Ragatha anxiously tapped her fingers against each other while she waited, looking at herself and her separated legs as she was laying down on a table awaiting Zooble to return with something to hopefully get herself fixed. They had successfully won against the bandits and claimed their hideout so at least now they could use the resources here rather than rely on what they found in the wild. She was nervous for two reasons, one was the fact that unless they had a sewing set she might never walk again and have to spend the rest of her days with her guts spilling out from her as stuffing leaked, being a liability for the others who would have to look after her, which although would be good bit of attention for her to receive, she could start to be seen as a grievance and bother to them and she couldn't afford to be that, she liked to see herself as a pillar of support for the others but if she is down then who would be there to catch them, as much as she wanted to believe that Pomni or Zooble could handle the situation but how long? Unless they build a support feedback loop that didn't require her which... Would probably make her a bit depressed
The other reason was the fact Pomni and Gangle were trying to save Jax's live while stabilizing his injury, he lost a lot of blood as they had tracked the bandits through the tray made from the blood leaking from his wound, frankly it was a miracle he wasn't dead when they found him. Now they were doing their best but they were using supplies from a cave owned by bandits and they had almost no stuff for health care, she could hear Pomni's echoed scream throughout the cave when she said she found bandages and the audible sigh of relief from Gangle as she assumed she would have to be the bandages if they couldn't find any, and that was a good thirty minutes after they started looking for supplies, so she had to hope Pomni and Gangle, who had no medical training could somehow pull through in saving someone's life
"Alright, thank goodness they had a sewing kit, otherwise you would have to get used to not walking" Zooble said as they returned from scouting around the insides of the cave for something to help fix Ragatha, coming back with a needle and thread which would hopefully fix the ragdoll since she said her body just needed that to recover because of her unique anatomy
"Okay... I'll have to take off your clothes, unless you want me to sew them together to your skin, I'm not really an expert in knitting and sewing" Zooble asked as they weren't sure if they were good enough with their asymmetrical pair of hands to be able to perform the job, but Kinger was too jumpy to manage a needle while Pomni and Gangle were already busy,
"R-right, just uhm... Be careful" Ragatha said as Zooble nodded, they grabbed the ripped dress and pushed it upwards, leaving Ragatha's waist exposed, before moving to the legs and removing the skirt part of the dress that had been ripped from the sword slash, Ragatha noticing a surprise look from the amalgam
"Huh, I thought you would have some old bloomers and stuff but it's a sports shorts?" Zooble said mildly surprised as they assumed from Ragatha's dress and her whole aesthetic of being an old time doll would mean she would dress the same, when they looked at Ragatha they were met with a annoyed look, which was fair in this situation "Right, sorry let me get to it"
And thus Zooble started to pass the needle with a thread through Ragatha's severed halves to join them together, the doll staying mostly silent but biting her lips as the sensation was a bit uncomfortable, but it was something she couldn't complain about since it was to make her walk again, after finishing tying up Ragatha, they waited for a bit when the line of thread connecting her legs to her torso suddenly glowed, they looked to see the thread now looked better stitched up and was a color more matching of Ragatha's skin tone, and the doll began feeling her legs again
"Seems like it is as good as new, though we have to fix my dress next" Ragatha said as she kicked up and down a bit before jumping up from the chair she was sitting and tried a few movements like side stepping, before looking at her ripped dress, god how embarrassed she is that her undershorts are out to show the world but thankfully nobody in the cast gave a damn, after all she had nothing to really hide there since she wasn't a "anatomically correct" doll... Why were those a thing?
