Disclaimer: I do not own Adventure Time with Finn and Jake. I am merely a fan who wishes to further spread the popularity of the series by writing this fanfiction. If any authority, whether governmental or otherwise, chooses to select this story as a case of plagiarism, let it be known it was for nonprofit and that I did not exploit Pen Ward's creation for self-profit.
Adventure Time with Finn and Jake
Episode 0: Of Heroes and Villains
Prologue: The Birth of a Hero
The stamp of hooves echoed throughout the mountainside and down to the valley forest, far below the mountain side's winding road. Sweat poured off the frightened white horses, only to be immediately washed away by the hard rain of the thunder storm; the flash of lightning and subsequent thunder blinded the coachman and startled the horses, but with the crack of his whip and fierce tugging of the reins, the coachman managed to push the horses back farther from the steep edge, closer to the mountain side, which served as a comforting if harshly solid wall compared to the sheer drop of the edge.
Behind him, the coachman could hear the sounds of the menacing figures on black horseback, and tried to ignore the fact that they were becoming louder by the second. He raised his whip again and tried to get even more speed from the already fatigued horses, and began to wish he had joined the Revolution when he had the chance.
Inside the coach's cabin, four people sat in anxious silence. All four knew the gravity of the situation, and just how unlikely it was that they'd see the morning sun. To make things worse, they knew that if they didn't make it out of the mountain range before the figures caught up to them, that the their efforts and those of the late royalty would have been in vain. They had to make it to the closest kingdom. They just had to.
The coach, as it made a sharp turn around the mountains' many curved roads, hit a large stone in the road and jostled the passengers to and fro. The baby, which had been asleep in its exhausted mother's arms until that point, awoke and began to cry for all its little lungs were worth. The mother, her eyes still blood-shot and fresh with tears, did her best to soothe her child, rocking the swaddled babe in her arms while singing an old lullaby.
Hush little darling,
Don't say a word,
Mama's going to buy you a silver bird.
And if that silver bird doesn't shine, Mama's going buy you a pretty rhine.
And if that pretty rhine doesn't sparkle, Mama's going get you a enchanted pickle.
And if that enchanted pickle doesn't glow, Mama's going to get you red Bordeaux.
The baby, however, refused to stop crying and, if anything, raised its volume up another decibel. The Marauder bodyguard who sat next to the women and child, his bristling battle armor over his traditional deer pelts and cyborg left arm, grunted roguishly and leaned on the wall of his side of the coach, watching mountain sidewall disappear from behind them. It wouldn't take long for the dark figures to catch up to them, and when they did, he'd probably be the first to be killed. And to think that, in just a short forty-eight hours he would have met his pension and been free of all the dangers encountered by bodyguards in this place of sharp edges and knives.
The woman's husband, who sat across from his wife, glared across the coach at their less than enthusiastic bodyguard but said nothing. Reaching his hand out across the coach, the woman's husband placed his hand on her shoulder, which tugged her attention from the baby for a brief moment and brought their eyes to one another. No words were said, but then there was no need for them; their eyes spoke more profoundly than words ever could.
The wife, tired in a way she had never felt before, brushed her husband's hand aside and shook her head. Now was not the time. A small, sad smile graced her face for but a moment, before she turned her attention back to her golden-haired child.
Withholding a sigh, the husband returned his hand to his side, and turned to the Hero beside him. The man, dressed in the typical army garb of a Captain of the Iron Kingdom Guard and partly caked in mud, had already drawn his customary broadsword and drumming his fingers on its grip, his eyes staring into the same, cold, dark future that awaited them all. Curiously, though, the man didn't seem all that worried. He wasn't anxious, as he, the Earl of the Iron Kingdom was; he wasn't frightened, as the Countess was; he wasn't even depressed, like the Marauder. He seemed to be completely and utterly emotionless.
The Earl knew that, just before the King has been captured and dragged through the city streets to meet his maker that his Royal Highness had taken the man aside for a whispered conversation. At the end of it, the Hero had seemed most distressed and confused, but had nevertheless managed to find a route of escape for the lot of them, and had even held off the mob and the Duke's Mercenary friends with the last of the Royal Guard, from which he got his present attire. With his own eyes, the Earl had seen this man fight like a wild beast and here now the same man seemed to be devoid of emotion.
