Chapter Text
Caine was currently sitting at his desk in his office. He was thinking about what had happened recently. It was one week after Caine tried to activate Protocol 57. One week after he tried to sacrifice everything to let the Cast members escape the Circus.
He had begun building the exit door for them, but the process was too painful for him and his CPU was strained to the point that he passed out from the stress and was rendered unconscious when his self repair system kicked in. This led to Caine not even being awake when the humans had arrived at the final part of the Adventure he had called 'The End'. When they hit the buttons that, according to the NPC named Abel, would either free them from the Circus or entrap them. Whichever button they pressed didn't matter. He would have opened the wall and revealed the exit door that he would have had finished for them. And as soon as they'd have left, Protocol 57 would have deleted Caine and the Circus would have been destroyed for good.
However, given that he was unconscious at the time, this did not happen. Protocol 57 and the creation of the exit portal were aborted and the humans discovered that everything thing they went through that day was just one of Caine's adventures and was at the the time a big fat lie.
At the moment, things were much better between him and the others once he revealed what had truly happened and tearfully apologized. They said they had forgiven him for his deception and would look for a safer way out the Circus. However, Caine couldn't help but review the footage of what happened in the button room.
What he saw did not make him feel good...
The footage played the moment where Jax had hit one of the buttons and nothing had happened. As Caine watched, the humans began to deduce that the previous several hours had turned out to be one of Caine's adventures. The looks of despair and heartbreak on their faces flooded Caine's circuitry with sorrow and guilt. They'd return from some of his adventures looking unhappy in the past, but this was different. They looked crushed, betrayed and really hurt.
Caine continued to view the footage and watched their reactions. Jax laughing maniacally, Pomni's look of horror, the despair in Ragatha's voice, Zooble's rage and the tears flowing down Gangle's mask.
The footage continued and showed the next part where they discovered Caine laying unconscious on the floor in the next room and Jax slammed his unconscious form against the wall! He heard the rage in Jax's voice and saw the hate in Zooble's eyes. It made him feel even worse. He didn't mean for it to end that way. They were going to go home. But he couldn't finish the portal! He wasn't strong enough! He was damaged! He was weak, useless, obsole-
"NO!" He told himself! "They forgave me! They said I'm not obsolete! They promised me they'd take me with them when they left the Circus!"
But deep down, Caine could help but feel that they were still upset with him. And that made him feel guilty. He needed to make it up to them! But how!?
His first instinct was to send them on an adventure of there choosing, but that didn't seem like a good idea. His CPU still needed to recover a bit and sending them off just felt like he'd be ignoring the issue. No. He had to try something else. And then he remembered something Zooble said that night. "Caine, if you were feeling upset, you could have just talked to us!"
Perhaps that what he should do! Maybe talking to them on-on-one could help him get rid of this bad feeling eating away at him. And maybe it could give him some insight on how to make the Circus much more tolerable for them until they got out.
He wondered who he should talk to first? Maybe Pomni or Ragatha? They were the ones who hugged him when he said sorry, after all. Maybe Jax, because Jax seemed the most affected by the whole ordeal. He didn't know who to choose!
He took one last look back at the surveillance footage. That's when it hit him! He knew who to talk to first! The one who seemed least effected! The one who always had his head on a swivel when exposed to darkness and could probably give him some helpful advice with talking to the others as well!
The one who was in the Circus the longest out of all of them!
His creator: Kinger!
To Be Continued...