Chapter Text
"WELCOME TO THE AMAZING DIGITAL CIRCUS! Today we have a very interesting adventure in store for all of you!"
Caine’s voice didn't just ring through the tent; it detonated, accompanied by a rain of digital confetti that vanished before it even hit the floorboards. He spun three hundred and sixty degrees in mid-air, his giant eyeballs rattling inside his jaws.
"The author decided if everyone is going insane over Jax’s abstraction… WHY NOT MAKE IT MORE WHACKY TO TURN THOSE INTO a brand new adventure called: OPERATION: OBSTACLE COURSE OF THE MIND!"
"Ugh. Give me a break," Jax groaned, leaning back on his heels. He crossed his arms, his long purple ears flopping forward in a display of pure, unadulterated boredom. He looked sharp. Crisp. His code was perfectly smooth, without a single erratic pixel in sight. He was exactly the same smug, insufferable jerk he had always been.
He was safe.
A few feet away, Pomni forced her eyes to widen in an exaggerated, cartoonish caricature of panic. She clapped her hands to her cheeks, letting out a high-pitched, frantic squeak that made Caine toot a little party horn in approval.
But behind her back, hidden in the folds of her blue and red jester tunic, her left pinky finger didn't exist anymore.
Where the colorful fabric ended, a jagged, twitching smear of black and purple static took its place, a single, unblinking red eye floating in the center of the void.
Beneath her vision, her internal afterlife system hummed, a silent text crawl bleeding across her sight line:
[PROTOCOL RUNNING: ABSOLVE... ABSTRACT... REMEMBER.]
[TARGET 'JAX' CORRUPTION: 0.0% // STATUS: STABLE]
[SHELL 'POMNI' CORRUPTION: 12.2% // STATUS: ABSOLVING]
Abstract the shell, her mind whispered, a cold, automated mantra beating against her skull. Remember why you did it. Resolve the file.
"Hey. Squeaky."
A heavy, gloved hand suddenly dropped onto Pomni’s shoulder, shoving her forward. She stumbled, her fake smile nearly slipping as she scrambled to keep her left arm locked firmly behind her back.
Jax slouched over her, a wicked, razor-sharp smirk plastered across his yellow muzzle. "What's the matter, humpty-dumpty? Afraid you're gonna trip over a digital hurdle and crack that fragile little shell of yours? Though, honestly, watching you lose your mind over a bouncy castle might be the only entertaining thing happening today."
The words were sharp, designed to provoke, designed to make her snap. And she had to snap. If she didn't give him the reaction he wanted, his mind would wander. He would look too closely at the walls. He would remember the missing door. He would start to fracture again.
"I-I am not fragile!" Pomni shrieked, her voice cracking perfectly on cue as she spun around, throwing her right arm up in a dramatic, wild gesture. She stamped her foot, puffing her cheeks out like an angry toddler. "I can handle a hurdle, Jax! I can handle anything Caine throws at us! Just—just don't push me!"
Jax let out a sharp, genuine laugh, entirely satisfied by the pathetic display. He kicked a piece of stray confetti toward her. "Yeah, yeah. Whatever you say, short-stuff. Try not to cry when you come in last."
He sauntered past her, his hands tucked casually into his overalls, his gait completely relaxed.
The moment his back was turned, the frantic, high-strung energy drained out of Pomni's face. Her expression went completely hollow. She gripped her left wrist tightly behind her back, feeling the cold, dead prickle of the static crawling up toward her ring finger.
The vocabulary file in her brain suddenly threw a critical error. She looked at the giant, floating colorful rings Caine was summoning in the center of the tent. What are those? her mind stuttered. Circle... no. Hoop. Floating hoop.
She shook her head, forcing her teeth together until her jaw ached. It didn't matter if she forgot the words for the world around her. It didn't matter if her hand was rotting into a glitching nightmare.
Jax was walking. Jax was laughing.
Abstract... remember... resolve.
Putting on her best, brightest jester grin, Pomni jogged forward to catch up with the group, her bells jingling a merry, hollow lie with every single step.
