Chapter Text
“Pomni, we gotta go! Seriously-”
“I know, alright!”
Ragatha and the others were circled around a keeled-over Pomni and their sack of supplies, attempting pathetically to protect her from the onset of IKEA mannequins about to turn their asses into error screens.
Pomni’s lower torso was glitching in a myriad of vibrantly disgusting shapes and colours, swarming and cutting through her abdomen like an enraged wasp hive. It hurt like hell. She could barely stand, let alone run to Kinger’s hideout.
None of the others had the physical capabilities to carry her, even though Ragatha was willing to try. She couldn’t carry both the supplies and Pomni, though.
The sound of hollow, wooden footsteps was unmistakable and anxiety inducing as the protective circle forcibly got tighter.
“S#!*, s#@%, s*!^, what are we gonna do?” Zooble’s eyes darted around at their situation, the swarm rapidly approaching from every aisle. They were undeniably surrounded.
Pomni was desperately trying to stand, in spite of her Picasso-glitching stomach. She would not die to some faceless wooden freaks, let alone have everyone else killed because they felt obligated to protect her.
The first mannequin had finally reached the four as the store engulfed in darkness, a wooden hand whacking Kinger in the face, splintering on impact. He ragdolled cartoonishly, his chess piece body rolling several metres behind them, knocking over hordes of the figures like bowling pins. A strike screen appeared above the group as Kinger circled back to the front, mannequins sprawled lifelessly on the floor in his wake.
Ragatha and Zooble stood stunned as Kinger dusted himself off and adjusted his eyeballs.
“Well. Come on, then let’s go!”
“Pomni?” Ragatha’s itch to run was urgent. Pomni could barely stand.
“Ragatha, we gotta go!” Zooble was knee deep in fallen mannequins, Kinger helping them into the hideout’s entrance, mere metres away.
Ragatha looked frantically between Kinger and Pomni.
Kinger or Pomni.
Kinger.
Or Pomni.
“I-uh, I-”
Kinger, or Pomni. Pomni, or Kinger. Pomni. Kinger.
“Just… go.” Pomni could barely spit it out. "I'll be fine."
“...I’m sorry.”
And with that, Pomni was left with a glitch painfully sawing through her abdomen, the next wave of splintering idiots bumbling toward her and the bag of forgotten supplies.
Ragatha gave a sympathetic, guilty smile before shutting the hideout’s entrance on her, just in time for a mannequin to grab Pomni’s jester tails.
She scrambled uselessly as it picked her up, feeling a little ridiculous being grabbed as if she were a wet cat. The mannequin's grip became more of a strangle as its pace increased, her hat so cemented to her head it pulled on her eyelids as her dangling body jostled around.
The mannequin carried her like a kid would carry a goldfish in a plastic bag, swinging her around as she flailed and protested; it now sprinting down each aisle.
Pomni yelled censored obscenities in between holding in her vomit, the sharp turns and twists threatening a projectile hurl all over the floor.
“Ohhh.. god..” Her glitches only got worse, pale white skin turning into an over-saturated green.
Undoubtedly, it was too late. Sharp, tar-black glitching puke violently spurted out of her mouth, mimicking a pressurised fire hydrant. The sheer force of it blasted the oncoming horde of mannequins in front of her, consequently causing the mannequin holding her to lose its footing, slipping dramatically. Think banana peel, circa 1915.
Its grip loosened, releasing the tightened hold on Pomni’s head, sending her spinning in a perfect parabola over her own river of spew.
“Wow! Clean up on aisle six!”
A flash of purple grabbed her by the leg as she hurtled toward the bathware department, diverting and launching her, yet again, careening over the heads of the IKEA workers.
Their heads followed her as she flew over them, redirecting their chase. Pomni narrowly escaped their clamouring hands, her head hitting the leather lid of an open storage trunk, falling limply into it.
“Eh, good enough,” the purple flash shrugged and jumped after her into the trunk, his ears barely missing being slammed shut in the lid. The sound of hollow logs hitting the trunk and rolling away faded as Pomni lay face down.
Chase music slowly dissipated as Jax fiddled with locking the trunk, silence relieving the both of them.
Pomni’s head reeled as her pupils bounced around in cartoonish fashion, trying to lift her head up. Purple and yellow slowly came into focus, blinking as Jax’s features rearranged themselves into place.
“Hey. Pomni.” He snapped his fingers in front of her face. “You good?”
