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estro-gem · 23 days ago

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Group Chaos: Mirage (Part 3)

The Amazing Digital Circus AU: Oasis

Author's note:

Boy... It's been a VERY long while since I posted. I'm sure most people had forgotten about this story and moved on to greater things, lol. I'll count that as a blessing, giving that it would mean that the expectations are lowered and I am free from disappointing anyone even more! Huzzah! This chapter isn't some groundbreaking plot point - it's mostly worldbuilding and body horror/gore. But I'm so happy to present something after being unable to for a really long time.

I hope you enjoy this regardless!

Ok, but on a serious note, please read the warnings below. PLEASE.

Warnings (IMPORTANT): Mature themes Violence/Assault Sadism Manic/psychotic episodes Sensory depravation Suicidal thoughts/intentions Self harm Gore/body horror

MIRAGE: PART 3

“Jax, you need to pull yourself together!”

Zooble’s stern voice pierced Pomni’s ears like a knife. It was so foreign to see the Zolo-being no longer be uncaring or apathetic, but strong and relentless in their self-proclaimed position of playing the voice of reason. She wasn’t sure if she liked it or not, but she was surely missing her circus mate’s snarky, sarcastic remarks already.

Jax wasn’t doing good at all. Pomni had seen him cocky, arrogant and aggressive, but never like this. He was on all fours, pupils constricted to reptilian-like slits and curled into a tense, frozen ball of poofy fur. It almost looked like he wasn’t breathing, despite his eyes flying about the black and white tiles. He didn’t look scared, but based on Zooble’s attempt at getting his attention, the girl could only assume that he apparently was.

Pomni couldn’t blame the rabbit; even if they didn’t get along – or have any form of a relationship whatsoever. She, herself, was having a hard time piecing together what had happened;

Kinger took his eyes from his face, stuffed them into his floating gloves that acted as hands, summoned a white chess piece army, then he sunk into the tiles along with them while ordering them all to stay put lest they would be willing to face the consequences. Said consequences were still unknown to Pomni.

It was madness.

“Damn it, Jax, don’t go rabbit on me now! You don’t have that luxury; GET UP and be a @&#$@& MAN.” Zooble cried out to him, again. The shaky hint of desperation lacing their words sent a chill through the jester’s being.

The abomination unexpectedly plucked off their wing and launched it to flop against his head and clumsily fluttered to the floor. To the jester’s surprise, Jax suddenly reanimated to life, pupils blown impossibly wide, only for the rabbit to frantically fumble and grab at the detached limb. He gathered it beneath his crouching form in a desperate, possessive manner, holding the squirming limb hostage and preventing it from wriggling its way back to its body.

Jax pause thereafter, seemingly lost in his own feral mind, before constricted pupils blindly searched for Zooble and dramatically dilated once they landed on them.

Thump.

“That’s it, you crazy @#$?%...” Zooble’s voice came out far shakier than Pomni liked, “Eyes on me.”

They sounded scared.

Taking a breath, the girl shifted to take the first step towards her fellow circus captive, “Hold on, Zooble-”

“STOP!” The creature commanded with wide, panicked eyes, “Don’t. Move.”

Jax fixated his inhuman gaze onto the jester and thumped harshly, though only once, onto the white tile he was standing on. Then, again, Jax thumped his foot. His dead silence and expressionless face didn’t help Pomni’s confusion and distress, so she opted to simply freeze in place as the Zolo-being demanded.

“Any move you make will draw attention.” Zooble said, staring the poor clown down, “Look at the tiles.”

Pomni looked down, not knowing what to expect, but content on dumbly following orders for now. Don’t fight them; move with them…

What Pomni saw, wasn’t the issue – because she didn’t see anything, but what she felt, was a different story. The tiles were buzzing… fuming… pulsing… breathing. They were blind, but they were watching her. She was in the belly of a beast that lurked the very space she took up. It was all around her and it was nowhere at the same time. It clawed it’s way down her neck and struck it’ll long needle-like tendrils into her spine, feeling every movement she made – every breath she took.

It whispered within her skull – knowing that she had no other choice than to listen. It was a low hum of whispers; all speaking a foreign language she couldn’t even dream to understand. She sunk to her knees, slowly, then began to mindlessly knock her head into the black tile she was standing on.