The chaos of Caine’s "Obstacle Course of the Mind" eventually wrapped up, or maybe they just managed to slip away when the ringmaster got distracted by an exploding digital balloon. Either way, the bright, deafening noise of the main stage faded into the muted, carpeted quiet of the dormitory hallway.
Pomni leaned against the heavy wood of Jax’s door, her right hand resting casually on the brass knob. Behind her back, she kept her left hand stuffed deep into her pocket, the twitching static now buzzing violently against her hip like a trapped hornet. 12.4%. It was crawling up toward her wrist, but the clean duplicate file incubating in her room’s hidden registry was holding steady.
She forced the buzzing out of her mind, letting out a soft knock. "Jax? You in there?"
The door swung open almost instantly, and Jax stood there, his long purple ears twitching as he looked down at her. The sharp, mocking scowl he usually wore for Ragatha and Kinger wasn't there. Instead, his face relaxed into a lazy, familiar smirk.
"Well, if it isn't the star of the show," Jax sauntered back into his room, leaving the door open for her. "Come on in, short-stuff. I was just figuring out how many bowling balls I can stuff into Kinger’s pillowcase before he notices. Want to help?"
Pomni stepped inside, the relief hitting her so hard she almost tripped over nothing. Jax's room was a mess of random digital junk he'd stolen over the cycles, but to her, it was a sanctuary. Here, the world didn't feel like it was actively trying to delete her. Here, Jax didn't look like he was on the verge of splintering.
"Only if we get to watch him try to fluff it later," Pomni said, a genuine, small smile breaking through her exhaustion.
Jax let out a sharp bark of laughter, tossing a neon-pink bowling ball up and catching it effortlessly. "That's the spirit. See? I knew you had a little bit of a criminal mind under that ridiculous hat."
He sat down on the edge of his bed, patting the space next to him. Pomni hesitated for a fraction of a second, ensuring her left side was turned completely away from him, before hopping up onto the mattress.
"Caine's adventures are getting weirder," she murmured, pulling her knees up to her chest with her good arm. "He almost noticed... well, he almost noticed I was lagging during the hurdle run."
"Please, Caine wouldn't notice an abstraction if it bit him on his giant eyeball," Jax scoffed, rolling the bowling ball across the floor. Then, his tone shifted—just a fraction, a subtle drop in his usual armor that anyone else in the Circus would have missed. He leaned back on his elbows, looking at her out of the corner of his eye. "But you were dragging your feet out there, squeaky. You're not getting tired of my brilliant company already, are you?"
There was a heavy, unspoken weight beneath the question. He was checking on her. In the only way he knew how, he was making sure she wasn't slipping. Because if she slipped, he didn't have anyone left to ground him.
Pomni turned her head, meeting his gaze. The warmth in her chest at that moment was so intense it actually slowed the background system error down by a fraction of a percent.
[CORRUPTION STABILIZED AT 12.4% // REASON: EMOTIONAL CONGRUENCE]
"Never," Pomni said softly, her eyes crinkling as she let out a small, breathless giggle. "Who else is going to keep you from getting deleted by Ragatha when you push her too far?"
Jax’s smirk widened, a rare, soft expression reaching his eyes. "Exactly. You're my partner in crime, Pomni. Don't go forgetting it."
Don't go forgetting it.
The words echoed in her skull, a sudden, brutal reminder of the background script running behind her eyes. Absolve... abstract... remember. She was going to forget. Eventually, this version of her would forget everything, including the sound of his laugh.
But looking at him now—safe, stable, and smiling—she knew she would make the exact same choice a thousand times over.
The neon-pink bowling ball dropped into Kinger’s pillowcase with a heavy, muffled thud.
Jax smirked, dusting off his gloved hands as he looked over at Pomni. She was leaning against the chest of drawers, her eyes wide and glittering with a manic, sharp energy that hadn't been there a few cycles ago.
