her a moment to realize.
I’m becoming abstracted
Pomni screams and jerks back like she’ll somehow be able to escape her hand. But she can’t. The darkness crawls up her arm and starts to consume her chest, her stomach, her face.
And then she’s nothing
—
Pomni awakens with a start, clawing at her bedding and jerking around as she tries to escape something that doesn’t exist. If living here really is existing.
She sits up, hair mussed and breathing hard, looking down at her arms and sighing in relief only once she’s absolutely sure she’s not abstracting for real. She puts a hand over her heart which is still pounding away.
When she finally calms she flops back down and gets to thinking.
How many days has it been since she arrived? Months? Surely not more than one. Pomni reaches up to rub her face with both hands.
She wonders grimly how close all of them are to abstraction. She’s certainly had her moments and she knows Ragatha isn’t as okay as she lets on. Zooble is aloof, but it’s not too hard to tell they’re going through it too. And Gangle is delicate but with a persistence the others lack.
It feels unfair to think about this so Pomni stops. She knows from her earlier interaction with Jax that even just a rude comment has her feeling raw.
But is Jax okay?
The thought comes to her and she wrestles with it a bit before settling on concern. He was being a jerk, but something really had seemed off.
Pomni sighs and pushes some hair out of her face. She should go apologize for how short she’d been with him. She won’t push it or try to get him to talk, she’ll just apologize and then she’ll walk away. If he’s even still there.
The moment Pomni leaves her room she longs to be in it again. Instead she makes her way back to the hallway where she’d found Jax, heading to the door. It’s no longer open and it makes her feel uneasy.
But still she grasps the handle and opens it, peering inside.
“Jax?”
All the TVs are off.
A bad feeling washes over Pomni, warning her to close the door and walk away, pretend she never even came here. Instead she takes a deep breath and takes a step into the now dim room.
“Ja-” Pomni is startled by a crunching sound at her feet and looks down, staring at a black shard of-
abstraction
Something Pomni can’t recognize at first. And then it clicks and she starts to look around the room. Some of the TVs are broken, pieces of the screens littering the floor.
Her eyes sweep the path they make until they fix on a figure in the corner. Pomni’s vision starts to pinprick, the world shrinking in around her. A shudder runs up her spine and she holds in a gasp.
Then she realizes the figure is moving, panting heavily as if in pain.
Run away
The light from the hall doesn’t spill in that far but Pomni’s eyes have started to adjust, making out the unmistakable silhouette of Jax’s hunched back. Flickering along one side of Jax is the same wave of restlessly moving spikes that Pomni sees in her nightmares.
Run away!!
Pomni wants to. She staggers a few steps back and turns, about to run. But Ragatha’s face when she had been injured by Kaufmo pops into Pomni’s mind.
She can see Ragatha glitching on the floor.
The way she had looked at Pomni when she had turned to leave
Pomni bites her lip hard and then turns, taking a few tentative steps forward.
“Jax, It’s— It’s me, it’s Pomni.” She takes several more steps not because she’s emboldened, but because she doesn’t know how much time she has left. She walks over to Jax and sinks down onto her knees beside him.
“Um—“ she starts again, panicking. “Jax, can you hear me?”
Jax curls in tighter around himself like he’s trying to tuck himself into a ball.
“Wh -y are you h- re, Pom-Pomni?” Jax speaks, voice glitching.
“I came to—“ Pomni’s mind blanks. “That doesn’t matter. You have to— to calm down, okay?”
She reaches out towards Jax then recoils like the abstraction could be spread through touch.
That pulls a horrible laugh from Jax that stutters and trips and repeats over itself as it fills the space around them. “Be-better sta-rt run-running. I’m g-gon-na tear y-ou to p-ieces.”
A cold shiver of fear curdles through Pomni’s entire being. But she can’t just leave him here.
”It’s not too late, Jax! You haven’t abstracted yet! You can still—!”
Pomni reaches out again and this time she fights her fear and touches his good arm.
“Look at me,” she pleads.