Get out… Get out… GET OUT-

Pomni…

The muddled voice attempted to haze itself through the whispers. She could hear it – she could feel it – something else was calling to her. But she almost got to it – the pain in her head and the black puss that oozed from said pain made the spindly creature lodged into her nervous system squirm… If she could just hit her head harder against the tiles, she could get to it – reach it and rip it out-

Pomni…

That voice again… it was so buried under the wriggling mass of voices that was eating at her brain and wriggling out of her ears, but it was so insistent – getting louder… It was disturbing her progress – she looked up but found it hard to focus since her vision was blurry for an unknown reason.

Through the fog, the vision of colourful shapes came into view – the bright lights and searing neon colours of the surroundings chasing away the dark, numbing black of the tile beneath her feet.

“Pomni!”

The figure in the distance buzzed into focus and she was met with the vision of a misshapen, mismatched friend. And then there was pain.

Stabbing her right between the eyes.

“Thank any holy being that was bored enough to hear me out… Pomni, chill the #&%@ out!” Zooble’s voice rung clear as the black ooze dripped from beneath her hat. The Zolo-being looked focused, but somewhat unbothered compared to what the Jester was feeling.

“There’s something inside me…” Pomni said, her own voice buzzing in her head, holding her heavy, aching head in her hands, “I need to get it out-”

Zooble slapped a hand to the flat surface of their face, “Calm down, it’s not going to do anything to you… And Jax! Knock it off, you’ll #^@* him off more than he already is! #&@*, it’s like wrangling a bunch of toddlers.”

Pomni squints to make out the figure of Jax, hunched over, kneeling and clawing and picking at the now broken tile beneath him, mindlessly digging into the glitching matter below the tile. He looked up to meet Pomni’s eyes, sending a cold slither down her spine as his blank expression prevailed with the greatly dilated pupils of his gaze trailing over the ooze slowly dripping from Pomni’s head. He tilted his head slowly, an odd rumble rising from within his chest.

She was almost hypnotized by him – unsure if she was compelled by the dread that his sickening gaze demanded or intrigued for a reason Pomni didn’t want to delve into.

“Ok… Ok.” The Jester muttered to herself, blinking a few times to force her bashed, invaded brain to function somewhat, “Wha- What’s happening?”

The Zolo-creature looked ready to explode with frustration, throwing their hands up one moment, only to growl to themself the next, holding their hands to cover their eyes, before slowly dragging it down their face. They turn to glare at Pomni’s clueless expression, before speaking unnecessarily slow and deliberate – something the jester happened to appreciate.

“Listen, we could sit here all day if I told you, but we don’t have time, so I’ll give you the gist of it; Kinger is #*$$@^ because of the $&*% Gangle is pulling right now. What is Gangle doing? She’s holding Cotton Tush hostage by basically possessing her. You, Jax and I are caught in the crossfire. We stay out of it – then we don’t get hurt. You move, you draw attention, got it?”

“Ok…” Pomni said slowly, desperately trying to focus on what Zooble was saying, rather than the fantom sensation of buzzing and squirming from within her spine, making her fingertips and toes tingle, “So Kinger is our issue to avoid.”

“Don’t count on it.” Came a quick reply from her friend, “Gangle isn’t safe to be around either. She’s losing it… @&#$... she’s- She’s losing it-”

Pomni had never seen a pile of colourful blocks spiral into an emotional turmoil before, but she could never have guessed that Zooble would be this affected by Gangle’s deterioration…

Then again, she was aware that Zooble and Gangle were involved, but not to this heart-clenching extent.

“Zooble, let’s talk about Kinger.” Pomni said abruptly, starving for context and comprehension. She spares a glance to where Gangle, newly possessed Ragatha and (apparently) Kinger was, only the see the lifeless form of Ragatha, mindlessly banging her head to the tile she took up – a light coloured Bishop looming over her, before swiftly sinking into the tiles. Not even a second later, Kinger’s eyeless form resurfaced and paced around the doll, seemingly waiting for a reaction. He looked hyper-focused as Ragatha’s body wonkily flop to the floor, motionless for a moment, only for the beautiful red ribbons to tighten and tug the doll into an upright position once again – the mask of Gangle manically laughing as she gets the plush arm of Ragatha to point at the circling King.

His response was to quietly shake his head and swiftly sink into the tile again, leaving the possessed doll to take unstable, uncoordinated steps to slowly circle, trying to spot the incoming danger, only to be met with the surprise of a white rook defragmenting itself to smaller blocks and smoothly float into positions all around her, then rapidly magnetise together. The sudden forces from all around Ragatha and Gangle, crushed the possessed body into an awkward stance and position, continuously squeezing tighter and tighter, until soft cracks and snaps could be heard from beneath the plush fabric, like bones snapping.