Despite himself and the situation, the Earl couldn't help but wonder what those last few words between the Hero and the King had been, and just how much was in store for the future. The Earl knew that those final words had been more important than the King's own safety; if the King hadn't stopped the Hero in mid-retreat for that exchange, the King may has still fled the Iron Kingdom with his life.
"Surely the conversation could have been put off to a later time?" the Earl thought. "Maybe…"
The Earl was ripped from his thoughts with the sound of something hard and fast hitting the back of the coach, right behind the Earl and Hero. The Earl and Hero both pulled their heads from their headrests and turned to see, in just the nick of time, two iron arrow heads jutting in the exact same places where their heads had been not two seconds before. More arrow heads began burst through the coach's back wall, to the horror of the Countess, who began to scream alongside her child.
"Sir," said the Hero to the Earl, seemingly recovering from his near-death experience without as much as a second thought, his face a serene ocean in the face of their impending deaths that made the Earl admire even more, "Please silence your wife and child. It'll break my concentration if I have to listen to those two make such a fuss."
The Hero then turned to the Marauder and said in a voice of refined honey, "Mr. Marauder. Are you handy with a bow and arrow? Or perhaps with a crossbow?"
The Marauder, also startled by the sudden onslaught, flinched at this sudden and polite address. His eyes wild with shock, he said, "N-not really, no. I'm more a 'mess people and their stuff up' kinda guy." To match his point, the Marauder drew the smoked-black mace he had been wearing at his side up to that point.
"Pity," said the Hero without a drop of emotion, before he dropped his attention to the space between his seat and the coach's floor. His hands blindly searched for the item in question for a moment or two, but within ten seconds the Hero pulled out from under his seat what had to be the most wretched crossbow known to man.
All bright, metal gears and black wood, the thing had more than enough slots to insert the bolts, and several grips to stock up on bolts. There was even a latch, from which the Hero pulled out an slim, emergency dagger, for when the enemy drew too close to properly fire. This he handed to the Earl.
"Use it on those who would harm you, the Countess or child. This world has more than enough Heroes, but only so many Second Chances," explained the Hero to the surprised Earl, before standing up and opening the side door to the coach.
Sticking his body part way out of the coach to the mountainside, the crossbow in his left hand, the Hero turned and looked out to the back of the coach at the approaching dark riders through the hissing spray of the frigid rain. One of them had gotten close enough to the coach that he was able to slow his horse to pace with them, while still being within firing range of the coach and not holding his fellow riders behind. His hands off the reins entirely, the Mercenary had pulled out a crossbow of his own and had been locked his attention on hitting the coach with more bolts than needles on a pincushion.
Unfortunately for the Mercenary, however, this meant that the only thing keeping the Mercenary on his horse's saddle was his feet's grip on the stirrup and the rope attached to the Mercenary's waist and the saddle. With the Mercenary's arms holding and aiming the crossbow and his attention partly diverted to the attack, this meant that the Mercenary didn't have his full attention on staying on his moving horse, or his general surroundings in general. Not only that, but in order to get his crossbow into position, the Mercenary was leaning ever so to the right, towards the mountainside wall. Good news for the Hero, though
Though his face was hidden by a ceramic mask with a less than pleasant grin, the Comedy Mercenary was clearly surprised that someone had partly exited the coach. Shifting his weight even farther to the right to get a better shot at the Hero, the Mercenary fired two bolts at the exposed Hero's head and chest. Ducking out of the path of both bolts with inhuman ease, the Hero himself aimed, rather unsteadily, one-handedly and effortlessly hit the leaning Mercenary directly in the throat. Another bolt got his horse in shoulder.
The combination of set both stricken beings on a spiraling fall downward, the Mercenary falling to his left and the horse on its rider. By simple momentum, the two still went forward for a few agonizingly painful moments before coming to a complete standstill, their limbs and bodies tangled up together.
To the notice of the Hero, the other Mercenaries seemed little affected by their fallen comrade and with brief gestures to their rides, their horses jumped over the two bodies and continued following the coach and its riders.
"Damn, and here I thought that would at least hold them up for a while," said the Hero, gritting his teeth. Just then, he felt the entire coach violently jerk to the side, and draw so close to the wall that the Hero was forced back into the Coach entirely so as to keep his nose on his face. The Earl bent over for a moment, to make sure that he was okay, but the Hero simply smacked the concerned hand away and stood up. He waited for a minute for the coach to correct its distance to the wall before sticking his head and torso out the door again, his attention to the coach driver this time.
