"Why are we in Costco again?" Gangle murmured quietly.
"Because Caine likes to [!@#$] everything up all the time and made us SHOP for him," Zooble groaned, throwing a box of Caine Flakes into a larger-than-life cart that Pomni was pushing.
"W-what are Caine...Flakes...?" Pomni murmured, looking at the box.
The side of the cereal box said 20% laxatives and 1200% Grainger: For The Ones Who Get It Done.
"W-what does- what does that even mean??" Pomni said blankly.
"It means Caine's officially gone off the deep end!" Jax yelled from the frozen vegetables aisle.
A shriek was heard and suddenly, Jax was back within their midst.
Pomni raised an eyebrow. "You saw corn, didn't you?"
Jax averted his eyes, grinning with a terrified look to his eyes. "WHAT?? No!"
"He did!" Kinger cried, popping in front of Jax so fast that nobody saw him move. "JAX!! Did you see any sort of sixty-legged sock in that aisle of FOOD?!"
Jax backed up a couple steps. "Uh- what?"
Kinger blinked. "Did you say something?"
Jax's eye twitched slightly.
"Let's keep moving. Caine needs even more cream for his Milk and Cigarette Casserole, I guess," Zooble called.
"And we still need to find the cigarettes!" Ragatha called, coming around the corner of the aisle.
"You didn't find ANY?!" Zooble cried, suprised.
"It's something in the programming, I think," Gangle said, looking up at the bright lights hooked to the high ceiling. "Caine won't let any drugs or anything, right?"
"That's weird, though," Pomni noted. "He included the stupid sauce. That's a drug in itself."
"UGH, can you guys stop being so focused on the cigarettes?? We need the cream!" Jax groaned, walking towards the milk freezer.
"Uh- Jax, it's really cold in there-" Ragatha called.
"CHILL, Dollface!" Jax called back. "I can take it, I'm not a child!!"
Ragatha shot her a weird look and Pomni stopped immediately.
"AGH! JAX! NO! DON'T GO TO THE DINGLE DUNGEONNNNNN!!" Kinger screamed, running towards the milk freezer.
"Ugh, these mother[!@#$]ers are making this take ten times longer." Zooble groaned.
"Well, look on the bright side - we're having some alone time together for once!" Ragatha said cheerily.
Zooble and Gangle smiled blandly and turned back to looking at the maple syrup.
Ragatha's hair noodles drooped sadly.
"R-Ragatha?" Pomni asked quietly.
"Oh! Yeah?" Ragatha replied cheerily, her face quickly switching to a cheery expression.
"I'm sorry about them," Pomni continued quietly. "You're completely right. It's amazing that we all get to hang out, without the circus craziness for once. Thank you for bringing that up."
"O-oh! Of course, Pomni! I'm so glad you like my outlook," Ragatha said, smiling.
Pomni grinned in return and looked back at the milk freezer to see Jax pulling a frozen Kinger out of the freezer.
"What the [!@#$] happened?!" Pomni cried.
"Ahh, nothing!! He's FINE, pompom, see!" Jax replied, placing a plastic butterfly in front of Kinger.
The ice broke off of Kinger immediately, and he raced away, cuddling and tossing the plastic butterfly like it was his child.
"Do you...always carry plastic butterflies with you?" Pomni asked Purple Rabbit Man.
"Huh? Oh, well, I have this bag of plastic bugs," Jax said, pulling out a large bag of multi-colored plastic insects and crawlies. "I got them in an adventure a while back. I was going to give them to-" he paused for a moment.
"I was going to give them to someone," he said quietly, tucking the bag back into his pocket. "But whatever! I use one of 'em every once in a while to..." Jax paused again. "To snap Kinger out of it when he needs to, duh."
Pomni smiled. "You were going to say 'to cheer him up,' huh?"
"WHAAAAT?!" Jax avoided eye contact. "Of course not. I'm not that kind."
Pomni rolled her eyes, smiling. "Right, of course."
"I agree with Jax!!" Kinger said, appearing from around a corner, surrounded by a swarm of butterflies. "Butterflies DO cheer me up!!"
Jax groaned. "God, this has gotten out of hand"