Somehow, the mask evaded the fragments altogether, perfectly intact as she smiled wickedly at the sensation of Ragatha’s body being contorted by Kinger, able to feel every single snap of bone thanks to being wrapped around the ragdoll.

Then, it was all over in seconds – the cubicle fragments of the rook rapidly releasing and building it’s form before the doll, before sinking into the floor once again.

The image of Ragatha’s distorted, mangled body managing to keep itself upright for a second before a knight viciously erupted from another nearby tile and stomp her down wildly, burned into Pomni’s mind, hanging just beside the cursed memory of the Doll’s neck snapping after being hung by Gangle’s ribbons only minutes before the chaos was unleashed.

She was going to be sick... It was all too bizarre and fast to take in.

“Don’t look at her.” Zooble’s voice broke through the fog, causing Pomni to look to her friend, seemingly lost, “Look at me.”

Dumbly, the jester and the abomination fixed their gazes onto each other and for a moment, there was an understanding. A lifeline. They needed each other to make it through the next mere moment. Pomni felt it – finally. It was all everyone had been saying around her – ever since she got here, trapped in this digital prison.

We all have our roles.

We do what we have to do.

It wasn’t a set of twisted morals. It wasn’t madness. It wasn’t a choice.

They had no choice, because it all came down to survival. Sanity.

In that moment, where one element – one role of this damned system endangered another; one link in the chain failed to withstand the tension, a precious life was on the line, EVERYTHING could fall apart.

They needed each other, now more than ever.

This is... THEY are the oasis.

It was a miracle that things held out for so long since one link was already lost to madness, leaving the chain, the ecosystem, imbalanced. Now they were bursting from the seams and Pomni was left asking to the digital plain itself, “What would Kaufmo do?”

She didn’t even know the clown, but she knew... If he was here, none of this would have happened...

No.

‘Focus on one thing at a time,’ Pomni thought to herself, ‘Focus on the greater problem.’

“Zooble...” Pomni spoke slowly, keeping her gaze on the Zolo-being, “Tell me about Kinger. How does this all work?”

“Okay... okay. Yes. Kinger – he has 15 chess pieces, the whole of the white set.”

Pomni nods, “So there’s 16 pieces we have to worry about... okay. What do they all do?”

“Okay, so... Ugh, that’s a loaded question-” Zooble groans, breaking her gaze from Pomni, only to search the tiles for answers, causing Pomni to sternly speak up.

“Focus. You can do this! Just... tell me what each of them does. I see they have different abilities...?”

“Yes. Rook, Knight, Bishop, Pawn.” Zooble answered automatically, “They all have abilities. Let’s start with the Rook-“

“But what about the Queen?” the Jester swiftly interrupted without thinking.

Oh my god, Pomni, shut the @#&+ up! I’m talking!”

“Sorry, but-”

“SHUT... Up.” The Zolo-being spat out, left eye twitching as they strained to keep their head set on their train of thought. “Now; Rooks. Crazy strong, and a 5 second attack timer. They break themselves into bricks and crush you in the middle of them, making you into a pretzel.”

Pomni’s mind quickly flashed back to the image of Ragatha’s severely disfigured body barely keeping itself up with the bones of her arms and legs broken and twisted into unnatural directions, with the wicked grin of the mask burning into her mind, “’Kay... kinda already saw that one. 5 seconds, huh? They have different attack timers...?”

“Shut up!” Zooble quickly said, annoyed, but too focused to break away from their train of thought, “Knights... ugh, I-I hate those things. They are nimble and they are unpredictable – the fastest piece on Kinger’s board. Wild, feral mustangs that cannot be cornered. They like to pop up from behind you. You see those two front legs? They kick and stomp like crazy. They’re relentless – even if they only have 3 seconds to act. Watch. Your. Back.”

The little Jester’s mind wanders back to how jumpy Zooble was, only a few minutes ago, while she, Zooble and Kinger had a nice conversation – when Kinger was more present and sober than she had ever seen the character be.

How the abomination kept looking over their shoulder.

Oh god...

“Ok, I got it.” Pomni said in a shaky voice, “Rook and Knight. Who’s next? Bishop?”

“Those creepy @#&+s...” Zooble visibly shivered, “If you can’t see them it can mean one of two things. They’re either not interested... or they already locked on you. They don’t get physical, they get to your head. I don’t know much about them, because Kinger doesn’t like using them on me. I don’t know why. He uses them on Gangle more – well... Gangle and Kaufmo, but he’s gone, remember?”

The jester cringes, “They get to your head??”

“Look, I’ve only had to face them like... twice now?? It’s like psychic $§|π, there’s whispers and you feel like you want to tear your own brains out or something – it feels like way too much to handle all at once.”