"Ugh, I wished I had gloves..." A voice whimpered as Ragatha turned to see Pomni and Gangle approaching back as the bundle of ribbons was shrugging her hands together to keep cleaning it as she was afraid she had absorbed some blood by accident since her ribbons were made of cloth
"How's Jax doing?" Ragatha turned to look at Pomni who was still cleaning her hands from the blood with a dirty towel
"He still is passed out but he is breathing. We tossed some water to clean the wound and wrapped some bandages around it" Pomni said as she was by no means a medical professional so she couldn't give too much in-depth look at how to properly treat it, she just followed the basic first aid training and logic she was taught in case of an accident
"I'm surprised they didn't have a magic potion or two hanging around, those are usually common drops in settings like this" Gangle said as it was actually incredible that this place didn't have any sort of magical healing potions in the chests and crates they looked at, be at a anime or video game, a medieval fantasy setting usually had magic potions in place to substitute for medicine, surely a group of wild bandits would have kept a few as insurance in case one of them was hurt, unless they were in a more grounded or pessimistic depiction and as such healing items were extremely expensive or difficult to produce, or perhaps it was more like magical healing was possible but not through potions but by people with magical training
"Well, we don't have to worry, I still have medical knowledge from my school nurse days... Or was I veterinary? Did I just watch too many medical shows or... Ah, doesn't matter" Ragatha just shook away the thought for now, it didn't matter where her medical know-it-all originated from as long as it could come in use to help Jax recover
"Guys, I found a bunch of magical healing potion! This should patch him up instantly!" Kinger said excitedly as he came back running from the very back of the cave with a crate, placing it gently on the floor for the others to see
"Finally some good fucking... Kinger that's not a magical potion, is just a wine bottle" Zooble said as they looked at the items of the crate and sighed, these bandits had a bunch of drinks rather than useful items like medical supplies? They barely had enough bandages to wrap the injury and no remedy or disinfectant to... Wait a minute, a box full of alcoholic booze? Why were they complaining?
"Wait, scratch what I said and pass me one" Zooble said as they picked a bottle up and popped the cap, they went to place it on their mouth but forgot they didn't have one, they looked at their head and shrugged as they popped out one of their horn decorations and spilled the contents into the hole in their head, which did the job as they felt the bitter taste of fermented grapes "Aww... Yup, it's the real deal, alright"
"Let's save those for later in the day... We still need to figure out what to do with the owners of this place... We spared them but how do we know they won't come back to get us?" Ragatha asked as they avoided unnecessarily killing those other bandits, one casualty was enough for them for the rest of their days, so they allowed the others to go. But that didn't mean they could not worry as those four who remained could desire vengeance and come back to attack them, maybe even get outside help from nearby villages by twisting a narrative where the six of them were dangerous and evil monsters that killed their friend, so they had to either move or stay and fight to keep this place while Jax recovered
"Doubt it, me and Gangle left them in their birth suits and got their weapons, their best bet is to run back to the nearest civilisation butt naked and say they got beaten up by a pile of ribbons and a bunch of multi colored parts, no one will believe them same with the other guy you three beat" Zooble reassured as although it wasn't impossible, common sense dictated that those guys were going to be seen as either crazy or had get hammered drunk out of their minds, their believability would be put in question and the sheer embarrassment would probably make them prefer to stay with their mouths shut
"Yes but what about... The body?" Gangle pointed out and suddenly the room changed mood as they all felt a bit apprehensive about the topic, they hadn't moved that thing since it was killed, and the fact the man hadn't moved a inch while the hot scorching sun shine at it really meant that the leader of the bandit was dead, killed by one of them... It was a bit morbid, they still didn't know whether they were really in a new real world or if they were still in the digital realm but in a different game, even then it wasn't like they enjoyed killing NPCs, they weren't Jax
"I still can't believe I just put him down like that..." Kinger said while staring at his hands, he felt bad about it but maybe not as much as he should, maybe he simply wasn't thinking right
"Hey it's fine, it was to save me... We just have to be more careful next time..." Pomni said trying to be reassuring but she couldn't help but feel wary of how she said "next time" there shouldn't be a next time where they would fight more people, they could probably avoid interaction with the outside and just stay in the cave and surrounding woods... Trading a digital prison for a self imposed one, she couldn't help but wonder why did her life suck so much
"I guess... We get rid of it? Maybe bury it somewhere..." Ragatha suggested as it was better to get rid of the corpse before it began to decompose, not only would it smell bad but it would become a attraction for germs and risk a disease being born there and she wasn't ready to figure out how these bodies they had could be affected by pestilence especially with Jax having a wound prime for infection
"Leave it to me, you all seem bothered by it so let me handle it. I already buried a dead body before, though it was a hamster and not a ... Well, person" Zooble offered as they could tell everyone else was not a fan of the idea of burying a body, plus they had their own reasons for doing this...
