Chapter 1:
Finn the Human, Hero of Ooo and Captain of the Guard, wore his anguish like a coat as he came down the hall towards the main guard room of the Banana Guard Headquarters. He hardly seemed to notice the troops he led as they went about their business, and his eyes looked haunted and distant as if he were staring far ahead of him at things only he could see. He hadn't been the same since the fateful events of the Silent Rebellion. All the troops said it. Finn wasn't the man he had been. He was almost a shell of his former self.
Of course if Finn was a shell, his deputy and oldest child was a ghost–a man who seemed not to be 'there' on the best days. The Lieutenant had grown remote and distant from everyone and especially from his father. He rarely spoke beyond giving orders and asking hard questions. He didn't even seem to hear jokes, and he seemed even to have forgotten how to smile. But he was quick to crack down on anyone or anything that he perceived was slacking off or failing to carry his weight. Billy the Human was bad news for anybody who wished the old days would come back.
As Finn came up the hall, he met his son going the other direction. That was how their lives played out these days. Billy, as often as not, worked the graveyard shift, seeming to do his level best to avoid his father as much as he could. Finn had very nearly given up on trying to get his boy to open up. He'd tried everything, even waiting up to see his son when he came in to work. Billy had gone to his desk, put on headphones, and done his best to drown Finn out. Now, as the two men passed each other in the hall, Finn gave his son a half-hearted wave, which only caused the younger man to accelerate. With a heavy-hearted sigh, Finn went his way. He didn't know what to do, but he had little time to spend on it. There was still a great deal of work to be done.
As Finn settled in at his desk, Billy climbed into his truck and set out into the early morning mist. The weather was turning. It would be winter soon–his second without his wife. The young man pulled into traffic, bound for the city's graveyard. Moments after he'd set out, a second truck pulled into traffic behind him. This one came with dark-tinted windows and a sinister black paint-scheme. As the young hero wove his way through the early-morning rush-hour, the blacked-out vehicle did its best to stay close.
Meanwhile, hundreds of miles away, Patrick Petrikov came out of the ruined house that he shared with Fionna. His hand caressed the rough stone wall. They'd spent hours improving this place, patching the walls and putting a better roof on. It was their cozy little house, and sometimes he marveled at how far they had come in the last year or so. He'd fallen in deeper with Fi. He couldn't really help it. He'd recommitted himself to doing all he could to show his girl how much he loved her. His reward was a deep, nurturing affection that sustained them both through the rough patches.
Things weren't very rough right now. In fact, he would have said they were about perfect. They had their little house. They had plenty of money to take care of themselves. Patrick was getting better and better at wizardry and earning a nice living at that, and Fi was doing pretty damned good herself. In spite of his fears and misgivings, there was very little going wrong for them right now. Oh, they had some fights. They'd had one just the night before. They never got personal or nasty about it, not the way Patrick's parents sometimes did.
The temperature in the shadow of the ruined city was balmy for Patrick Petrikov. It was so nice here that honestly he would have considered putting down roots. Tromping his way across the soft sand of the beach, he marveled at the world around him. The salt air, the warm breezes, and the constant sun almost made him euphoric. He'd been sliding up on asking Fionna to stay. They hadn't seen so much as a peep from the Thief King's dudes in two months. Besides that, they had been making money hand-over-fist by looting the abandoned city. The town that was their base had a hunger for artifacts from the city, and Fi had a knack for finding stuff that brought in the money. When you got into the fact that some of the town fathers wanted to hire Fi for protection, it almost seemed perfect.
Fi was at the table that served as their counter looking for all the world like she was half-asleep. That was starting to bother him. His lady had been having trouble staying awake lately. She'd come back from one of their dungeon excursions and end up sleeping for a day. He feared their 'life-on-the-run' was taking a toll on the woman he loved. One of the reasons Patrick wanted to stay was to get her some rest. He'd been sneaking up on the idea to keep his stubborn girlfriend from arguing about it. "Hey, hon," Fi yawned. She was watching a scruffy mutant as he looked over the stuff they had for sale. Patrick leaned down and kissed her, his hands stroking her shoulders.
"Mmm, baby," sighed the pretty blonde girl. She was so much in love with her dude. "Sorry I was a butt last night," she sighed. Massaging her tense shoulders, Patrick replied, "I thought you apologized last night..." Blushing in memory–she'd given him Swedish as a way to kiss and make up–Fionna said, "yeah, honey, but my mom always said that it was important to admit when you're wrong..." Which wasn't anything like Patrick's mom. Patrick kissed her again, saying, "apology accepted, baby, and thanks... You know that's my favorite..."
