Opposites Don't Attract

Chapter 1

It was a beautiful day in the circus, as was everyday since Caine didn't really change the weather all that much. I was getting ready for the day until I was interrupted by a knock on the door. I answer the door to find Jax standing there, "Hey Rags." He says.
"Oh. Good morning Jax!" I reply kind of suspiciously, "What can I do for you?"

"I got some bad news."
After he says that, his ears lower and his grin disappears. I feel my heart sink, anticipating what he's about to tell me.
"I just wanted to let you know that my next shipment of centipedes is running late. So I apologize you didn't wake up with a surprise this morning."
He says as his normal playful expression comes right back.

I feel so relieved it was just one of his jokes. But he's just so smug, leaning against MY door frame. With his arms crossed and his little grin. Why is he like this? And why am I not too upset about it?

"Did you really come here just to let me know you would've pranked me if you could?" I say as I cross my arms, trying to sound annoyed.

"Bingo!" He said firing finger guns at me.
"I just didn't want you to think there was something wrong with me since I didn't prank you today."

"Thanks, I think?" I don't really know how to feel. I guess my morning routine wouldn't be complete without Jax leaving centipedes, or in this case, discussing leaving me a centipede in my room.

"Welp, I'll see you later, Dollface! Hopefully not in like 10 minutes when we're all gathered by the stage. That would be just too much for me to handle in one day."
Jax walked down the hall and didn't even shut my door back. How considerate, that's the Jax I know.

I finish getting ready for the day and make my way to the stage to see what Caine has in store for us. It looks everyone already beat me here, I was the last one to show up today. If Jax didn't distract me and slow me down, maybe I would have been here sooner or at least get to walk with Pomni or something. I stand beside Jax and give my attention to the stage where Caine is floating.

"Good morning my flailing fruit cakes!"
"I have quite an adventure for you, and it's a team adventure. So go ahead and pair up."

I make my way over to Pomni to ask if she wanted to partner up today.
"Hey Pomni, do you want to pair up today?"
"Sorry Ragatha, I've already got Kinger." She says as she points her thumb behind her to point towards Kinger who looks like he hasn't moved or even blinked in 10 minutes.

I rub my arm nervously and say "That's cool, maybe next time."

I know Gangle and Zooble are going to be teaming together, and if Pomni and Kinger are together, then that only leaves me with...

"Come on Buttons, I'm over here!"

I heard him exclaim from across the room interrupting my thoughts. I let out a tiny little sigh and walk over towards Jax and stand beside him crossing my arms. This shouldn't be too bad. We've teamed up before and I'm sure this won't be the last.

"Alright, marvelous!"
"Today's adventure is called the Long Laryngeal Labyrinth, you and your team must solve puzzles and riddles and avoid traps to make your way out of this labyrinth."

Alrighty, shouldn't be to bad I start to think to myself I look up to Jax and tell him
"Well, I'm good at puzzles!"

"I'm good with traps so I GUESS I can warn you if I see any or something." the rabbit says extremely smugly.

I flash a smile to Jax and before I can respond to him, I'm interrupted by Caine.

"But wait, there's a twist. Your partner is going to be replaced by their evil counterpart from the soft ball adventure."

"Aww man, I was just starting to get used to you." Jax looks at me obviously faking a sad face.

I roll my eyes and under my breath I respond "Yeah, me too." Just low enough that hopefully he wouldn't hear. I didn't want him to go parading that fact around.

"Wait a minute." Kinger says causing everyone to point their attention to him.

"When did we play softball?"
"Why did we play softball?"
"Did I win?"

That's Kinger for you, we all just point our attention back to the stage.

Caine snaps his fingers opening up a portal above us. One by one, our evil counterparts tumbled out and landed beside us. Pomni ended up next to Evil Kinger, if I remembered correctly, he went by Dictator. The purple chess piece dusted off his long military-style coat before adjusting the matching cap on his head. Meanwhile, our Kinger was paired with Evil Pomni, who looked almost identical to the real one, except for her color-swapped outfit and a mouth full of sharp teeth.

I look beside me and see this nervous pink rabbit in purple overalls. I don't really know why he's called Evil Jax, I remember him being pretty sweet from the softball game.

"Hi, I'm Ragatha!" I flash a smile and offer my hand to Evil Jax who ends up flinching as my hand got closer.

"Oh, I'm uhh, I'm sorry. I'm E-Evil Jax." The rabbit says while avoiding eye contact with me, scratching his head anxiously.

"Its okay, I didn't mean to scare you. Just trying to get acquainted."

I start rubbing my arm awkwardly again until I hear Jax yell at me again. This time standing next to an evil me. She looked pretty much the exact same as me, but her hair was blue and she was wearing a red dress. Oh, and she has extremely pointy teeth.

"Yo Rags! Your evil twin is bada**! I think we're gonna get a long just fine."

I roll my eyes and yell back. "Well, I think I'm gonna get along very well with your evil twin too!" I go to grab Evil Jax's arm but he flinches again causing me to accidentally punch him in the stomach causing him to hunch over in pain.

"Oh my goodness, I'm so sorry!"

I try to comfort Evil Jax who's in the fetal position laying on the floor until normal Jax laughed at me and hit me with a "Nice going dollface, real smooth."

My face gets red from embarrassment as I just feel terrible. I hate that Evil Jax is in this constant anxious state, I hope my evil twin isn't mean to him constantly causing him to be scared of me. But I can't really say anything, I just did punch him in the stomach. And somehow, I think hearing Jax and my evil counterpart already getting along so well bothered me more than I expected.

"Oh, and Gangle and Zooble, yall can stay behind today, that would be too many teams for me to keep up with"

The ringmaster says before shoving the rest of us into the portal to get the adventure under way.