Faster than Pomni is actually prepared for, Jax’s body jerks and he whirls on her and she’s able to see the full extent of the abstraction that’s consumed his entire right arm, crawling up his neck, starting to creep up into his face.
Pomni sees in Jax’s eyes how terrified he is.
Before she can even react, colorful, illuminated eyes begin to appear in the dark mass, opening and focusing on Pomni.
“Don’t lo -ok at me-e-e!” Jax cries out.
Pomni flinches away, eyes averting. But then she wrenches her gaze back to Jax and takes a deep, shaky breath.
What does she do?
What does she do?
The darkness consumes him and Pomni can't even see Jax’s face anymore, but she sees those eyes focusing on her and they terrify her. She takes another uneven breath and tries to figure out what to do.
The mass in front of her jerks forward and Pomni cries out, acting on instinct. She raises her hands, placing them on either side of the largest eye that looms over her.
“Jax!” she begs, meeting the monstrous eye’s gaze.
And for a moment it looks at her. And she knows she only has a few seconds.
Pomni doesn’t choose what to do. It just happens.
She starts to lightly stroke her hand to the side of the eye, shushing him.
“Shh, hey, it’s okay! Everything is okay.”
All of the eyes on Jax–this thing that won’t be him for much longer–turn towards her, thrumming rhythmic colors that make her feel dizzy, make her head hurt like the TVs had, and then it rears back with a frightening cry that makes Pomni close her eyes instinctively as piercing needles of static start to prick up her arm–
“Hey, shhhh, Jax,” Pomni begs, meeting the large eye's gaze again and searching it for him. “Everything is okay! Every– everything is okay. You’re okay. You don't–”
Her heart stutters with fear.
“You don't have to abstract. It'll be okay.” She gives him the only smile she can, a shaky, nervous one. “I'm here with you.”
A horrible cry fills the room, a bellowing shriek that sounds so far from anything human. It chills Pomni.
The spikey darkness flares and she thinks maybe she's lost him completely.
But then it starts to slowly recede in shaky, fragmented jerks, the room growing darker.
Pomni hesitantly looks into Jax’s panting face. She becomes aware of a dull ache in her arm and registers that he’s gripping it so hard it would probably bruise if she wasn’t in this body. She can feel him trembling.
He stares at her with dazed eyes that still look out of it.
“Why…?” Jax asks, sounding closer to anger than gratitude or relief.
Pomni can't answer at first. She meets his eyes and they just stare at each other. Pomni can feel him trying to understand, but she doesn’t know what to say.
No answer is going to make Jax happy.
“I didn't want you to abstract.”
Jax looks like he’s gritting his teeth. Pomni is trying to decide how to proceed with this entire situation when Jax grunts, trying to push himself up. His grip tightens on her arm as he strains then gives up, shaking his head.
“Well I can’t leave this conversation, so you should,” Jax says listlessly, words lacking their usual bite.
“What?” Pomni feels numb, shellshocked. She looks down at Jax's long body, uncertain. “At least let me help you out of here.”
If she can.
Pomni tries to lift him, draping his long body over her shoulders.
“Come on, work with me here.”
“I could be on a mindless rampage right now,” Jax grumbles but adjusts his posture, taking some of the weight off of Pomni as he awkwardly leans against her. “You’re too short is the problem.”
The quips at a time like this would usually infuriate Pomni but there’s such a tired quality to them she wonders if that’s how he’s keeping it together.
“Yeah, yeah,” Pomni offers neutrally as she starts to drag him along.
The walk down the hall lasts forever. Jax is so hard to keep upright and he’s only barely helping.
As they walk Jax does seem to become more calm, breathing never quite slowing to a normal pace as they walk. As they make it to the hall of bedrooms Jax seems to be barely trucking along.
“Just a little further,” Pomni assures.
Jax, who has fallen into a rare silence, finally breaks it with a hard edge to his voice. “If you tell anyone else about what happened I’ll ruin whatever cruel parody of a life you try to make for yourself here.”
Pomni can't help but scoff at that. But she doesn't doubt that's exactly what he'll do, so she agrees.
