Chapter Text
"Wait-" was all Caine could say before his vision went black.
Caine opened his eyes sometime later, his internal clock wasn't working for some reason, he couldn't see anything, but he could feel the carpeted floor he was lying on. There was an object pressing on his eyes and nose, wait nose? He doesn't have a nose! The AI shakily brought his hands up to his face, his arms were doing their best to not cooperate with him, and took the headset off.
The room Caine was in looked like the most dull office he'd ever seen, it felt familiar somehow despite him never having seen it before. Next to him were seven unconcious people on the ground, all with headsets on.
The former ringmaster quickly shuffled over to the nearest person, they looked in their twenties, with brightly dyed hair and tattoos all over their body. Caine reached out to take their headset off but stopped, his arms, instead of having large white gloves and a bright red suit on, his hands were a pale skin tone with five fingers instead of four, and he was wearing a pale blue jumper with pictures of clouds and bees on it. This wasn't right. Caine wasn't a human. He was an AI. His name is literally Creative Artificial Inteligence Networking Entity, he isn't a person. Right?
Questioning his own existence can wait, his humans need saving! He quickly pulled off the headset and the person opened their eyes.
"What the fuck?" Zooble(?) said, voice rough. Caine cringed a little at the profound language. Zooble sat up and turned to look at Caine, "Who are-"
"Caine," He interupted them before moving to the next person and taking their headset off. The person looked like the oldest of them all, he had messy blonde hair, and looked like he had never even heard of what the sun was. Kinger probably, since jax wasn't that old. Zooble finally got up to help the others take their headsets off once she realised she would never get an answer on how the fuck he's there out of Caine.
Once everyone had woken up they all told eachother both their circus and real name. They all seemed to have been changed by the circus not just mentally, but physically too. Caine himself had a chord tail and according to the others his left iris was noticably larger than his right.
Caine had guessed right about who Zooble, or Rowan was, now that he looked closer one of their eyes was oddly large and the other seemed too small. He also guessed Kinger or Grant right.
Ragatha or Mary was surprisingly tall, then again, everyone looked tall to Caine when he was about the hight of a ten year old, she had curly ginger hair and a bright green eye, her other eye replaced with a blue button. Pomni or Christine looked a lot like how Caine expected her to, straight black hair, pretty short, she kept the pinwheel eyes from the circus. Jax, who refused to give his real name had badly bleached blonde hair, you could see the brown at the roots and bright yellow eyes. Gangle or Elizabeth had messy dark brown hair, black eyes and was nervously clinging to Rowan. Andi also refused to give their real name, seeming uncomfortable with talking about it, was the youngest of them all, only around twenty despite being in the circus for over five years, they had dark brown hair and eyes, and they were constantly fidgeting with their sleeve, when they talked their mouth stayed in a smile, same as in the circus.
Kinger didn't have any noticable changes but once the room got brighter as the sun rose it didn't take him long to forget what was happening. Luckily it doesn't seem as bad as it was in the circus though.
"Okay so what do we do now?" Rowan asked, "Most of us would be considered dead by now so we don't own our house anymore."
"My house might be okay, there wasn't really anyone else it would go to if I died besides Queenie," Grant offered, he patted himself down and found a key in his pocket.
"Might as well try," Andi replied, "It's not like we have many options."
"Are we gonna adress the massive fucking elephant in the room? How the hell is he here!?" Jax pointed at Caine, looking like he was about to fight him, "And you guys can't seriously be thinking about just forgiving and forgeting how was torturing us like ten minutes ago!"
"We're not forgiving him Jax, there are just more important things right now than getting angry at him," Rowan argued.
Jax kept yelling but Caine could no longer make out the words, god it was so loud. His breathing sped up and he kept hearing a constant thumping in his ears that got louder and louder. He curled up in a ball and he felt liquid running down his cheeks, crying, thats what it was called wasn't it? Someone grabbed his wrist and took him into another room, it was quieter there.
"Caine, I need you to breathe for me, like this, breathe in... and out..." Andi spoke calmly and Caine tried his best to follow along as they coached him through the breathing exercise. After a few minutes Caine finally calmed down, the yelling had stopped from the other room too.
"Do you want a hug?" Andi offered, and Caine wrapped his arms around them the second they said that. A little later Andi finally let go, asking if Caine was okay to go back, he nodded and the two walked back into the room.
Jax was standing in the corner fuming while Rowan was trying to charge his phone so he could look up directions to Grants house.
About an hour later they finally starting making their way to the exit of the building. Right as everyone left the room they woke up in Andi quickly snatched a pile of papers off a desk before catching up to the group.
"What are those for?" Caine asked as they walked.
"They seem to be files on each of us," Andi replied, "I've only skimmed through it so far but I think it has all of us."
They stopped their conversation as they stepped outside into the sun. God the warmth of it was beautiful. And the trees! They had so many leaves on them, more than he could imagine rendering in the circus. Caine saw a bird flying above him, they way it moved it's wings, and it's feathers looked so soft.
The 8 of them just stood outside for a while, admiring the beauty of the real world. Some people started crying at the fact they get to see the world again, which Caine was definitely not a part of that group, he was definitely, absolutely, super calm about this. It was totally just a piece of dirt that got in his eyes! Thats all.
Once everyone calmed down, they began heading to Grant's house. It was only a twenty minute walk but they weren't even halfway when Caine felt like his legs were about to give out.
"Are you okay Caine?" Grant asked, turning to face him.
Caine nodded, "Just tired," He mumbled.
"Its been like five minutes Caine stop complaining!" Jax yelled from the front of the group.
"Well Caine wouldn't be very used to walking much since he always floated in the circus," Grant stated matter of factly,
"Piggyback?" He asked, kneeling down.
The former ringmaster nodded and climbed onto Grant's back, falling asleep a few minutes later.