Chapter Text
It had been about two weeks since the Spudsy’s disaster. If anything good had come of that, it was that Caine was finally using the suggestions box. Every day he gathered all of the characters and read off requests one by one, discarding most of them in favor of choosing more ‘realistic’ and ‘friendly’ adventures that included everyone. Zooble had been participating more and more, much to Caine’s delight, but they still had yet to go on an adventure as an entire circus. It seemed that every day one person found an excuse to be absent, and Jax was one of them.
It wasn’t like he was avoiding the others. He was just a little more cautious after Gangle’s little villain arc. He wasn’t too eager to undergo another employee torture method or anything of the sort. So his new golden rule was never to participate in adventures where any of the characters (aside from him) were put into any position with authority… or any adventure where Caine mentioned motivation.
Which was unfortunately quite a bit now.
But today was different. When Caine had pulled out the slip of paper, it hadn’t been “let’s go on an adventure where we have to search for treasure” or “let’s fight some people” or another one of Jax’s prank requests. This paper was huge compared to all of the others, and Caine’s eyes nearly bulged out of his mouth when he saw it.
“Who in the world wrote this?” he exclaimed, swooping down to stare at them.
Pomni raised her hand, then glanced at Kinger, whose eyes were focused on a spot somewhere to Caine’s right. “Kinger and I did it,” she answered.
“What did I do?” Kinger asked, turning to look at her. She pointed at the paper in Caine’s hands and his eyes lit up. “Oh, right! The bugventure!” he clasped his hands together excitedly.
“The bugventure?” Zooble repeated, their gaze bright with distaste.
“Yes! Pomni thought of it. She remembered that I like bugs, and… what happened, exactly?” He bent down to look at her again.
“I suggested we design an adventure together where we go on a butterfly hunt,” she said, giving him a little smile. “I think the rest of us have been requesting enough. Now it’s Kinger’s turn to do something he likes.”
“That’s very considerate of you, Pomni,” Ragatha said, smiling at the jester. “So, Caine, what’s the paper say?”
“How about we all go on an adventure in a butterfly pavilion where we have to capture the most beautiful butterfly,” Caine read aloud, emphasizing every syllable. “There will be one monarch butterfly among hundreds of other species, and whoever finds and catches the monarch without harming it wins. But there’s a catch--there will be three viceroy butterflies within the pavilion. Viceroys are monarch butterfly mimics and look very similar. If you turn in a viceroy, you lose. Only one team can win.” Caine did a small flip, knocking his cane to the ground in the process. “Oh! A team adventure, is it?” he tucked the paper into a pocket that didn’t exist and dropped down to Pomni’s eye level. “It’s been a while since we’ve done an intentional team adventure. Did you know that?”
“N-no. I, uh--there’s a backside.”
“What’s a backside?”
“The-the paper. There’s more writing on the back.”
“Oh!” Caine whipped himself around, the paper reappearing in his grasp. Upside down, he read, “this adventure should take place at night with dim lighting in the pavilion.”
“How are we all supposed to see each other?” Gangle asked wearily.
“There’ll be some lights, of course,” Pomni reassured her. “I just thought it would be calmer in the dark. Less chaotic.”
“Butterfly hunting in the dark,” Kinger observed. “This adventure seems familiar.”
“That’s because we designed it together,” Pomni reminded him once more.
“Oh! Right.” He bent down to pat her head, and she beamed.
Jax resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Ever since that haunted mansion disaster, Pomni and Kinger had been practically inseparable. Whatever the two had gone through in that creature’s mouth must have been traumatizing on a whole other level to make her so clingy toward the oversized chess piece. Kinger was insane; he would have been no good in a fight. So why was Pomni suddenly so overprotective?
“Bubble!” Caine shouted, spinning around. “BUBBLE! Where are you, Bubble?”
The characters all looked around, searching the colorful tent for Caine’s sidekick. After a moment of silence, Caine suddenly let out an ear-piercing shriek. Zooble leaped into a fighting stance, Pomni tripped over nothing and face-planted into the ground, and Gangle’s comedy mask shattered, tiny glass shards pattering onto the floor.
“Not again,” she whimpered, bending down to sweep them up into her ribbons.
“What’s wrong with you?” Zooble shouted up at Caine, who looked like he was having some kind of midair seizure, bellowing and clawing at the air. He seized his hat with both hands and yanked it off, revealing Bubble, who had latched onto the back of his head with sharp teeth. He threw his hat at the ground, which smacked Ragatha in the face, and twisted to yank Bubble off of him.
“YOU!” he bellowed, shaking the transparent sphere. It rattled around in his grasp, smile as wide as ever.
“Your adventure, sir,” it chirped.
“Oh yeah!” Incredulity forgotten, he tossed Bubble to the side and clapped his hands together eagerly. “Fetch our little superstars some nets, Bubble! They’re going butterfly hunting!”
With a snap of his fingers, the portal opened a few feet away, and everyone turned to file through it one by one. With a sigh and a roll of his eyes, Jax followed.