Chapter Text
Through Caine’s inexplicable, nonsensical train of logic, he thought that the newest upcoming adventure required a test subject before execution. Jax was the unfortunate candidate, volunteered against his will.
“Eenie, meenie, minie… Jax!”
“Wait, what-”
As Caine had stated in the past, he could do whatever he wanted with the coding of the Digital World and with the properties of their physical avatars, but he couldn’t touch their minds, even if he wanted to do such a thing. Any mental trauma transformations as a result of his actions were just that, indirect and secondary to his actual intentions.
Which was why he, in his ever-growing AI brain, wanted to test the limits of his own capabilities.
“That sounds terrifying,” Gangle had whimpered, ribbons pulled into herself at his explanation.
However, Caine was also programmed to prioritize the fun and the silly over obedience and corporal punishment, fortunately for Jax and the rest of the Circus.
“Unfortunately for Jax, Caine is still an idiot,” Zooble added, unaffected.
While he couldn’t change the very nature of the rabbitoid’s character like deleting some code, he could, in a word, infect him with a virus that came close to reprogramming him.
In Caine’s words, it was a lot more like being “possessed with the spirit of childish innocence, again”!
With a snap of his fingers, Jax was suddenly barely four feet tall, and now, the gang had a young rabbit with the mind of a bratty, little shit.
“Who knew he’d be such an ankle-biter as a kid?” Zooble said.
“…Well, actually that makes a lot of sense,” Gangle replied.
At first, nobody knew what to do. It was still Jax deep down in there, but he was energetic and rambunctious in a way that was different from his usual brand of mischief.
At first, most of the cast elected to just let the kid do as he pleased despite Caine’s initial insistence that they should band together and watch over him as a group. What was the worst that could happen, they thought, now that he was too small to fling them around or throw heavy objects at their heads.
Quickly, it had devolved into chaos as the Circus was filled with the sounds of screaming, cackling, and following crashes.
In the end, Ragatha couldn't help herself.
She could be seen up and down the circus, hurriedly scurrying after a hopping, purple blur.
At first, she thought it’d be no harder than watching over any little kid or a baby pony. Both equally active and curious, no more demanding beyond feeding and putting to bed at the end of the day.
With a nervous smile on her face, a panicked, outstretched arm betrayed her attempted coaxing tone, “H… Hey, Jax, sweetie! Maybe let's put down the hammer for now, okay?”
“No!” He would respond, a favorite word of his, apparently.
Left and right, Ragatha would exhaust herself, chasing a little kit boy. Turning corners, she’d quickly lose sight of him, and she would be left ducking and peeking over and under every nook and cranny she came across. A major downside to this new form of his was his newfound ability to fit into the smallest of spaces to hide from nosy, well-intentioned ragdolls.
Small giggles could be heard all over the Tent as if he were in the walls of the Circus itself.
“Jax, honey, would you mind coming out for a second?”
“No!”
She'd often have to catch falling objects to keep them from breaking, usually pushed over or thrown away by a local, reckless child. She would slide across the floor and occupy her arms until she had only her foot to cushion a particularly fancy-looking vase from hitting the floor. Stood on one foot, her body trembled as she struggled to balance herself and manage the weight of ceramic plates, statue busts, and glass objects.
“Jax, please…”
“No!”
Some time later, Ragatha lost track of whether she was pursuing Jax for just an hour or a week. Body trembling with fatigue, she trudged down the hallway, voice too weak to call for the elusive rabbit. However, behind her, she could hear the small footsteps of the very same child. Turning around, she was met with a sweetly-smiling little boy, eyes sparkling as he approached her, “Big sis, lookit what I found!”
He barely reached her waist in height, not counting his rounder and more expressive ears that bounced with his steps, and his eyes were bigger, staring up at her with large, square pupils.
For a moment, her stuffed heart melted at the sight of her familiar cast member regarding her with something other than a sarcastic eye roll. Behind his back, he held out an offering, trademark grin wide as usual but more genuine and even with an adorable tooth gap for added youth.