“Ok, Zooble, I get it. I get it.” Pomni said, even though she DIDN’T get it at all. “Attack timer?”

“3 seconds, but it feels like forever...”

Pomni growls, “Whatever! Next piece.”

Zooble’s eyes narrowed viciously, “Don’t come with that attitude you little pimple, I’m helping you out here, you know? I could just-”

“Okay, I’m sorry.” Pomni said, clutching her head, pinching her eyes shut before looking up to Zooble again – her eyes adorned with desperation and urgency – making Zooble deflate only slightly, “I’m sorry, I just... I just want to understand it all.”

“You won’t if you don’t pace yourself, Happy Meal.” Zooble said, softer and more genuine then Pomni was use to, “You still good?”

The little jester girl took a deep breath, then focused on the Zolo-being, trying desperately to ignore the sensation of the spindling tendrils digging down into her spine, the buzzing whispers in her neck and the dual voices of Gangle and Ragatha overlaying each other, while taunting Kinger as he tried to break them with all his might.

She had to focus on finding her footing first.

Pomni offered Zooble a strained smile, “Rooks, 5 seconds, strong and crushes you. Knights, 3 seconds, wild, unpredictable and stomps you. Bishops, 3 seconds, psychic stuff we don’t know much of. Sounds good?”

“Atta girl.” Zooble praised, looking slightly impressed, “Next up, pawns. Gangle had to explain this one to me, but basically, they shapeshift and take on the ability of any other piece on the board, but they can only attack for one second. Needless to say, they are FAST. And apparently... if one of the other pieces gets destroyed, they replace them permanently – attack time, ability, the works. Kinger usually use them in a last ditch effort or as a Piece-bank of sorts.”

“Okay, I get it... but wait... pieces can be destroyed?”

Zooble shuts down Pomni’s idea with a frantic wave of their hand, while scrunching up their face, “There’s no use in that. He has eight pawns to replace with. He’ll kill you before you get to make any progress.”

“I disagree, but we’ll get back to that. Now, please... tell me about the Queen. She must be the worst of the worst, following the logic of it all?”

The abomination sighed, “Look Pom, no one had ever seen the Queen before. We don’t know what she does. God... we’re not even sure what Kinger does, but all we know is that he can pop up any time, that he always knows where you are and that he doesn’t like getting his hands dirty. He can choose to have the pieces above or below the tiles. Gangle always suspected that he... he’s...”

Instead of going on with a verbal explanation, Zooble awkwardly points at the back of their neck, making and icy chill run down Pomni’s spine, once again, painfully made aware of the ever looming presence of the spindling creature that invaded her being, latching itself to her brainstem and melting into her nervous system. With Zooble now blatantly pointing it out, there was no doubt about it.

It was real... It was there. It was Kinger.

Monitoring every move she made.

“Don’t you dare freak out on me!” Zooble’s voice sternly growls Pomni back into the present, “Like I said, it won’t to anything to you. It just... knows.”

It just knows.

Pomni had to remember how to breathe, before she mindlessly looked over to Jax to see what he was doing, remembering that last she focused on him, he was in a feral state of mind.

Needless to say, not much had changed, as she spied him still on all fours, hair raised and head low, eyes fixated on the chaotic battle between Kinger and Gangle using Ragatha’s body as host, making the doll suffer through cruel relentless beatings of multiple chess pieces popping up one at a time to inflict whatever damage they could without killing her.

It didn’t matter how much she tried to focus on him, she couldn’t get a read on Jax. His face was blank and his pupils were fixed and dilated on the scene, shifting his weight from one side to the other, as if he was antsy... Maybe eager? She couldn’t tell.

His eyes pierced through that grinning mask the possessed Ragatha.

It sent a shiver down her spine.

She felt like an outsider looking in, unable to help and unable to move. The world was breaking all around then all and all she could do is watch them fall.

The jester’s eyes spied the King piece resurfacing form the depths of the tiles he sunk into before. Right. Behind. Jax.

“Behind you, Jax!” Pomni screamed without thinking.

Much to her surprise, the rabbit did not jump or attack as she thought he would. Instead, Jax shifted, peeking up to look at Kinger, making slow movements when he was not frozen in place. His long, purple arms hovered in the space of glitched hole in the white tile beneath him, the painful glitches crawling their way up Jax’s arms, not disturbing the rabbit at all.

Frozen, the 2 males silently stared at each other; and Zooble visibly jumped at the loud thump Jax made on the tile, to which Kinger doesn’t respond

“Jax...” Zooble’s voice rung low in warning, making the jester believe the the rabbit was about to do something foolish.