“Alright, fine. I won't tell anyone.”
Pomni heads for Jax's room, but as they approach he says insistently, sharply,
“You're not going in my room.”
Pomni, whose legs are shaking from exertion and anxiety, makes an aggravated sound and looks around. So he doesn't want anyone to know, but nowhere out in the open is safe from that.
“Well…”
Pomni looks over at her room and frowns. It seems there's not much of a choice. She half carries Jax to her room, unlocking the door and hip bumping it open. They make their way inside and she brings Jax to her bed, helping him sit down. He immediately sinks onto his side and Pomni frowns.
“Can I, um, get you anything…?”
Jax takes a breath like he's about to say something scathing then doesn't, eventually sighing out a rush of air.
“Do you think doing any of this will get you points with the others? With me? Because it won't,” Jax insists, eyes slipping shut like it's hard to keep them open.
“Points…?” Pomni is so tired. “I didn't do any of this for points.”
It figures Jax wouldn’t get it, though.
“You should rest,” she tells him. “You're looking… Well, bad.”
“Gee, sugar coat it a little won't you?” Jax grumbles.
But he really does look bad and even now seems close to unconsciousness.
Jax weakly rolls onto his other side, turning his back to Pomni and for a moment she sits there trying to mentally decompress.
“Why do you care if I abstract?” Jax asks. “Like you wouldn’t all be dancing on my metaphorical grave once Caine cleaned up the mess.”
That has Pomni on the defensive, offense kickstarting her a bit. She's fired up. “Look, just because you get a kick out of the misfortune of others doesn't mean we all do!”
She adds, “Nobody is going to be ‘dancing on your grave.’ Why in the world would anyone do that?”
It's an offensive and upsetting assumption.
“Ha!” Jax turns his head to look back at her, something combative in his eyes as well. “Don't say that like you weren't all thrilled not to have me around today. You were, right? ‘Wow, what a better time we can all have without Jax ruining everything!’”
He scoffs and moves as if to turn around to further confront her but his arm buckles and he remains on his side. “You all probably won't even hold one of those stupid funerals for me because what could anyone have to say other than good riddance?”
Pomni absorbs what he's saying with a vague sense of horror. Her brow furrows.
“Do you really think that?”
The look Jax gives her makes her frown even more and she feels her lips tugging down into a grimace.
“That's not true, though. Yeah, the adventure was way easier. But that doesn't mean anyone’s going to be celebrating if you abstract.”
Jax scoffs, and this time he's able to prop himself up when he tries, looking at Pomni with sharp eyes looking for a fight. “Oooh, is that so? Go on then Pomni. Tell me all the heartfelt things you could possibly have to say about me.”
Pomni stares at him.
And then she shrugs. What can she even say.
“One time I brought him to my room after he almost abstracted and he heckled me until I abstracted.”
Jax continues to glower at her and then he lets out a low laugh that gradually turns to a chuckle and he settles back against the bed, still laughing. “If only.”
Pomni watches his back like she'll be able to glean something from it. Then she sits down on the edge of the bed, unsure if that's even okay. But it's her bed.
“What do you want me to say, Jax? That we all hate you? I don't. You make me really mad sometimes, but… Like really, really mad. Really mad.”
Pomni struggles. No wonder Ragatha is so worn out. Being positive in this place is draining and, frankly, if she hadn't had that conversation with Kinger in the horror mansion she's not sure she'd even have the hope to.
“Like it or not, you're one of us. I don't want there to be one less spot at the dinner table.”
Jax scoffs at that.
“There won’t be. Caine changes out the table every time someone abstracts.”
Pomni has nothing to say to that. The thought is jarring, but yeah, that makes sense. She imagines a shorter table.
And then something horrible happens and tears well up in her eyes. They start falling and Pomni's stomach sinks in sticky humiliation.
“Well,” she says, voice watery. “I would still know the difference.”
After a second Jax turns to look at her again, mouth set in a frown. His gaze burns into her before he starts to smirk, reaching forward as if to touch her and she instinctively flinches.
That just makes Jax smirk more, though he lets his hand fall and slowly rolls over to face her.