"Alright, you get it Zooble... I think it would be good for someone to go out and get some experience to raise our levels" Ragatha said as it might be worth it for them to try and raise a few more levels just in case another fight was to come soon, just so they had better stats for it... Plus she needed a distraction "And I can't see a better excuse for me to see if my legs work well"
"I'll go too, I need to practice hitting moving targets so I'm more useful..." Gangle said as she wanted to get better at throwing her different projectiles as to be not a hindrance during a fight and actually be able to support her teammates, and since practice made perfection the best course of action would be to train at while hunting some simple mobs before having to face a more capable opponent
"Alright, me and Kinger will look out for Jax and take care of the cave, good luck everyone" Pomni replied as the rest nodded and went about their way for the day, with the jester sighing as she went back to the area the rabbit was in
"Alrighty, let's see if we can find some mobs and get some levels!" Ragatha said enthusiastically as she and Gangle scouted the wild for any creatures to fight, preferably the small ones that didn't seem like much of a threat. Eventually her button eye caught sight of something colorful around the greenery, a blue cracked eggshell... Hopping around, she could see from the open crack a pair of eyes but seemingly no animal inside, so it could be a living eggshell
"Oh! There's one! Giant egg creature, boy what a wacky world" Ragatha said as it almost reminded her of the circus because Caine would definitely do that, although the level of detail in the shell and sound design far out did it if she could be honest. The ragdoll equipped her only damaging shield that shot out small peebles and went on the offensive
She went to fight the egg creature, bashing her shield in its body to forcefully activate the counter ability, rock pellets flying off her shield to cause minimum damage to the egg monster, repeating the process until it wore the creature enough to defeat it. She smiled as she looked for more, around the forest finding more weak monsters to beat through the same tactic, it was repetitive and a bit bothersome due to her low damage output but she was determined to make it all count, but after a few more minutes of this, someone else got a bit bothered
"Uhm Ragatha? I thought this was to help me practice? I can't attack them while you're in the way, I'm scared of hitting you..." Gangle said as so far only Ragatha was doing anything in this supposed training section, it was hard to try and throw her projectiles at her target when her teammate was in front of them, it made her hesitant to throw in fear of cutting off another of Ragatha's limbs or just leaving a big hole for stuffing to leak out
"Oops, sorry Gangle. Got a bit enthusiastic with all the defending and all of that" Ragatha said apologetically as she was mad at herself as she was hogging all the monsters for herself while leaving Gangle out, it was sure to leave a sour opinion of herself to the bundle of ribbons, she had to remember that this was also Gangle's training section
"But you were attacking, not defending and... Nevermind" Gangle gave up on trying to argue that what Ragatha was doing was not defending, since technically speaking the best defense is a good offense and that she was sort of protecting her by drawing all the attention to herself, but it still didn't feel quite right
"Alright, so uh... Straighten your back as you want to have the right posture for a good throw, and uh... I'm not sure if a baseball throw would work the same as a knife throw" Ragatha said as she embarrassedly scratched the back of her head, she knew how to throw a baseball, even a curve ball but knives and the other stuff Gangle could summon and throw from her weapon? She had little clue, maybe game darts but she doubted those would be effective against anyone
Gangle looked her in the eye and sighed as it seemed she wouldn't have good advice for this, she looked around to see one of those mushroom monsters jumping around, she stretched her arm back and launched it forward while arching her back accordingly, the disk blade struck her mark but simply cut a wound on the monster before hitting a tree, the ribbon girl tried again to a similar result as the monster began trying to run away, her eyes narrowed on the fleeing target as she took a deep breath even though she hadn't lungs, throwing the disk in the back of the creatures head as it stopped during a hop and fell face first in the ground, Ragatha giving her some commemorative claps to congratulate her
"Alright, good job Gangle. Now let's keep going until we go up a few levels, like... Four or five!" Ragatha said motivationally as she gave Gangle a thumbs up before moving forward to look for more monsters, even if gaining five levels would be a bit unrealistic for today, it didn't hurt to have the goal in mind as she went through the afternoon