"Hey, buddy! Watch where you're going next time!" said the Hero before realizing that the coach driver would never watch or see anything ever again. The last two bolts the Mercenary had fired had struck the poor driver in the back, one through his lungs and the other directly severing his spine. The horses, sensing of the lack of a driver but aware of the advancing threat, were running double time, slowly pulling the coach to the left and towards the steep valley ravine below.
The Hero pulled his head back into the coach and asked, with a grim smile and a twitching eye, "Does anyone of you know how to drive horses?" To his immediate but unsurprised disappointment, all three shook their heads.
"Just my luck," said the Hero, before he pulled himself completely out of the coach and climbed to the roof of the coach. Moving himself to the driver seat, he gently pushed the coach driver off of the coach and grabbed hold of the reins. Behind him, the rough splat of the body hitting the ground at high speeds reminded him of the increasing danger, as the Hero stared in despair as he looked from the reins to the horses then back to the reins.
Squashing his doubt with a terrible sigh, the Hero wordlessly tugged on the reins and dragged them to the right, ushering the horses forward as they rounded another curve. A bolt of lightning crashed overhead and it began to hail; the storm was getting worse. The Hero cursed what gods may be for their neglect but otherwise continued on.
Behind the coach, despite their loss in numbers and their growing annoyance, the Mercenaries were getting ever closer. In the lead was a Mercenary with a blank mask; directly after him was the Comedy's former companion, Tragedy; and last but certainly not least was a simple, black hooded rider, who filled the Hero with the sort of unspeakable dread that the Villain's personal Assassin receives.
Reaching out and past the Blank Mercenary, Tragedy drew closer to the coach. Drawing a sword from a black leather scabbard on his back, Tragedy took an expert left-handed swing and hit the Coach on its left side, just inches from the back wheel. Inside, much to his surprise, the Earl flinched as the blade cut through into the cabin space and lightly grazed his left leg, cutting through his clothes and leaving a long but skin deep cut. Outside, the Hero felt the strike and looking back, took a shot at Tragedy, who saw the returning fire and pulled back to a safe distance before the Hero could take the shot.
Despite knowing that he was leaving them wide open for another attack, the Hero returned to his post as coach driver. There was little alternative, between the uncertain chances of the four dying on the road as a cause of the Mercenaries and the all too certain chances of dying on the road due to falling off the mountain side.
Thankfully, just then, a hearty voice greeted him with, "Oi! You need a hand, Hero?" It was the Marauder, in all of his amiable, unwashed, alcoholic glory.
Turning his head so he could partially look at the Marauder and the road at the same time, the Hero said, "Why, only if you have one to spare! I know that cowardly hiding in the coach while a human does all the work can be so exhausting for a big, strong man such as you!"
"Hey!" said the Marauder, who like everyone else of his kind wore his heart on his shoulders, "You trying to pick a fight!"
"Oh no! I'm just repeating what those awful Mercenaries said of you! They called you so many terrible names! With words like 'dirty,' 'pig,' and 'mother'! Go reclaim your pride and honor!"
"Damn right I will!" shouted the Marauder, hefting his heavy mace in his meaty fingers. Climbing on the top of the coach, the Marauder stood up and got his bearings with just enough time to catch Tragedy as he approached the back left side of the coach again. Lifting his mace above his head, the Marauder swung the weapon at Tragedy's head just as the Mercenary had gotten within striking distance. It was only with good natural reflexes that the Mercenary dodged the attack, and even then he was nicked on the side of the head and fell back into the pack, clutching his bloody skull.
"Ha! That's what you bastards get for insulting me mum!" roared the Marauder, victory on his tongue and fire in his eyes, as another flash of lightning shot behind him and caught his figure in a overtly dramatic fashion. "Now come here and get what's coming to yah!"
Still clutching the side of his head with one hand, Tragedy complied. Upon reaching the coach again, the Mercenary swung swiftly but bluntly at the Marauder's feet, the path of his blade made obvious due to his head injury. Jumping to dodge the blow, the Marauder made for an overhead blow and came down on Mercenary.
It was too late, however, when the Marauder realized that he had been standing on a moving object when he made the jump: once he moved off the coach, he was no longer moving with it, but rather on his own volition. Not only that, but he was jumping down and attacking a man who had one hand on his head and the other on a sword, riding a speeding horse right next the edge of a sheer mountain side, with only a rickety picket fence separating them all from oblivion. Of course, not all of this ran through the head of the simple-minded but lovable fool; he just realized he'd made a damn fool mistake.