On impulse, she reached out to accept his gift but paused, insides going cold at the sight of the offering.
“Raga?”
“ NO! ”
“Hey, have you guys seen Ragatha?” After an indeterminate amount of time since Jax's transformation had passed, Pomni couldn't help but wonder how the ragdoll's babysitting gig was going.
“Dunno,” Zooble shrugged, sat next to Gangle doodling in a small notepad, “At least, she's keeping the jerk busy.”
“Aw, but he's just a little kid,” Pomni objected, recalling the sight of the miniature lagomorph. It was harder to find him as intimidating when he didn't tower over her, and plus, it seemed like he wasn't mentally all there, anyways.
“Ragatha just wants to be a Raga-mom!” Gangle smiled, and if Pomni peeked over, she could see sketches of the tiny rabbit boy, “It’s her maternal instinct activating!”
“Really?”
“Some people are just natural caretakers like Rags.”
“What, because she's a woman?”
“No, because she's got a thing for control, probably.”
“No, it's because she's just the Mom Friend is all! She's the one who worries over everyone and makes sure everyone feels included!”
“Oh, that sounds nicer…”
“And that's probably because she's got some Mommy Issues herself!”
“I see.”
The three of them paused their discussion at the sound of a scream that could be heard across the entire Grounds. Down the hallway, cotton footsteps stomped toward them, followed by smaller, quicker pitter-patters and laughter.
Ragatha came sprinting through, raggedy fabric turned white as she babbled, incoherently. Little Jax came soon after, chasing after her with a bug on a stick that he had found outside the Tent.
“That’s about right.”
“Yeah.”
“Mm-hmm.”
Jax began to match Ragatha’s shrieking, fueled by the chaotic energy as he waved the stick her way. The poor ragdoll flailed about before finding providence behind one puny jester, crouching behind Pomni in as small of a ball as possible. Still running after the fearful doll, Jax ended up colliding with Pomni who managed to scoop him into her arms with a grunt, spinning from the momentum.
“T-thanks, Pomni…” Ragatha panted, still pale in the face from where she sat on the floor, “I… I was just…!”
“It’s alright,” Pomni reassured once her friend had begun gagging when Jax taunted her with the twig, again. She adjusted her grip around him, surprised by how much she dwarfed him for once.
“He’s so little!” Gangle cooed, waving at the rabbit who, for once, was in a companionable mood. Pomni felt him nuzzle under her chin, and she patted his head to sate him.
“You okay with that?” Zooble asked, seeing the way that Jax had latched on tightly to her.
“Oh, uh, yeah, I’m alright,” Pomni nodded, eyes growing with realization as her hands instinctively wrapped around the smaller form, “It’s… Yeah, it’s okay.”
Eventually, Zooble and Gangle decided to show mercy on the frazzled Ragatha and take over Jax Watch.
“Maybe we can do an activity with him to help him get his energy out,” Gangle suggested as she and Zooble trailed after the toddling kit. He wasn’t able to stray too far with one of Zooble’s newest arm attachments acting as a leash around his torso.
The three of them walked through the Carnival, looking around at the various stands with games and toys for any kid to potentially enjoy for hours. Surely, there was enough here to tire Jax out by the end of the day.
“I guess,” Zooble shrugged, “Maybe we could do that goldfish game over there-”
“WHAT A GREAT IDEA, YOU TWO!”
Spawning between Gangle and Zooble, Caine’s body ended up shoving them aside with a flourish of eye-straining visuals and loud trumpet noises. The two castmates jumped back, immediately overwhelmed by their ringmaster’s appearance.
“What the [BOING], Caine??”
“My mask almost broke!”
“What better way to enjoy this mini-Jax to the fullest than to go on an adventure with him!” Caine continued, unperturbed, with his arms and legs spread out.
“That’s not what we meant.”
Jax, meanwhile at the sound of the commotion, was energized, running around in circles and screaming.