“Hey now. If you become a big crybaby then what will Gangle have left?” He finally sighs like something can't be helped. “You're all so emotional, jeez. I'm fine now, okay?”
“Oh, you're fine, huh?” Pomni wipes at her tears with the back of her hand impatiently. “Well, you don't look fine. Just…”
There's no words of comfort she could give. Jax is an unreachable person.
“Stay here until you can walk. I'll… go get you some water.”
Even if they don't need to drink, it feels like they should.
Pomni walks to the door then glances back as she's about to leave. Jax is looking at her and he isn't smiling. He looks like he's annoyed. Pomni just gives a little wave and a frown.
“I'll be right back.”
The last thing she hears before the door shuts is a tsk from Jax.
She wonders if he's going to hold all this against her.
—
The hours drag on. At least, Pomni thinks hours pass. It's a little hard to tell in the dark of her room.
She sits on the edge of the bed practically twiddling her thumbs. She won't tell the others, but that means it's her job to keep an eye on Jax. Every time he moves she thinks he's abstracting and it freaks her out.
But Jax hasn't moved for a while now. In fact, he seems to be deep in a restless sleep that grows troubled. His head jerks to the side and he mumbles something Pomni can't make out.
Pomni reaches forward uncertainly and slowly, tentatively presses her palm to Jax's forehead.
She immediately withdraws it with a gasp.
He’s burning up.
The only reason Pomni doesn't swear is because she's afraid the sound of the censor will scare the [BEEP] out of him.
Pomni scoots up to the head of the bed and slides her arm carefully under Jax's neck, lifting him a bit. She brings the cup of water to his mouth.
“Here, Jax. You need to drink this.”
“No,” Jax mumbles in a sleep-muffled tone and Pomni isn't even sure if he's reacting to her or something in his dreams.
He tries to shift his head away but, at a loss for what else to do, Pomni presses the cup insistently to his mouth.
Jax gives another discouraging mumble but finally starts to sip from the cup, gradually rousing until he reaches up to grab her wrist to tip the glass back as he gulps it down.
He finally pulls away with a cough, water running down the side of his mouth as he looks around hazily.
“Where…?” Then his eyes fix on Pomni, not hostile but lost. Like he can't fathom why she's there. “You-”
Whatever Jax is going to say he clearly changes his mind, lulling back into silence as his eyes slip shut.
“Too hot,” he finally complains.
There's not really anything to cool him down with. Pomni thinks maybe she could ask Caine for something, but who even knows where he is. So for now she presses her cool wrist to his burning forehead.
“Jax,” she asks quietly, not sure she wants to hear the answer. “Has anyone else ever come back from abstraction?”
Jax grunts like the question annoys him. He finally peeks an eye open at her and she gets a flash of the giant eye she'd stared into while talking him down.
It doesn't seem like he's going to say anything but then he mutters, “Dunno. No one's ever admitted to it and I've never heard about it.”
That makes Pomni retroactively scared and she allows herself to think about just how terrifying that had been.
But Jax is still here. That’s… a good sign, right? That abstraction can be reversed to a point. Pomni stops trying to find something good in something terrifying.
She turns her wrist and presses the other side to Jax’s forehead.
“I need to get you ice,” Pomni says at length, standing up. “I’ll be right back.”
“Don’t,” Jax says sharply. “Caine will be curious about why you want it. Just…don’t.”
He sighs in discomfort, draping his own arm over his forehead. “Stop trying to help me. I never asked.”
Pomni feels a flash of annoyance at that. “Yeah, well, I did.”
It’s not that she even really cares if Jax is grateful. It’s the weird, flippant disregard he’s having towards the whole thing that bothers her.
Pomni sighs and sits back down on the bed, pulling her legs up to her chest and hugging them. She’s not sure how much time passes, getting lost in countless thought spirals.
“It hurt worse than I expected,” Jax mutters suddenly into the silence but doesn't elaborate.
Pomni hesitates then gently prompts, “Yeah…?”