"Three," Pomni whispered, her voice a mix of a breathless giggle and a sharp wheeze. "That’s three bowling balls, Jax. He’s going to lie down and think his head turned into concrete."
"And it's gonna be hilarious," Jax chuckled, slouching over to her. He bumped his shoulder against hers, a casual, loose gesture that felt entirely natural now. "Look at you. A few weeks ago you were crying in corners, and now you’re helping me commit psychological warfare on a chess piece. I gotta say, short-stuff, the upgrade suits you."
At his words, a sudden, warm rush of genuine adrenaline flooded Pomni's digital veins. She let out a loud, unrestrained laugh—a bright, bubbly sound that echoed off the walls of Kinger’s room.
Beneath her eyelids, the black terminal screen flashed, the red text physically sliding backward:
[CORRUPTION RECEDING: 12.4% ---> 11.9%]
[SYSTEM RESTORATION STATUS: ACTIVE // FUEL: GENUINE LAUGHTER]
She felt it instantly. The cold, buzzing numbness in her left wrist receded, returning a fraction of feeling to her fingertips. She stared down at her hand inside her pocket, flexing her fingers. It worked. The closer she got to him, the more she let his chaos bleed into her, the more she healed.
"Hey, let's go steal Ragatha’s spare buttons while she’s at the digital tea party," Pomni suggested suddenly, her voice carrying a frantic, eager edge. She looked up at him, her eyes locking onto his yellow eyes. "We can hide them in the static void under the stage. Come on, Jax. Let's do it."
Jax blinked, his long ears lifting slightly. The lazy, guarded smirk on his face faltered for a fraction of a second, replaced by something genuine. Something softer. He wasn't used to people chasing after him. He was used to being the pariah, the jerk everyone avoided. But Pomni was looking at him like he was the center of the universe.
"Wow. You really are turning into a menace, aren't you?" Jax murmured, his tone dropping its usual biting sarcasm. He reached out, his hand hovering over her head before gently tugging the rim of her jester hat down over her eyes. "Alright, partner. Lead the way."
The thrill of it carried them through the afternoon, a whirlwind of stolen items, shared whispers in the dark corridors, and sharp, muffled laughter behind pillars. By the time they made it back to the main hallway, Pomni felt more alive than she had since she first put on the headset.
"Pomni?"
The voice was soft, laced with a heavy, cautious concern. Ragatha stood near the exit to the Grounds, her yarn hair slightly disheveled. She looked past Pomni to Jax, who instantly defaulted back to his cold, crossing his arms and rolling his eyes.
"Great, the fun police is here," Jax drawled, turning his back. "I'm going to my room before the lecture starts. See ya, squeaky." He gave Pomni a lazy wave over his shoulder, his code perfectly stable, anchored by the afternoon they'd just shared.
Pomni watched him walk away, her chest aching with a deep, consuming warmth.
"Pomni, can we talk for a second?" Ragatha stepped closer, her single button eye scanning Pomni’s face. She reached out, gently taking Pomni’s right hand. "I... I’ve been watching you lately. You’re spending almost all your time with Jax. And today, what you did to Kinger's room..."
"It was just a joke, Ragatha," Pomni said, her voice dropping the frantic edge, suddenly feeling defensive.
"It's not just the joke," Ragatha sighed, her expression folding into deep pity. "You're changing, Pomni. You're starting to act just like him. Loud, cynical... cruel, even. Jax is... he's a coping mechanism that went wrong a long time ago. I don't want to see his personality infect you. You don't want to end up like him."
Pomni stared at Ragatha, a cold, dark realization settling over her.
Infect me? she thought. You don't understand. He isn't infecting me. He's keeping me whole.
She pulled her hand out of Ragatha's grip, stepping back. "I'm fine, Ragatha. I know exactly what I'm doing."
She turned and walked down the hallway toward her own room, her teeth clenched. Ragatha didn't know about the protocol. None of them did. They thought she was losing her mind, becoming a monster to match the rabbit.