“He loves it!”
With a snap of his fingers, the Carnival was transformed. The sky turned a shade cooler as the foliage around the Carnival began to change the Grounds from a bright green to a series of oranges and browns. The Sun even put on an infinity scarf as the SFX of a light breeze filled the air. A rumbling traveled beneath their feet as, on the other side of the Carnival, stalks began to sprout out of the “dirt” all at once, practically stretching to the end of the map. They grew and grew over their heads, tightly filed together with one section on the edge of the crop field left open for anyone to step through. Leading into the depths of the large plot of maize, the stalks swayed slightly with a low hush as leaves brushed against each other, and dirt and pebbles were shuffled as if alive.
“A corn maze?”
“The Capacious Corn Maze Craziness!” Bits of popcorn flew behind him as an ornamentation of letters spelled out their newest adventure, “You will all be split into two groups, and the first ones to make it out of the maze wins! But keep an eye out for some surprises throughout!”
“I wanna win!!” Jax squealed, pumping his fists in the air as he booked it for the entrance.
“Jax, wait!”
“Ugh, I really don’t want to do this,” Zooble sighed tiredly, looking down at their limb attachment as it stretched all the way down into the maze with Jax. They could easily just detach the arm and be on their way.
“Zooble, help me!” Gangle cried out, chasing after the fleeting rabbit into the corn.
After a moment’s hesitation, they groaned, trudging in with a censored curse.
“See you at the end, Zooble!”
“[BOING] you, Caine.”
In terms of corn mazes, this was a fairly standard one as far as they could tell. Tall stalks of corn forming narrow paths that occasionally branched out into two or three alternate routes. Without a map, the trio had opted to allow Jax to take the lead, seeing as how he refused to stay by their side and listen anyway.
With a wordless grunt, he pointed, chest puffed up in confidence as he picked a random right turn. Zooble tried to occasionally dig their feet in to slow him down, but all it did was create a constant tug-of-war between the two of them.
“Slow down, will ya?” They huffed, “Do you even know where you’re going?”
“No!”
“Great.”
“Thank you for coming with me,” Gangle muttered, shoulders slumped. Her Comedy Mask had unfortunately broken a hundred corns ago when Jax had run them in a circle too fast and stopped suddenly, causing Gangle to trip over the kid and fall on her face.
“It’s fine, I guess,” Zooble sighed as they continued trying to reel their arm back like a fishing line, “Could be worse.”
“What do you think Caine has planned?”
“Probably something idiotic and dangerous as usual. Or do you mean in general or just with Jax?”
“Is he gonna turn us all into little kids?”
“Seems like it…”
“Wouldn’t this mean he could turn us into other things? Like not just our avatars but mentally? He couldn’t always do that…”
“I…” Admittedly, Zooble shared this implied concern since the kid-ified Jax concept was introduced. While Caine wouldn’t try anything malicious with this development, any time soon, it was still unsettling when you took into account how oblivious he was about pretty much everything around here. Still, they chose to give Gangle a reassuring look, hand on her shoulder, “Don’t worry, I’m sure he’d never do anything that bad to us. Whatever happens can always be fixed, like your mask, right?”
Gangle hugged her Comedy Mask pieces to her chest, nodding in thought, “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
“Yeah, let’s just get through this first, alright?”
“Okay, sure…!”
“Jax-” Zooble paused, brows furrowed as they looked ahead of them. The two of them hadn’t even realized how distant the kid’s voice had gotten until they noticed the slack line of Zooble’s arm-leash contraption with no Jax to be found on the other end of it.
“...”
“Did he just…?”
“Looks like.”
Jax was hopping.
He was hopping through the maze, singing gibberish without a care in the world.
He went left.
He went right.
He took the middle way because he saw a crispy leaf that he wanted to step on.
It was all instinct.
And he was a rabbit.
Jax was hopping.