Jax lowers his arm slowly from his forehead. He still looks so unwell, even in the dark of her room. “I’m going to make this your problem.”
Then with a grunt of discomfort he rolls back over, curling up on his side and falling back into silence.
More time passes and then Pomni lets out a breath she didn’t know she was holding. She doesn’t know what to say or what to do.
But what she does know is that Jax is going to be true to his word on that.
He’s definitely going to make it her problem.
Pomni hugs her legs tightly and presses her face to her knees, losing herself in thought as she waits it out.
—
When Pomni wakes up she has a crick in her neck that hurts so bad she thinks she might be dying. Then she jerks awake, eyes going wide as she anxiously checks her surroundings.
She’s still in her room and the lights are still down. She puts a hand over her fluttering heart and takes a calming breath.
That’s right. Jax had almost abstracted and now he’s…
Gone.
She looks down at the spot where Jax had been laying. He must be well enough to move around now. Good.
That’s that, then. They’ll never speak of it again.
Pomni flops onto her side, trying to stretch out her neck. She still feels worried about the whole situation, but…
At least it’s over.
—
A loud sound startles Pomni and she jerks awake.
It comes again and she sits up, becoming aware that it’s a knock at the door. For a split second she expects it to burst open, an abstracted Jax coming to make good on his promise.
Then Ragatha’s voice calls out, “Pomni? Are you awake?”
Pomni groans, rubbing her eyes and slowly getting to her feet as Ragatha rambles on the other side of the door.
“-can come back later. Oop!” Ragatha says in surprise as Pomni finally opens the door, immediately falling into a smile. “There you are! Sorry if you were still sleeping, I was just worried because we didn’t see you all the rest of yesterday.”
Her eyes move over Pomni scrutinizingly and it must be obvious she’s not doing well because her expression becomes more concerned. “Are you feeling alright?”
Pomni rallies a little smile and nods even though no, not really. The uneasiness hasn’t left her.
“Yeah, I’m fine. The adventure just really took it out of me yesterday, haha…”
“Ohhh, I can understand thaaat,” Ragatha waves her hand, looking a little relieved. “Even the easy ones are draining, that’s for sure. Want to grab some food?”
Food, huh? Why not.
Pomni steps out of her bedroom and locks it out of habit rather than some belief that Jax can’t find his way inside to mess with her stuff whenever he feels like it. She knows he has keys.
As they walk Ragatha rambles on and Pomni tries to pay attention, but she can’t help but be jumpy. They enter the main tent area where Zooble, Gangle and Jax are standing around, Kinger no doubt in his pillow fort.
Even before she can hear what they’re saying Pomni can see Jax laughing like yesterday never happened, holding Gangle’s comedy mask up in the air out of reach.
“Come on Jax, I just fixed it,” Gangle pleads as Zooble watches on in annoyance before noticing the two of them approach.
“Hey,” Zooble greets.
“Jax!” Ragatha cries scoldingly. “Give Gangle back her mask!”
Jax’s eyes roll over their way, fixing on Pomni with an intensity that sends a shiver down her spine. Then they slide to Ragatha and he smirks. “Your name is Ragatha because all you do is rag on people.”
Ragatha crosses her arms and glares at Jax, who just rolls his eyes away and shrugs. “Alright, I’ll give it back.”
Jax winds back his arm and sends the mask soaring through the air like a frisbee. They all watch it get further away until it hits a random pillar, glitching against the side of it as the two start to interact.
“You’re unbelievable,” Ragatha scowls.
“I know, did you see how far that thing flew?” Jax cackles as Gangle looks on with fresh tears.
“My comedy mask…”
Pomni feels suddenly so tired even though she just got up.
“Greetings, denizens!”
Caine’s voice scares the everloving life out of Pomni and she shrieks, jumping back and looking up at the huge set of teeth and eyes. He’s floating maybe six feet from the ground and twirling his cane like a whimsical [BEEP].
“It’s time for your scheduled sustenance!” he declares, throwing his arms out like it’s cause for jubilation.
Zooble rolls their eyes. “Oh goodie. Nothing makes me feel more like a farm animal than having designated sustenance time.”