But as Pomni closed her bedroom door and looked at the hidden, incubating file of her clone pulsing in the dark corner, she felt the cold prickle of static flare up again at the tips of her fingers.
[CORRUPTION RESUMED: 12.0% // WARNING: ISOLATION DETECTED]
She needed him. She needed his pranks, his cruelty, his smiles, and his closeness. She had to become his perfect match, even if it meant rewriting who she was entirely, because the alternative was dissolving into nothingness.
High above the dormitory hallway, floating in a digital void that smelled faintly of burning electronics and cotton candy, Caine was frantically typing on a floating keyboard made of neon teeth.
[WARNING: UNAUTHORIZED BACKGROUND_DOWNLOAD.ZIP IN PROGRESS]
[DIRECTORY: ROOM_POMNI // REPLICANT_CORE: 22.1%]
Caine blinked his giant eyeballs, staring at the flashing red warning label. He scratched the side of his hat, his jaw rattling in confusion. "Huh. That’s peculiar. I don’t recall downloading a new member today... did I? Did we run out of gangle-masks? Is this a spare piece of ribbon?"
He puffed out his chest, waving a hand dismissively as the floating keyboard vanished into a puff of blue smoke.
"OH WELL! Not like it’ll be some clone! Why, if that happened, the circus would never be the same! ANYWAY, WHO CARES ABOUT HYPOTHETICALS? WE HAVE MORE ADVENTURES TO GO ON!" Caine spun completely upside down, his cape wrapping around his face before snapping open again. "BUBBLES!"
The shiny, translucent soap bubble drifted into view, its little face staring blankly at the ringmaster. "Yes, sir, daddy."
"Prepare our next whacky adventure! Something with bouncy balls, whipped cream jacuzzis, and... hmmm... AH, FEELINGS! Feelings are adventurous, right?!"
Bubbles floated up a bit higher, its surface reflecting the flashing warning lights Caine had just ignored. "Hmmm, sure. I’ll just prepare for the day when this story abstracts."
Caine froze mid-air, his top hat slipping slightly to the side. "Wait, what?"
"Nothing!" Bubbles popped itself, vanishing into a spray of soapy pixels.
Down below, oblivious to the ringmaster's digital glitching, Pomni stood outside Jax’s room. Her heart was beating a little too fast, a jagged line of text blinking faintly at the bottom corner of her vision:
[SHELL CORRUPTION: 13.1%]
The recovery from their earlier laughter was already wearing off. The cold, heavy void was creeping back up her arm, a silent reminder that she couldn't stay away from him for too long. Isolation was a death sentence. She needed the chaos. She needed the match that kept her internal engine burning.
She opened the door without knocking this time, slipping inside the messy room like a shadow.
Jax was lying flat on his back on the bed, his long legs dangling off the edge, staring intently at the ceiling. For once, he didn't have a smirk on his face. He looked... small. His ears were flat against the mattress, and his yellow eyes were wide, tracking the subtle, rhythmic pulse of the digital sky visible through his window.
When the door clicked shut, he didn't jump. He just tilted his head, his eyes locking onto her.
"Hey," Jax said. The biting, sarcastic edge was entirely absent from his voice. It was just... him. Quiet. A little raw. "You took your sweet time getting back here, squeaky. I was starting to think Ragatha successfully brainwashed you into being a boring, law-abiding citizen."
"Never," Pomni said, walking over to the bed. She didn't hesitate this time. She sat right down on the floor beside his mattress, leaning her back against the frame, keeping her left arm tucked securely out of sight. "I told you. Partner in crime. You're stuck with me."
Jax let out a soft, breathy huff that wasn't quite a laugh, but it was enough to make the cold prickle in her fingers pause. He rolled over onto his side, looking down at the top of her jester hat.
"Good," he murmured, his hand twitching slightly against the blanket. "Because... honestly? The walls are looking a little too flat today, Pomni. If I don't have someone to mess with, I start thinking too much. And thinking in this place is a really bad habit."
He was opening up. Just a fraction. The fierce, untouchable rabbit was admitting that he was scared of the dark, and he was admitting it to her.