Going his own way was much easier without Zooble's dumb leash holding him back. Too busy kissing Gangle to pay attention, yuck.
What's the point if he couldn't run to the end of the maze? Then, it wouldn't be fun, and it would take forever! And Caine said this was supposed to be fun.
So duh.
He went right.
He went left.
He went right, again, because he just went left and wouldn't do the same thing twice.
He was babbling lyrics to a song that he vaguely remembered. It was catchy despite the complete lack of sensical words.
Doo doo doo
Doo doo doo
Jax was hopping.
Didn't he just cross this bridge? He remembers because he thought it was so cool that there was a bridge in the middle of a corn maze and just HAD to cross it. It creaked under his feet, and he jumped up and down to see if it would fall.
It didn't.
Boring.
He went right.
He went right.
He went right.
He went right.
A circle!
Or a square, he guessed.
This was getting kinda lame.
Doo da doo do... If he was hungry, he could eat the corn.
A corn maze was far from the worst adventure that Pomni's been through, so far. Grouped with Kinger and Ragatha, the latter did her best to lead the way, trying to come up with some type of strategy to the end. Currently, she was keeping her right hand on the wall of corn stalks, following the path that keeps her hand to the corn.
Pomni and Kinger's jobs were to just follow along.
Maybe Zooble and Gangle did have a point about the ragdoll's need for control.
Or maybe Pomni was overthinking it. After all, someone had to figure out a plan to get them out of this endless trail, and Ragatha had the enthusiasm and the experience, apparently.
"Easy peasy," Shoulders pushed back and head held high, their leader confidently turned corners and split at forks without hesitation.
"It's almost like it's alive," Kinger whispered to Pomni.
"What is?"
He silently jabbed a finger next to him and next to her and ahead of them and behind them and all around them.
"Uhh, you mean the corn?"
He shushed her loudly, shoving a digit at her mouth.
Pomni pulled her head away and looked at their surrounding environment. The stalks swayed slightly, and the SFX of crunching husks and a small breeze looped. Even within the depths of the stalks that went deep into the maze where she couldn't see through, it remained quiet, lifeless as far as she could tell.
"I'm not so sure about that," However, he didn't respond, only hunching over as he darted his gaze between their organic walls.
"You know, going through this maze kind of brings back memories," Ragatha piped in, almost blissfully unaware, "Have you ever done one of these before, Pomni?"
"Huh? A corn maze? I think that I did once on a field trip... That was, like, a while ago when I was about... Uh, whatever Jax's current physical age is right now?"
"Ahh, I used to go to one of these every year!"
"Really?"
"I mean! There wasn't too much to do back there, you know? It was an annual thing for me. Autumn has to probably be my favorite season of the year!"
"I see…”
Pomni had a so-so relationship with Fall. On one hand, the cool weather and aesthetics were nice, and she could confess to a taste for Pumpkin Spice. On the other hand, it also meant jumpscares and horror and daylight savings time. As a kid, however, dressing up for Halloween and eating candy was like an extra birthday, and she didn’t hate that this time of the year meant going back to school like other kids. Things were just simpler then, she guessed, when you only had to worry about that stuff.
“I like it, too,” She turned to Kinger, “How about you, Kinger? Do you like Autumn and stuff?”
“Oh! Well, let me think about it.”
The three of them fell into an extended silence, continuing to traverse the maze with only the crunch of leaves and husks under their feet filling the air.
“I wonder how the others are doing,” Pomni pondered aloud.
“Oh yeah, I hope they’re handling Jax okay,” Ragatha laughed, sounding fatigued at the mention, “He was quite the handful.”
“Was he that bad?”
“W-well, I mean, he’s just a kid, so it’s hard to blame him for being so… Energetic,” She gestured with her hands, eyes averted like she was being interrogated, “But he’s still Jax, you know? And a Jax with twice the energy and half the self-control is…”
Pomni hummed, amicably, “Do you think that’s what he was like as a kid back then? Like in the real world?”
