There’s a loud cartoon pop, and a cloud of smoke suddenly explodes around Kinger— Pomni screams in sync with him, scrambling away from the giant dust-puff and ending up somewhere near Zoobles boots. The digital dust clouds swirl busily around the space Kinger was standing a moment before, as his model reloads with a sharp crackle. The air buzzes with tension as the crowd of players stand silent, waiting, watching, wide-eyed; curious to see what’s happened to their oldest member.

The world holds its breath. Caine hums the theme tune to ‘material girl’ as he scribbles on a clipboard in pink gel pen. The dust settles…

…and Kinger, now visible, blinks.

Everyone’s mouths are hanging open. Hm. He looks down at himself, squinting at his gloves. He raises one up to his eyes, spreading apart the fingers.

“Oh,” Kinger mutters, watching a brand-new purple sleeve trail obediently behind. “That’s new!”

Looking down the sleeve, it’s just that— a sleeve. But he can feel some semblance of a something in the sleeves, so there must really be a part of him. He swivels his wrists experimentally, stretching out the fingers and wiggling them. Everything works…huh. And it doesn’t hurt?

“NOW REMEMBER, THIS ISN'T A PERMANENT RESKIN! NOT ROBUST ENOUGH FOR THAT!”

Caine explains helpfully, tapping the pen against his teeth. “JUST A LITTLE ADDITION FOR OUR SPECIAL ANNUAL EVENT!!”

Five pairs of curious eyes turn on him and his brand new set of arms, and Kinger suddenly gets an impending sense of dread.

“NOW, IS EVERYONE READY TO—“

“Shut up, Caine!”

Jax and Zooble are suddenly a lot closer to Kinger than they were a few seconds ago. He tries to back away, unsuccessfully.

“Damn, how’d he do this?” Jax grumbles, whacking his shoulder.

Kinger gets the feeling he’s not escaping this.

“Well, it…seeems real enough…”

Gangle is saying, suddenly poking at his wrists— He tries to back up, but Ragatha is standing behind him, her lips pursed in silent concern. Kingers eyes swivel as he tries to back up in some other, secret direction, but doesn’t get far before he bumps into Jax, who bumps into Zooble, who bumps into Gangle, who are all standing very very close to him. No matter what direction he tries to backpedal in, he keeps hitting people, and people just keep on hitting him.

Kinger eventually just freezes entirely. The crowd has formed, and there’s no getting out of it now.

He stands there, cross-eyed and hunched over, overwhelmed by so many people fiddling with him at once, and tries very hard not to lose focus. Gangle is poking her ribbons inside his gloves, (weird) Ragatha is fussing over his new sleeves, (even weirder) Jax is full on prodding him in the spine just to watch him twitch, (irritating) and Zooble— Zooble is squinting at him, which may be world-ending. It’s days like this he wishes he could —

“Nothings’ real here, ribbons. Or hadn’t you noticed?”

Jax is saying, twirling one of Kingers hands around by the ring finger, ow.

Zooble flicks him in the forehead, a chaos of bright colors somewhere to the left. “Semantics. He’s got arms, and that’s that, and that’s weird.”

“First of all shut up,”

Jax snaps, and Kinger shakes his head. There’s a loud buzzing in it he doesn’t like. All the colors are blurring— Christ, why are they all standing so close to him?

“And second of all—“

The vaguely triangle-shaped blur of neon to his left suddenly turns back into Zooble, and Kinger jolts in surprise. He’s still trying to get his balance back even as Jax ducks around him, poking his head under Kingers brand new elbow.

“Yeah, remind me, since when could he do this? Thought it was only clothes he could change, not our amount of limbs,”

Jax demands, somehow scowling through his grin. Kinger shakily steals his hand back.

He trails off into grumbling under his breath, and Kinger looks down at him with bloodshot eyes. Kinger frowns— in his mind, of course, but he frowns. Caine can’t answer questions nobody asks, that— That’d be a violation of privacy, to read our minds…

“I DON'T SEE WHY YOU ALL ARE BEING SUCH STICKS IN THE MUD ABOUT THIS!! ZOOBLE LIMB-SWITCHES ALL THE TIME, AND YOU DON'T QUESTIONTHAT.”

Caine huffs, looking rather sullen.

Kinger is still (somewhat) attempting to evade the many pokes and prods from other cast members, mostly unsuccessfully— Ragatha in particular is getting very handsy with his sleeves, and looks like she’s trying to tie them into a knot. “There’s even stitching…” She’s muttering under her breath, standing so close he can hear her perfectly. She’s squinting at his shoulder— what’s with all the squinting today? It’s incredibly weird, and Kinger was just about to try peeling her hands off him when somebody grabs the back of his collar and yanks.

“I-I think that’s enough, you guys!”

Pomni says, popping out of the crowd like a jongling savior. She starts to swat hands away, much to Kinger's relief— It’s rare to hear her raise her voice like that, but he's focusing very hard on helping swat the hands away, so he doesn’t have much time to be startled by it. Kinger awkwardly shuffles behind her, clinging to her hat and cowering like a 6’4 deer.

“Seriously, haven’t you heard of personal space…?”

She mutters, the red and blue of her hat swirling slightly under his hands. Kinger blinks down at her. Ge feels very grateful all of a sudden, though he’s not quite sure why.

“YOU— I— WHAT ARE YOU ALL DOING?! WE HAVE AN ADVENTURE TO GET TO!!”

Caine suddenly screams, clutching his hat. Whuh oh! “When was the last time someone paid attention to him?” Kinger asks curiously. “He gets jumpy if nobody—“

“THATS IT!!! YOU’RE ALL GOING INTO THE GAY FRACTAL NOISE NOW!”

The ringmaster explodes, and in a split second, and all of them are falling.

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