Pomni looked up at him, her chest swelling with an intimacy that felt incredibly dangerous and desperately beautiful all at once. She was rewriting her whole soul to match his frequency, and as she reached up with her uncorrupted right hand to lightly tug on one of his floppy purple ears, she knew the Circus could never program a bond like this.
Jax stared at her hand on his ear, his expression softening into something so fragile it looked like it could break under a heavy breath.
"You're a weird kid, squeaky," he murmured, but he didn't pull away. Instead, he leaned his head into the touch, closing his eyes.
Being this close to him, feeling the absolute safety of his presence, sent a massive surge of warmth through Pomni's digital veins. Behind her eyelids, the terminal interface practically glowed as the corruption line dropped another full point.
[CORRUPTION RECEDING: 13.1% ---> 11.5%]
[PROTOCOL STATUS: DELAYED BY ACTIVE EMOTIONAL ANCHOR]
She looked at him, and her mind involuntarily flashed back to the night of Episode 9. The night everything changed.
The rest of the cast had been screaming, running from the chaotic mess, but she had found Jax alone in a collapsing red corridor. His hands had already been completely consumed by the black, glitching void. The static had been crawling up his neck, and for the first time since she arrived in this digital hellscape, the smug, untouchable rabbit was crying.
He had lunged forward, throwing his long arms around her shoulders, gripping her with a terrifying, desperate strength that nearly crushed her avatar. He had buried his face into the crook of her neck, shaking violently as the eyes of the abstraction began to open on his skin.
"I don't wanna go, Pomni," he had sobbed, his voice cracking into raw, unedited data. "Please. I don't wanna go. Don't let me turn into one of them. Please."
He had opened up to her, and her alone. He had trusted her with the absolute bottom of his soul.
And in that second, acting on pure, desperate instinct, Pomni had reached into his code. She didn't know how she did it—maybe the Circus system was flawed, or maybe her own frantic terror had rewritten her parameters—but she had literally dragged the corruption out of his chest and funneled it into her own arm. She had taken his death sentence and signed her own name on the dotted line.
She had Absolved him.
"Hey. Earth to squeaky."
Jax’s voice snapped her back to the present. He was looking at her, his yellow eyes narrowed slightly with a faint trace of worry. "You're doing that thing where your eyes go all blank and creepy. You're not thinking about finding an exit again, are you?"
Pomni blinked, forcing a soft, reassuring laugh to ripple out of her throat. She slid her hand down from his ear, gently letting her knuckles rest against his cheek.
"No," Pomni said softly, her voice filled with a fierce, quiet certainty that made the bells on her hat chime softly. "I'm not looking for an exit anymore, Jax. I'm right here. I'm staying right here with you."
Jax stared at her for a long moment, the tension completely leaving his shoulders. He reached up, his large, gloved hand gently covering hers, pressing her palm against his cheek. "Good," he whispered, his eyes drifting shut again. "Don't leave me behind, Pomni."
I won't, she thought, her chest aching with a love so heavy it felt entirely human. I'm making sure you get to stay whole. Even if there's nothing left of me to see it.
Down the hall, in the quiet darkness of her locked bedroom, the hidden backup file hummed, its progress bar ticking upward in perfect, silent alignment with her sacrifice.
Nex, linking her motivation directly back to his desperate breakdown makes the romance and the horror blend together perfectly. She isn't just suffering; she's fulfilling a sacred promise she made when he was at his absolute lowest.
The dormitory was completely swallowed by the silent, digital night cycle, the only illumination coming from the faint, rhythmic neon glow of the sky outside the window.
Jax was fast asleep, buried beneath his messy blankets. His long purple ears were relaxed, twitching occasionally in response to some distant, uncorrupted dream. He looked entirely peaceful. Safe. Vulnerable.
Standing on the edge of his mattress, Pomni cast a small, crooked shadow right over his chest. She didn't look like a harmless, fragile little jester anymore. Her eyes were wide, fixed on his face, glowing with a sharp, feverish intensity.