"Right..." Gangle commented as she trailed behind Ragatha, something was definitely off about the ragdoll as this sudden desire to get more levels came from nowhere as she didn't seem interested in leveling up the previous days, it must have been something to do with the rescue operation and how it went down. Gangle could guess that it might have something to do with getting cut in half and not wanting to go through that again but it might be more than that... Maybe she should get Pomni or Zooble to talk to Ragatha, as she wasn't sure if she knew how to best approach the topic or discuss it
The amalgam dragged the dead body away from the camp, a hard task considering the size of the man and changing what their arms were made of did little to help diminish the effort of pulling. But they couldn't complain as it soon it would be over with, they stopped at a random part of the grass meadow they found themselves in, looking around for any potential witness to what they were about to do
Digging a hole would be hell since the only shovel they had were one from Caine's box of parts and if it was to build a sand castle then it would be useful but to dig a human size hole? Not so much. Luckily Zooble wasn't going to dig a hole, and they already had the tool they needed to get the job done on the body
Zooble looked at the body and removed its clothing and armor as it could be used later, afterwards they lifted their axe up, it would be easier to absorb it in pieces, they would share it with the others but maybe not this time, the others might feel disturbed by it and to a extent Zooble was as well but they needed to do this, if they could become whatever they absorb into the axe then... It was worth at least getting the head... Just to maybe finally get something that felt right
They swing it down as it cuts through it clean, splashing a bit of blood on the ground, they looked at the decapitated head with the urge to vomit, but it was overshadowed by innate intrigue as they placed their axe gem against it, the thing quickly disappearing in glow of light
[Human head axe] [unlocked]!
Plus 5 health
[Ability: human level up bonus (small)]
[Amalgam bonus: Human head piece unlocked]
Getting an ability from it was unexpected but it was the motivation they needed, if they figured out a way to equip more than one part of a creature... Then it would be good to have the rest absorbed as well. They just hoped no one from the cast would hate them if they found out what they were doing
"Grh..." Jax mumbled in as he opened his eyes, god did he feel like shit, maybe a little less so than yesterday but still pretty bad, he looked around and it seemed he was inside of a cave, laying down on some mattress and with his overalls pulled down, still covering his legs and waist but leaving his now bandaged up chest open for the world to see. He thought back on what happened before he woke up to understand where he was now, remembering he was kidnapped by some brutes and that...
"Oh! Hey you woke up" Pomni said as she quickly came over to check on him, happy to see he was finally awake, she worried he would have been comatose for a while longer. Jax gave her a shallow look, as he tried to get up from the little mattress he was in only to feel a spike of pain in his waist, seeing it all bandages up
"Hey slow down, you're in bed rest until that wound gets better" Pomni said as she gently laid him down back to the mattress, it had already been troublesome to clean and patch him up with all that blood that still made her want to pass out from seeing it, she didn't need him force the wound open with sudden movements
"Now just try to rest and don't do too much effort or we risk the wound worsening. Kinger is cleaning at the moment, when the others return we are going to start cooking dinner, thankfully these bandits had some cooking tools we can use" Pomni said as thankfully this hideout had most items they would need, sure there wasn't much to make their experience here remotely comfortable but at least they could cook food properly now that they had pots
"... Why?" Jax muttered just as Pomni was about to leave the area, earning a confused "Huh?" From the jester as she turned back to stare at him
"Why did you guys come back for me? You had the perfect opportunity to ditch me and yet you guys risked it all... For me? That doesn't make sense" Jax commented the thing that has been bothering him the most so far, he knew the people he was stuck in the circus were stupid but this was a new low for them, sure he should be grateful but for what it's worth, it was just something he struggled to understand, for all accounts they should have no reason as to rescue him, the only motives he could think of was that they might have wanted the hammer from his dead body or they were afraid he would rat out their location to the men in pro of saving himself, even then he knew those five well enough that those couldn't have been the reasons for the rescue, so he was just baffled by it
"Let me guess, it's because we all hate you? Well sorry to disappoint you but we save you, you're welcome" Pomni said with a slight chuckle, it was funny and a bit sad that the lilac menace was having difficulty understanding why they saved him because he didn't expect to be saved, it made sense and it showed a strange sense of self awareness from Jax but it was still funny