“I could serve it in a trough if you really want to feel like livestock!” Caine offers helpfully as they all make their way to the dining area.
Zooble just sighs, muttering a storm of beeps under their breath.
With a twirl of his cane and a click of his heels a table filled with food appears in front of them. Caine looks over them, counting, then snaps his fingers, Kinger suddenly appearing at one of the chairs at the table.
Kinger looks around uncomprehendingly then screams.
“There we are! Enjoy your delicious feast and gain strength for your upcoming adventure!” Caine cries enthusiastically, spiraling a little higher into the air.
Another adventure so soon. Pomni is sure it’ll be a hassle.
She starts to sit down at her place between Jax and Gangle, but suddenly the chair is pulled out from under her and she goes toppling, whacking the back of her head against the seat as she falls.
“Ow!!” Pomni cries, hissing and clutching at the back of her head.
It takes her a second to realize what’s happened, but when she looks up and sees Jax's grinning face she knows that the jerkwad pulled the chair out from under her. Pomni glowers up at him with resigned offense.
“Thanks a bunch, Jax.”
“You’re very welcome!” Jax snickers.
“Jax, what the [BEEP]?” Zooble asks as Ragatha leans heavily over the table to try and see if Pomni is alright.
“What? I’m just being a gentleman. See if I ever do that again.” He shrugs as if to say ain’t I a stinker before taking his own seat and kicking back.
Gangle offers a ribbon down to Pomni. “You didn’t crack your head, did you? I have a lot of experience fixing up cracks.”
“Shut up, Gangle,” Jax says over Pomni.
“I didn’t even say anything to you!”
Pomni gets up into her chair, still a little disoriented. She ignores Jax, digging into her food with lackluster enthusiasm. Everyone starts talking and Pomni focuses on the din around her, letting the voices ground her as she chews on her food.
She’s starting to doubt that yesterday even happened. Jax is acting completely normal. Maybe it was just a really, really bad dream.
But as the meal comes to an end she’s certain that whatever adventure they’re about to go on is going to be the real nightmare. She swallows the last bite and they’re rushed off to the portal with a poorly explained premise.
“Up and down and chutes and ladders and so much fun!” is what Caine says as he shoves them through the portal, nearly toppling Gangle over. “All you have to do is find your way to the bottom!”
And who knows what that explanation means.
As they emerge out of the portal Pomni becomes aware of a strange world with a purple sky anddd…
Slides.
Hundreds of them. Maybe thousands. They’re at the top of a platform with many slides attached and Pomni is hit with immediate vertigo when she looks down.
“Eep!” Pomni can’t help the sound that comes from her, clinging to the person closest to her who happens to be Kinger.
“Wow, we’re really high up,” he observes astutely. “Well, we just have to get to the bottom right?”
Then Kinger jumps.
Off the impossibly tall platform forgoing any slides.
With Pomni clinging to him.
“Kinger!!” Pomni screams as she starts to fall with him.
“Whoa!” Ragatha leaps forward, getting her arms around Pomni just in time. It halts their fall but Pomni’s arms start to stretch as she tries to hang onto Kinger and prevent his fall too.
“Jiminy Crickets, Kinger, what did you do that for?” Ragatha calls down, voice strained as she desperately tries not to fall herself.
Kinger looks around blankly, then up at them. “Ragatha, you need to let go for us to get to the bottom. You’re playing it wrong.”
Ragatha lets out a sound of frustration low in her chest then nervously tries to laugh it off. “Let’s maybe find a less intense way of getting down?”
Then Ragatha calls back behind her, “A little help maybe?”
Pomni feels like she’s going to get ripped in half as Ragatha starts to pull her up. Once Pomni is up over the edge she sees Gangle has also awkwardly joined the fray, ribbons wrapped around Ragatha.
Jax stands off to the side, watching with his hands casually resting on his hips.
With solid ground under her, Pomni is able to start tugging and soon the three of them are able to pull Kinger back up onto the platform.
Kinger sits there for a moment then blinks. “Did we win?”