Ice clawed it’s way into Pomni’s neck and down her spine in the thick unreeling tension between them, but she had no idea why it was as it were. She wasn’t even sure what Jax could do to Kinger at this point – it was hopeless to try to fight him – even SHE knew that.

And she knew nothing!

But there was another brief moment in which Pomni’s skin burst into goose bumps, as she saw the hare’s blown pupils shift to his peripheries and back to Kinger. One brief check gave the little jester confirmation. He was eyeing up his girls. And Kinger...?

He was daring him to even try to take a step.

A bloodcurdling scream pierced the air, yanking the already taut and bumpy skin of the distressed jester’s skruff, only to nearly decapitate herself, as she turned her head. It didn’t sound like Gangle anymore – her scream was that of an animal that had nothing more to live for.

The next course of actions happened in the blink of an eye.

Jax didn’t waste a second as he BOLTED towards the possessed doll, leaving the silent king chess piece in the dust. Pomni had to remember how to breathe as she watched in shock.

The hare was FAST.

Dumbly, she looked back to where Kinger was standing, only to see an empty space he left oh so silently. It was enough to make the Jester’s blood run cold and she barely had time to turn back to the speeding rabbit to notice how a knight fiercely sprout from the tiles to block Jax.

The mustang was FASTER.

It was too late for Jax to stop, claws squeaking as it skid across the tiles and in only a second, Pomni’s mind was broken by the vision of one- two- a shower of mighty forehoofs stomping down and splintering Jax’s skull open, like an eggshell, with black, oozing matter clumping and tumbling it’s spongy splatter from the rabbit’s head, only for the knight to dive into the tiles once again.

It was only another screeching holler of Gangle’s mask that flung Pomni out of the dreadful slow motion events that etched it staple inside of the jester’s mind.

“DON’T LOOK!” the poor, colourful Zolo-being called out to Pomni in vein as the little jester stared on. She didn’t even care for the rabbit, but she couldn’t bring herself to look away.

Because it all just...

Clicked.

Zooble was panicked as they watched on, seeing Pomni stare almost blankly at the rabbit’s trampled corpse. They weren’t sure how much of this the girl’s mind could take.

Oh god...

How will she ever comprehend the rabbit glitching and reanimating back to life as if this was all just a play of her mind? This could be her breaking point. The abomination could see it already... The eyes, blooming from various parts of the jester’s little body and her milky white skin crawling and squirming as it buzz into life of a wriggling, black fibre that infiltrates her very being.

Much to their horror, Pomni’s head slowly turned to look to Zooble and her friend prepared for the worst. But Pomni was just Pomni.... And there was nothing but Pomni.

It horrified them.

“Zooble...” Pomni said softly, numbly, like she was a prisoner of her own making, “why didn’t you tell me...?”

“Pomni... Listen, you need to stay cal-“

“The rules, Zooble...” Pomni say, sane on a horrifying level, “The rules of Kinger’s game!”

The Zolo being didn’t know whether they should be relieved or bothered “Wha-?”

“Kinger’s game... chess... He can only move one piece at a time!” the jester sported a victorious smile, looking back to Jax’s body, now beginning to glitch and reform in a disturbing display, “THAT’S why Jax ran for it. Kinger was busy with his turn... and he was rendered helpless. THAT’S our chance at making it out of this!”

“He’ll abstract us!” Zoolble said softly, bewildered.

“We have the upper hand!” Pomni assured Zooble with a steadily look, “We can all move at once and he’ll be forced to pick us off. We can do this!”

The little jester spares a glance to Gangle possessing Ragatha, who was unfortunately being twisted and contorted out of shape by the fragments of a rook, crushing their form.

Maybe there was a way for them to be saved from this too.

“We play his hand for him.”

“Pomni...”

“Would you trust me?’ The jester asks directly, making Zooble sigh, running a hand over their face.

“By the digital plain...” They sigh, unable to muster the energy to oppose, “Ugh... Fine. We are as good as dead, anyway.”

“That’s the spirit.” Pomni says, more determined than ever before.

The plan was far from perfect and chances are, they most definitely will get hurt. But it was something.

Something.

With one last look to Zooble, Pomni’s heart fluttered upon seeing her friend sport their bored uninterested look. They’re back. She’s back. And with a mutual nod, they’ve decided to throw themselves to the wolves with Pomni’s last cry;

“SCATTER!”

Part 2 (Next) Oasis: TADC AU list Masterlist

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