He blurred again, and Pomni’s head fell promptly back down.
“Hm.”
There wasn’t much room in the tiny box Jax had accidentally chosen as their hiding spot, his back
pressed uncomfortably against one wall of the trunk; his ears folded underneath the lid, while Pomni fit perfectly fine.
Jax let out an exasperated sigh, his knees almost touching the roof of the trunk. He hoped that he’d be able to talk to Pomni, or at least get an idea of what she was thinking; or feeling toward him.
He felt… bad? Kind of? He wasn’t exactly sure of his feelings, but he knew they were uncomfortable; balled up and nesting like termites in his chest.
That reminded him he should probably check on Pomni’s condition, considering she hadn’t spoken in several minutes and he could barely see his own hand in front of his face.
He fished around in his overalls, revealing a kids’ pen with a fluffy pom-pom at its end. He tapped it on his chin, thinking what to do with an unconscious, or just sleeping, Pomni.
Did he throw her too hard? Definitely would not earn him a spot in her good books, not that he was ever in there to begin with. A flashlight would be useful about now.
He spun the pen between his fingers, neck starting to hurt from being so curled up in this stupid trunk. Pomni couldn’t of been launched somewhere a bit more spacious, like a walk-in closet? Although he supposed that was his fault.
He dropped the pen while attempting to spin it, to which it responded by flashing rainbow strobe lights from its pom-pom.
It’ll have to do.
He struggled to rearrange himself from sitting back to kneeling forward without banging his head on the roof of the trunk, ears flopping around like stubborn pool noodles. He gingerly took the back of her head in his hand, lifting it off the floor.
He brought the flashing light in front of her face, attempting to examine it. Jesus, she looked dead. Pale as all hell, but that was her usual appearance.
It wasn’t possible for their digital avatars to die, in the human sense, not without abstracting first. He knew she was probably fine, but something seemed off.
He lowered her head slightly, trying to see any signs of abstracting or somehow, dying, on the rest of her body. Not that it was easy to see, since the pen pom-pom kept turning off.
Pomni’s head made an awfully hollow “thunk” as Jax mistakenly dropped it while in thought. He winced and hoped she would forgive him when she woke up.
He struggled to see anything properly, especially with his ears dragging along the top of the trunk.
He made an effort to try not to hurt her anymore than he already had, placing his left hand in the free floor space next to her torso. His knees brushed just above her head, using his right hand to attempt to investigate any injuries.
He hit the pen against the wall, its rainbow light dully illuminating Jax’s face.
He brought it over Pomni’s shoulders, everything looking relatively normal until her mid region, or rather the lack of it.
Jax’s mouth curled in concern, or rather disgust, at the black mass convulsing and statically glitching inside of her. It certainly looked like an abstract, but was reactive and almost hostile in response to Jax’s lights, replicating the RGB flashing and distorting.
Abstracts don’t do that.
“Eugh. What… happened?” Jax murmured aloud, squinting at her glitching defect. It seemed sensitive to Jax’s makeshift flashlight, slinking back as he waved the pen closer to it.
He took her upper back in his gloved hand, slowly turning her over. The movement seemed to enrange the anomaly, reacting by angrily pulsating inside its confinements.
Her neck hung limp as he placed her onto her back, seeing the full severity of this freakish not-quite-abstracting… thing.
It abruptly switched between bright colours and shapes, vibrant polygons morphing into black blobs, sharp black stalagmites spiking and peaking rapidly out of the main mass. It seemed to fold in on itself, stretch and overflow - almost like a sourdough starter.
He brought his face and strobing pen closer to it, endeavouring for a decent look.
“Ugh….”
Shit.
“Jax?”
Double shit.
“What are you doing?”
Triple shit.
“Um.”
He looked back at Pomni, who was now wide awake and clearly, pissed off.
I mean.
She did wake up to Jax’s crotch and stomach in her face. And his face dangerously close to. Well. You know.
It definitely did not look good for Jax with his body hanging over a previously unconscious Pomni in a dark enclosed space.
“Get. Off me.”
“Yup, yup, that’s fair.” He quickly, and extremely awkwardly, backed himself up and twisted back into his uncomfortable first position, back against the wall furthest from Pomni.
Pomni’s head still hurt like all hell, rubbing her face as she sat up and turned to face Jax.
Why… was she with Jax. What the hell happened?
Pomni had trouble adjusting to the darkness, but she was more than sure Jax had his ass in her face for some fucked up reason.