"Make no mistake, we still don't like you but the type of hate we have for you isn't cruel or heartless enough to let you simply die" Pomni affirmed, they all hated Jax to some capacity, but there was a difference between Gangle making drawings and writing stories where Jax gets his comeuppance in somewhat brutal fashion and actually having a role in his permanent demise, they weren't bad people just broken, didn't mean death appeased them like it did psychos like Jax
"We were all trying to stay sane in the circus in our own ways, and that's what you were doing right? All that toxic behavior, cruel and malicious pranks, abusing some of us physically or emotionally? It was all in an attempt to not lose your mind and abstract, am I right?" Pomni asked as that was her theory on why Jax was the way he was, that's the only way his behavior could be explained as she could at some level understand its reasoning to some level considering the futile of escape and a environment where consequences were minimum, being able to be as cruel as one could be desired to NPCs or fellow mates, it was still a bad way of thinking but one where she could see how it sprouted
"What? No I--"
"Whether you always were a bad person before the circus I will never know but we all give you the benefit of the doubt because we all know what that place does to people, it can bring out the worst in us if we aren't careful" Pomni said as she wondered from time to time if Jax was a secret sociopath back in the real world but then again that was just senseless speculation, he could be the definition of saint before and the circus had turned him into the man she knew today
"Kinger doesn't seem to hate you, and I wonder if that's because he knew you before all of us, maybe before you became so rotten" Pomni commented as Kinger seemed to be the only one to not truly hate Jax the way the others did, whether that was because of his "unique" mental state was up to interpretation but considering he had been in the circus the longest, it could be that he remembered Jax in his first couple of days or months there, perhaps Jax had started just like her, anxious and scared, trying to adjust to their new conundrum and the horrors within it.
"I don't know about the others but I'm... Not fine with abandoning people to die, not after what I did" Pomni said as she still remembered how she had just abandoned Ragatha, leaving her in glitching pain as she forgot about getting Caine to fix her up and stop Kaufmo just so she could book it for the "exit door" she supposedly hallucinated, it still ate at her from time to time on how willing she was to abandon someone in need for her own selfish reason, no matter how many times Ragatha said that it was okay and that it was completely understandable, she knew she did a bad thing and that she couldn't do that again
"So just rest, me or one of the others will bring you dinner, just relax and heal up, Okay?" Pomni said as she gave one last look to Jax, a sincere smile that hoped for his improvement before she left, Jax stood staring at the direction she went off with wide eyes before he turned to look at the ceiling. He felt sick, his chest had a weird sensation in it as the jester's words echoed in his mind, god did he want to puke from how mushy his heart felt, empathy for him? From the people he tormented daily, was this some sort of joke he wasn't privy to? After all he did they were showing him kindness? Gosh what a bunch of losers...
... He wondered how dinner was going to be like
--Non Canon Short--
To amend a wound
"... I hate this" Jax said as he laid in bed, frustrated as he not only was bed bound for the foreseeable future but also had an annoyance tied around him, as around his waist was a long red ribbon tying all around his wound, with a pale white mask with a equally annoyed expression on it
"It's not exactly pleasurable for me either Jax, it's degrading" Gangle said as she looked at him, she wanted to do bad stuff for the owners of this cave for not having a single piece of medical supplies for dealing with wounds, because without bandages to prevent the blending and help close the wound so it could heal, they had to improvise and since every single other piece of cloth was dirty in this damned place, she had to tie herself to Jax to save his life,
"Here you go guys, hot soup" Kinger said as he laid down two bowls of soup for them, Gangle stretching out her neck to drink the soup from the bowl itself rather than use a spoon. Jax rolled his eyes and went to grab his own bowl when he suddenly felt the ribbons ties around him heating up, as Gangle's entire body flowed with hot liquid from the inside, which was bad news since it was tied around an open wound
"Ouch! Fuck! Gangle! Your ribbons are heating up!" Jax screamed in pain from the sensation as the soup was still very hot
"Sorry" Gangle apologized sheepishly
[Author's Notes]
Any suggestions on what could happen next chapter? I have some ideas but would like to hear you guys
I wanted to ask you guys something, I wrote a bunch of little non canon shorts based on this story and wanted to ask if you guys would like me to post them all as one big compilation of a chapter, but some of them are... Smut, with some descriptive scenes and not to mention having potential spoilers so that's why I'm asking you guys. Would you all want to see it?