“I hope not for his parents’ sake. If I was anything like he was or is, actually,” She let a laugh slip, less humorous than she would have meant, “My mom would have had a field day.”
“Yeah, hard to imagine what kind of parents Jax had to be the way he was.”
“Definitely nothing like mine, that’s for sure,” Ragatha smiled at her, laughing in that painful way, again, before speeding ahead of her and Kinger when the former didn’t immediately react the same.
Pomni didn’t know what to make of it, even turning to Kinger for guidance. Their companion, however, perked up, replying, “Oh, I think that I’m more of a Summer person, personally. It’s the best season to see the fireflies.”
She sighed, quietly, “I’m starting to wonder if everyone just has mommy and daddy issues around here.”
“Oh, I never had any kids, Pomni.”
“No, I meant,” It was always difficult to guess when Kinger would clock in on what they’d say, “This whole thing just got me thinking about, like, how I was as a kid and maybe just… How I’d be in Jax’s position, I guess? I don’t know. What exactly are you supposed to do if, one day, you are just turned back into a little boy or girl, again? In a world like this one, especially.
“I don’t even know what I’m saying - I just can’t wrap my head around getting to just be back in that time anymore when my biggest issues were whether or not my mom would bring me some Jack-in-the-Box to school tomorrow. It’s so simple looking back on it, but back then, that was probably life-or-death for me. So, maybe it’d be easier to deal with things around here?”
“Well, their Bacon & Swiss burgers did have the most amazing garlic butter sauce.”
“ That’s what I’m saying!” Pomni exclaimed, hands thrown in the air, “Or wait, maybe it’s not, but it also is? Ugh, does anything I’m saying make any sense here??”
“Hmmm, not at all,” Kinger tapped his “chin”, “I know - why don’t you and Jax both get a couple of kid’s meals together!”
“It’s not about the burgers-”
“WHAT A GREAT IDEA, YOU TWO!”
"Jax?"
"Jaaaaax!"
Zooble and Gangle were wandering around, aimlessly, calling out for the elusive boy for what felt like forever now. All they could find were stalks and stalks of corn.
"I wonder if the others found him," Gangle worried, staying close to Zooble as she held up their detached head in an effort to look over the corn walls, "Do you see anything?"
"No trail of destruction here," They sighed, "Even if there was a clue, it's getting too dark to tell."
She placed their head back on their shoulders with an anxious whine, "What should we do?"
"Try to finish this maze, I guess. The others are probably waiting, and they can help us find him if we need to. It's not like he's a real kid; Jax'll be fine by himself for a little while."
"Yeah..." With sagging shoulders, Gangle followed Zooble's lead in silence, dragging her feet.
With another sigh, they put a hand on her back, ushering forward to their side, "Don't worry."
"I just feel bad that we lost him in the first place," Gangle looked off, absently playing with an ear of corn. It snapped off with ease, and she held it in her hands, fiddling with its leaves and kernels, "It's like-!"
"UNHAND THAT, YE PESKY CROW!"
A loud, grating voice screamed, startling the two of them as a face made of burlap and straw shoved its way from between stalks. A deep frown was cut into hessian fabric, accompanied by two buttons that glared at them between straw that stuffed its head. More straw was tightly packed into its body as it stepped out, unbalanced but attempting to be menacing. Adorning a flannel and old jeans, its flimsy form shuffled toward the two cast members, repeating its warning, "Greedy crows! ‘Tis MY corn!"
Gangle tossed the cob, hurriedly, at its feet with a light thud.
"We don't want your corn," Zooble grunted, watching as the scarecrow bent down at the waist to pick up its precious produce, "And we're not crows."
"Yeah, right," the NPC guffawed, holding the husk close to his chest like a newborn, "All desire my corn. All CRAVE my corn! ‘Tis the best around! Ye can use it to create all forms of sustenance-"
As it began listing types of corn-based food, Zooble started to walk past it with Gangle close behind.
"I think that was one of the surprises that Caine was talking about before."