Beneath her vision, the terminal text had shifted, rewriting itself to accommodate the new protocol she was forcing into execution:
[PROTOCOL OVERRIDE: NULL BURST CONFIGURATION]
[COMMAND SEQUENCE DETECTED: ABSOLVE... ATTACK... REMEMBER.]
[CURRENT TARGET DIRECTION: EXTERNAL DEFENSE]
She slowly lifted her left hand. It was no longer just a patch of passive, rotting static. The black and purple void had sharpened, its non-stop, jagged movement vibrating so fast it hummed like a live wire. From the edges of the corruption, microscopic, razor-sharp needles of pure nothingness began to protrude, flickering like jagged obsidian glass.
Attack, her mind whispered, repeating the word like a rhythmic, mechanical pulse as she watched his chest rise and fall. Attack. Protect the file. Destroy the threats.
Slowly, carefully, she lowered her glitching, needle-laced hand toward his head. The jagged, non-stop vibrations of the Null Burst code shaved fractions of a millimeter off the air currents around them, making the space smell like ozone. But as her palm made contact with the soft fabric of his purple ears, her touch was unbelievably gentle. She petted him with the very weapon that could delete an entire digital landscape, her heart slowing the corruption down just enough to keep the needles from piercing his skin.
He was hers to protect. Caine could throw all the wacky violence and murderous NPCs he wanted at them. Let them come. The next time something tried to hurt Jax, she wouldn't just scream and run.
She would shred them into digital dust.
[NULL BURSTS CHARGED: 100% // READY FOR DEPLOYMENT]
Jax let out a soft sigh in his sleep, turning his head slightly into the cold, vibrating pressure of her hand, completely unaware that his guardian angel was standing over him, armed with the literal jaws of the void.
Pomni leaned down, her bells making a deadened, muffled click in the dark.
"Attack," she breathed into the quiet room, her voice a fractured, glitched whisper. "I'll attack them all, Jax. Just stay asleep."
“abstract…attack…absolve…”
[PROTOCOL MODIFICATION SECURED]
[NEW LOGIC SEQUENCE LOADED: ABSTRACT... ATTACK... ABSOLVE...]
Pomni didn't move. She stood frozen on the edge of the mattress, the tiny, high-frequency hum of her Null Burst needles vibrating in a terrifying, jagged rhythm against the quiet of the room.
She looked down at her hand, watching the black, non-stop movement of the static. It was an infection, yes, but it was also a weapon. A gift. Caine could code all the colorful, wacky nonsense he wanted into this world. He could build his whipped cream jacuzzis and his artificial adventures. But he couldn't code the raw, maternal, violent instinct of a soul willing to tear the universe apart to keep one person safe.
She leaned down a fraction closer to Jax's sleeping form, her unblinking, feverish eyes mapping every line of his face.
The jester mask would have to stay on during the day. She would still have to stretch her mouth into wide, ridiculous smiles. She would still have to gasp, trip, and play the squeaky, frantic partner in crime that kept his yellow eyes bright and his code clear. He couldn't know. If he saw what she was becoming, he would try to talk her down. He would panic. He would worry about her, and that worry would fracture the fragile sanity she had just spent weeks stitching back together.
She couldn't let him look into the abyss. She would simply be the abyss, standing between him and the dark.
Slowly, she pulled her hand back, the jagged Null Burst needles retracting into the shifting mass of black and purple eyeballs coating her skin. She stepped off the bed, her boots making no sound on the digital carpet, and slipped out into the empty, silent hallway.
As the door clicked shut behind her, the terminal text in her mind flared a brilliant, warning red, finalizing the data rewrite for the cycles ahead:
[CORE EXECUTION SET: DEFEND TARGET 'JAX' AT ALL COSTS]
[NEXT CURRENT PARAMETER: INITIALIZE COMBAT PROTOCOL ON CONTACT]
The jester was gone. The protector was awake.
[END OF CHAPTER 1]