He collided with Tragedy at an excess of forty-five miles an hour, his striking weapon reaching past the Mercenary's head and falling out of his open hands, onto the roadside; instead, his elbows hit Tragedy's with nut-breaking ferocity, who immediately loosened his grip on his sword, which fell down the mountain side.
In spite of his wounds, Tragedy managed to follow his first instinct and fall back again from the danger, and tried to usher his horse with the hand not clutching his hand all the harder now to the right side of the road, back to his teammates. However, since the first instinct of any sensible person when they realize they're close to falling a long way is to reach out and grab the closest thing to them in a mad frenzy, the Marauder's squirming large body and weight made this near impossible. Not only that, but since the first instinct of an domesticated equine when its forced underneath the incredible stress of having been running at top speed for several miles while carrying a heavy rider only to gain a second, even heavier rider is to panic and rear its body like all hell, the three beings became a beast of three backs and zero brains still moving at around forty miles an hour.
The result was that the horse trembled and cantered under the weight of the two fighting riders, before hit the fencing, which broke under the force, and the three fell down the side of the mountain, the two riders still struggling against the other all the way down.
This the Hero watched out of the corner of his eye, the event taking all of ten seconds to occur. Damn! He had been a good soul too, if a rather predictable one.
Turning his mind back to the road, the Hero strained his eyes and tried to look into the distance: the night and the rain made it extremely difficult to tell where he was going and exactly when the next turn would be. If he wasn't careful, the next turn could would their last.
However, there was no sign of it; there was nothing but black, rainy night ahead. The Hero couldn't tell if that meant that there was no turn up head or if it rather terminal bad news. The mountain side wasn't gently curving, always a sign that a turn was coming up. Perhaps there was no turn coming up soon? Well, in that case, that was good news; with all this rain, turning was a laborious and nigh impossible feat. Not only that, but the Mercenaries sounded like they weren't in much of a hurry to resume their attack, given their current losses. In fact, the sound of their horses was slowly fading.
"Perhaps," the Hero thought, "things were starting to go my way-"
Hero's mind stopped. That was it. It was written right into his very essence, his very body and soul of heroism: always trust things to get worse before they get better. And he just thought aloud the general mantra for the very worst jinx of them all: perhaps things will now improve. As the gripping cold of despair and fear took him, the Hero wondered, without much hope, if it only counted if he said the words aloud…
Things came into focus. There was a turn up ahead, but not one that gently curves; not even a sharp curve that comes out of nowhere. This turn was a purely ninety-degree turn, which comes out of the deepest pits of man's fears and paralyzes him to the point of no return. The fixed picket fence was already starting to become visible, in the short distance between the coach and the perfectly symmetrical turn. The roads were wet, the horses were exhausted, and they were going too fast.
Just as they went over the side, the thunder roaring, fencing shattering, the wheels still spinning, the bodies in the cabin being tossed like meat salad, his hands tugging on the reins to force the turn, the Hero had just enough time to think a short thought to himself before he started down into the inky abyss and probable death. Only one, short little thought, nothing complicated or rapturous. No great big philosophy on life and his place in it. Not even a brief curse to his enemies and prayer to those who had lost their lives so far and all those who would lose their lives to come in the future.
But with this one thought, time stood still and observed a man, who had lived a life of pain and suffering and endless regret, who had seen the bodies of friend and foe alike strewn like slaughtered pigs upon the battlefield, who had by his own hand slain lives both guilty and innocent, who could only possibly expect eternal damnation of his own brewing, look Death in the face and be truly unafraid.
This one thought was a name, and that name was "Marceline."
Far above, the two remaining riders, the Mercenary and the Assassin, watched as the coach hit the mountain side and bounce several times, pieces breaking off and bodies flying out, until it came to rest near the bottom, aflame. They sat there, on their jet black horses in their jet black clothes, and watched the thing burn. They sat there for a very long time, in silence. Whatever needed to be said went unsaid, for that was their way.
Only after the rain had quenched the remaining fires did they leave, to report back to the People's Revolution of the Iron Kingdom and its new ruler, the former Duke now Leader of the People's Republic, of the executions of the Earl and the Countess of the former Iron Kingdom; of the regrettable but inevitable death of the Hero Jack, who had fought valiantly against all tyranny he saw; and the kidnapping and disappearance of the Crown Prince of the Iron Kingdom, the last haven for humanity, Your Royal Highness, Lord Justin.