She brought the flashlight Ragatha and Zooble had left behind from her back pocket, immediately shining it directly into Jax’s eyes.
“Seriously? You had one the whole time?” Jax winced as 1200V burned purposefully into his retinas, lifting his arms up in protest.
“This would’ve been useful, like yesterday!” He remarked, struggling to see past the fucking sun. ”I’m pretty sure that’s mine, anyway! I found that!”
She shoved it closer into his face, since he was clearly still fine making snarky comments.
“Alright, alright, I get it.”
She lowered it slightly, Jax dropping his arms. An unimpressed look fixed itself on Pomni's face as she scrutinised his features.
A genuine look of concern replaced his usual smug smile and indifferent guise. It looked… weird. Foreign, even.
Like that expression didn't belong on him, as if he was borrowing it.
His usual yellow toothed grin was absent, his brows furrowed and eyes sincerely on Pomni’s.
She placed the flashlight vertically in between the two of them, it beaming a bright oval into the space above them.
They were both silent for several moments, chase music fading in and out as the mannequins paced around aimlessly outside.
“Pomni, I- I swear I didn’t do anything. I was just looking at-” he gestured vaguely at her abdominal region- “all of that.”
She looked down, suddenly reminding herself of the agonising pain that’d been attacking her stomach. It seemed to be duller, less sore in the darkness.
“Are you alright?” Jax asked, studying her attentively.
“Yeah, I’m fine, I guess.” Pomni said, weirded out by how… concerned Jax seemed. “My head’s sore.”
“Sorry.” Jax shifted forward awkwardly, his lanky legs still close to reaching the other wall of the trunk even though his knees were bent.
He studied Pomni’s face, now that she was awake, having to keep his shoulders hunched. Pomni was able to sit comfortably in the trunk, only the tips of her hat brushing the lid.
She sat on her knees, hands fidgeting in her lap and eyes on the floor, visible bags darkening under them.
These adventures were probably taking a toll on her more than the others realised. She was still relatively new, after all. Jax and the others had been subject to Caine’s antics for much longer than she had.
He rubbed the back of his neck.
Jax opened his mouth to speak, when Pomni did first.
“My stomach has been like this since yesterday. It just… started. I was fine, and then I wasn’t.”
Her eyes stayed fixed to the floor.
“Does it hurt?”
“So much.” She went to clutch at it, it seemingly biting back at her. “It hurts more out there.”
That would explain its reactivity to light, the fluorescent store lights would’ve been aggravating it horribly.
“That… makes sense.” Pomni looked at him, obviously confused on what he thought he knew about her newfound disease. “It didn’t really like it when I flashed my light at it earlier. I bet it doesn’t like those store lights out there either.”
Pomni still felt exceedingly uneasy that Jax had been so up close and personal while she was unconscious. That invasive little fuck. Her skin burned.
“Pomni.. I’m… I’m sorry about earlier.” Jax’s voice had taken on a new tone of sincerity she didn’t know was possible for him. He sounded like he meant what he was saying. For once.
“I’m sorry about how you found me when you woke up, I’m sorry I uh.. sacrificed Gangle. I’m sorry I’ve been a #!%* to you. I’m sorry that I’ve been me. I’m sorry about a lot of things. I’m just sorry that you, of all people, have had to face the brunt of my crappiness. Yeah, I piss off Zooble and Ragatha a lot, but I’m sorry you got the worst of it recently. I’ve been trying to be… better. Human. Whatever that means.”
Pomni shifted awkwardly. Was this another heart-to-heart episode? She already did two of those with Kinger and Gangle. Plus, her stomach was killing her. She never expected this from Jax. How long had he been holding onto this?
“I don’t want you to hate me. I don’t care if Ragatha hates me, I couldn’t give less of a crap that Gangle and Zooble hate me, and I give even less of a !#@? that Kinger doesn’t like me. But, Pomni, please. Not you. I don’t really have a reason for you not to hate me. I mean, you’ve got plenty.”
Jax’s voice uncharacteristically shook a little near the end of his sentence. This entire thing was so out of character for him.
She didn’t know what to feel. All the anger she had for him buzzed around in her chest, bouncing from her throat, to her head to her stomach- or the concept of it- and back.
”I just… I- I need you.”
Pomni’s head snapped up to look at him.
His black eyes stayed affixed to the floor, glinting off of the torch’s light.
Nothing could have prepared her for that.