“We sure did,” Jax says snarkily. “Good adventure everyone!”
Ragatha stands, brushing herself off then helping Pomni to her feet. “No, we didn’t. I mean, at least this feels easier than usual, right?”
Knowing Caine it feels unlikely it’ll remain that way but no one says anything.
“Now let’s try to find a less dangerous way down,” Ragatha suggests, and everyone starts to look around. There are so many different slides to choose from but peeking down Pomni sees that they’re all different heights, some stretching down further than others.
She pauses as she finds a slide so long it gives her vertigo just looking at it.
“Looks like you found a good one,” Jax suddenly speaks up behind Pomni, making her jump. “Nice work! Only seems fair you should get to go down first.”
“Wait, wha-” Pomni starts to ask before she feels Jax give her a push that sends her toppling down the slide.
Pomni screams the whole way down and it's a long way down.
The slide twists and spirals, flinging her from side to side and flipping her at one point so she's going down backwards on her stomach. At one point she lifts completely off the slide and slams back down with a solar plexus-ramming ‘Oof!’
When Pomni finally hits the bottom she's shot forward into a huge ball pit. She drowns in it briefly before bursting up out of the balls which come up almost to her shoulders. This short body is a burden.
“Jax, you [BEEP] [BEEP]!!” she screams back at the slide.
It ends up being fortuitous timing because the slim Jim of a prick comes sailing down the slide like it's an extreme sport, arms in the air as he dives into the ball pit.
He bursts from them a moment later, laughing his ass off. “What, you never been on a slide before? You sucked at it.”
“How can I suck at it, it's a slide!” Pomni cries like that's even the point. She jabs a finger in his direction and it looks silly with her arms coming out of the balls. “What is wrong with you! Now we're separated from the others and it's gonna take forever to find them in here!”
“Relax, toots,” Jax says, waving his hand dismissively.
“I will not relax!” Pomni decides irrationally. She starts wading through the ball pit trying to find an exit. “Help me find the way out! I hate this ball pit!”
“You're just mad because you’re short,” Jax says like it's a personal flaw.
He makes a point of shielding his eyes and looking around from his lanky vantage point. “Hmmm, oh I can see all sorts of stuff from way up here.”
Pomni makes a frustrated sound and decides to ignore him, wading through the balls with difficulty.
“Wrong,” Jax suddenly says from behind, hand coming down on her head and forcibly turning it to the right. “This way, shortstack.”
Then Jax gives her head a push for good measure as he begins to easily wade forward in the direction he'd indicated.
The worst part is having to trust him for anything. He's still acting like everything is as normal as it gets around here, too.
Pomni wades after him, looking around for whatever it was that indicated to Jax that this is the right direction. Then she sees it.
There's a sharp drop off where the balls are practically waterfalling into the abyss. Beyond it, very far away, is a small target. A very small target.
“How are we supposed to hit that?” she despairs.
“That's nothin’,” Jax says dismissively. “I've got this one covered.”
Then she hears something. A rustling off to the side and when she turns to look she swears she sees something. Then it pops up again.
It looks like a shark fin.
Pomni's heart jumps into her throat.
“Uh… Jax?”
Jax is still squinting at the target. “What? Can't you see I'm making some very important calculations?”
Pomni tries again. “Jax, I think there's a shark in here.”
The fin turns and starts heading for them, pushing balls out of its path. Pomni starts to back up towards the ball waterfall, anxiety spiking. She really doesn't want to get bitten in half today.
“Jax, I'm serious!”
“Sure, like I'm going to fall for-” Jax starts, turning to look at her and jumping at the sight of the fin closing in on them. “Whoa!”
He looks around but there's nowhere to go but more ballpit, over the edge, or right in the shark's mouth.
As if it's caught the scent of blood in the water, the shark begins to speed up.
“No no no no no!” Pomni looks around for safety but there is none. So she does the only thing she can.
She starts to scramble up Jax's body, climbing him like a tree.
“Jax, do something!”
“What do you want me to do?!” Jax snaps, struggling to get her off of him.
“Kill it!”