"Great."
In the distance, they could still hear the scarecrow ramble on about, "Popcorn, creamed corn, cornbread, cornmeal..."
"Uh, Zooble?"
"Yeah?"
"Do you think that Jax might have run into one of those things?"
"...Maybe."
Jax was running.
Jax was running and not looking back.
A scary scare-face was chasing after him, screaming about corn flakes and corndogs, and Jax was all alone, and it was SCARY!
He got hungry and pulled off one of the corns, having to use both hands to yank it free before falling on his butt, but he still got it. And even though he wanted a hamburger, he was gonna enjoy this hunt.
Then, a big monster wearing red with a bag for a face came out from between the corn plants and started pointing and yelling at him. He was clutching onto the cob in his hands when the monster started coming closer, so much bigger than him that he blocked out the moon. Its weird hair started to fall on him, too, all long and tough and itchy like uncooked spaghetti.
It was night time, so all he could see was the scary frown yelling in his face and the creepy, shaped-wrong hand reaching out to grab him. He turned and ran before he could get got.
Jax didn’t know where he was going, fists tight to his chest and little feet beating hard on the floor. All he could find was corn.
Corn corn corn corn corn!
He turned right, and there was corn, showing more corn.
He turned left, and it was the same.
He started to run between the corn plants, leaving the big path, and he could still hear the monster shouting about corn salsa.
It was all he could see: big, tall corn plants whose leaves scratched his arms and felt like hands trying to grab him to… To eat him! Because he was trying to eat their babies! The corn eyes were following him wherever he ran, telling the big monster where he was, exactly.
Jax whimpered, slapping away the monster hands all around him and covering his ears to block out the creepy corn talking. He realized he was still holding the corn baby from earlier, screaming at the sight of its long, bumpy, creepiness with its hundreds of eyes that exploded in your mouth when you bit it. No wonder the monster and maze were trying to kill him! They were gonna do to him what people do to them! He threw the corn baby as far as his little arms could throw, running faster.
He hated the feeling of the dead corn peels under his feet, reminding him of the yellow eyes following him everywhere.
Jax ran faster.
And he still couldn’t find stinky Zooble or stupid Gangle; not even Raga was there to save him.
Jax’s heart was beating, and he was just a bunny trying to flee the big monster trying to eat him. The whispering grew louder in his head, soon turning to shouting that he tried to block out as they chanted.
EAT HIM EAT HIM EAT HIM EAT HIM
Then, he heard bells.
Not like a cow bell, even though Jax thought this place was like a farm. Bells like jingle bells like Christmas like Santa Claus.
Jax heard bells ringing, and he thought if anyone could save him right now, it would be Santa.
Jax ran toward the bells, and his chest was starting to hurt, but the sound of Santa was louder than the sound of corn, so he tore through it all.
The bells grew louder, so they must have been closer, so Jax ran the fastest in the world.
Then, he ran into someone.
His body hit another body that he fell on top of, and the world turned sideways for a second.
“OOF!”
Jax groaned, confused, as he was quick to push himself up to sit. He blinked, looking around to see he was back on the big path. He heard a whining underneath him, and he looked down to see a girl?
She had a big head.
A bigggg head.
Her eyes were closed, and she squirmed around on her back like a worm, making noises like a sad dog.
“Ow ow owieee,” The big head girl whined, worming around. She opened her eyes, slowly, and Jax stared.
She had big eyes, too.
Big eyes with red and blue pizzas. They were nothing like the corn.
Jax wondered if she could do mind control with those eyes.
Rubbing her head and sniffling, she sat up, looking right at him.
Bells.
Bells rang when she moved, hanging from her big head hat, red and blue like her big eyes, and the bells were also big but shiny, too.
“You hit me,” She stuck her lip out, looking at him with pink cheeks.
...Santa? He grabbed the bell hanging from Santa’s head, yanking on it. He wanted that Christmas magic she had.
“OW! Quit it!”