“How?!”
Pomni picks up a ball and launches it at the shark.
It misses completely and she screams.
Jax winces at the sound. “You're making this way worse!”
Jax pushes at her uselessly then gives up, glancing around again before turning back to the target.
“We just need to hit that, right? That should do the trick.” Jax starts to wade away from the shark, coming alarmingly close to the edge of the waterfall.
When Pomni looks down she can see a cascade of colorful balls falling into an abyss and isn't sure if that or the shark is worse.
“You're pretty much ball shaped,” Jax says suddenly, breaking Pomni from her fear stupor.
Then his hands are on her again, yanking her off with one clean pull. Pomni finds herself being drawn back.
“Wait, Jax, don't-!”
“Don't miss!” Jax cuts her off before sending her flying through the air towards the target.
Pomni yells as she flails unceremoniously through the air, finally splatting against the target like a banana cream pie. Cheerful trumpet music plays.
As she lands on the platform beneath it little cartoon stars literally float around her head as she sits up.
Just like that the abyss opens up into a huge spiral slide between them and Jax jumps on, narrowly avoiding the shark. Pomni braces herself then jumps too, landing painfully on her face and slowly starting to slide down. Jax grabs her arm and jerks her forward so she slides down properly.
As she does she looks up in time to see the shark pop its head out of the balls which are still falling onto the side. It shakes its fin at them in anger.
“Huh.” Pomni says.
They slide down, spiraling and spiraling until Pomni feels a little sick. When they reach the bottom there's a long plush hallway that's a little hard to walk on. It reminds her of a McDonald's play place in a bad way.
As they walk in silence Pomni can't help but look at Jax. She's pretty sure that yesterday happened, but this place is so strange it's hard to differentiate reality from dreams. And Jax is acting so… Normal.
Pomni is so in her own thoughts that it startles her when she becomes aware that Jax is looking at her. He doesn't look away when she notices.
They stay locked in a stalemate, just walking and staring at each other.
Then Jax asks casually, “You haven't been tempted to talk to anyone about yesterday, have you?”
So it did happen.
“Tempted?” Pomni repeats. “No.”
Though part of her had wondered if she should have. She looks at him curiously.
“Are you… feeling okay?”
The neutral smile disappears right off his face and Jax reaches down, flicking her on the forehead. “I'm great. Never been better in my entire life. Obviously.”
She can't tell if he's being facetious.
“Right…” Pomni frowns up at him. “Well… good. Great.”
Good talk.
“To be honest with you, I thought it was a dream for a hot minute,” she admits.
“What, really?” Jax asks, eyebrows raising with surprise. “Too bad! If I'd realized that I just would've gaslit you into keeping it that way.”
His mouth twists into a wicked smirk. “Maybe I still can.”
Pomni scowls in return. “No, that, uh, maybe don't do that.”
The gaslighting threat is troubling indeed.
“Ha! Don't forget what I told you yesterday. You thought an eternity here sounded bad before? Just you wait!” With that Jax gives her a slap on the back like he just gave a pep talk.
Jax's words echo in Pomni's mind ominously.
I'm going to make this your problem.
“But why?” she demands to know.
Jax fixes her with a look and Pomni doesn't actually expect a real answer. Then he smiles as He leans down, getting in her face. It's menacing.
“Because you cared.”
The words sink strangely over Pomni as Jax straightens up, crossing his arms behind his head as he starts to walk again.
“Come on, the shark was fine and all but if no one's getting eaten for my viewing pleasure I'm done with this.”
Pomni has no choice but to keep walking.
They approach another slide and as they do they hear the distant sound of Ragatha screaming. They must be getting close to the end.
As Pomni follows along in silence she questions her life choices. First and foremost is putting on the headset, but helping Jax is becoming a close second. She has a bad feeling about this that gets worse the closer to the bottom they get.
It doesn't take long to find the others from there. Apparently Kinger found a “secret route” and they ended up busting through some of the programming. Everyone is grateful for an easy adventure, but Pomni remains on edge.
She has a feeling that for her the trouble is just starting.