Interrupting their intimate moment, the scruffy mutant asked, "how much?" He was pointing at the ancient power-drill that lay on the table before Fionna. "For you? Free," replied Fionna as she coolly stabbed the Thief King's agent through the eye with the very artifact he'd pretended to admire.
The move startled Patrick, even though by now he was used to how fast Fi could move. Rising, the leggy blond whipped her sword out of her pocket just as a dozen thugs came out of the trees on their right. Patrick lit into them with spells, blasting three with one lightning bolt. Seven more came charging down the beach from the direction of town. Fionna waded into them like she was back on the football field. Parry, cut, thrust, and the first of the thugs died at her feet. The quality of the Thief King's thugs had been going steadily down as the number of men willing to throw down with Finn the Human's kid got steadily smaller. Unfortunately, as he blasted two of the latest out of their sandals, Patrick realized that they hadn't quite got to the bottom of the pile yet. They'd have to move.
"Drat," the wizard growled! "Huh," burbled Fionna, as she clove the arm off one of their opponents? "I was hoping we'd get to stay through the winter," Pat replied. Fi chuckled. Pat didn't really like the snow. Stepping between him and one of the bigger gangsters, Fionna drove the Fionna-Sword into his assailant's belly. The strange goo-man's squishy flesh captured her sword, causing it to stick fast. "Pretty cool," said Fionna, to the goo-man's chuckles. Now he tried to pulp her with his massive fists. Fionna let go the sword and dodged out of his way. Issuing silent commands, she caused the sword's crystalline blade to slowly extend. As the goo-man swung and missed, smashing tables and scattering their stuff, the crystal sword was slowly cutting his innards out. As one of his massive fists clipped Fionna's right hip, spinning her around, his face contorted in a strange look, and he toppled over backwards.
Fionna never missed a beat. Jumping over him, she grabbed the hilt, causing the blade to shrink to nothing. As she alit on the other side, she drew a dagger and hurled that, sticking a gingerbread man between the eyes and killing him stone dead. Then it was back to the sword, as she mopped up the remainder. In short order, the few survivors were fleeing for their lives. "I didn't know you could do that," murmured Patrick. With a shrug, Fi replied, "neither did I." She was finding out new stuff about the crystal sword every day. Now that it was attuned to her, it obeyed her every command, even when she wasn't holding it.
As his lady gushed about the powers of her wondrous weapon, Patrick began to get a sinking feeling. He knew that curses sometimes lingered on powerful artifacts. Fionna's dad was still somewhat under the curse of the grass-sword that he'd bought from an itinerant wizard at a fair. Only the hero's indomitable will had allowed him to control the curse instead of the other way around. Now an ugly thought began to form in Patrick's mind. Fionna had taken the crystal sword from one of the fiendish crystal guardians in the City of Crystal Fiends. What if the dead guardian had left his mark on the blade Fi carried? Could that explain her bouts of fatigue?
Patrick almost sat down right where he was. He'd put all his energy into that. He'd done everything he could to help her tame that sword. Out of love. He'd helped Fi claim the sword as her own because he loved her. It was a defining part of their relationship. Sometimes he would see her sitting there cradling that sword when he had been gone a long time. When he asked her about that, she told him that she was thinking of him and all he'd done for her. But it could well be killing her. "What's wrong," asked Fi? "N-nothing," sighed Patrick. He didn't know for sure yet. At the same time, he planned to do some investigation. He'd come too far to lose Fi now.
Turning back to the smashed and overturned tables, Patrick said, "we should probably try and get this stuff sold and get out of here before they come back." "You sure," she asked? "Y-you wanted to stay..." She was trying so hard. She tried to make everything equal between them, even when there were things that really couldn't be. He felt bad for hating on her and using all that DGTOW stuff on her. Sweeping her into his arms, Patrick said, "sometimes leading with your instincts is the right way to go, babe." Fi blushed. She had used that on him on occasions too numerous to list. With a shrug, he said, "a little snow won't be so bad. We'll still have a little summer left if we leave now and head back north." "Ok," murmured Fi.
Back in their homeland, the heroine's older brother sat beside the grave of his deceased wife. Billy the Human Boy had been making this same pilgrimage every day for more than a year now. He ended his stint on the graveyard shift every morning at seven sharp. Instead of driving home to rest, he drove here and sat by that lonely grave for an hour or more before finally going home. Star knew it because she worked that same graveyard shift to pay for the college classes she took on the side and the magic-lessons her mom no longer found the time for. She got off every day, and she came here first thing to look after the biggest victim of Cherry Soda's rebellion. Billy was dieing. Her strong, tough big brother was falling apart, and nobody seemed to care.
As she watched, Billy rose from the place where he'd been sitting by the side of Jake Junior's grave. Standing there a few moments more, staring down at the place where his entire family had been interred at one time, Billy Mertens finally turned to go. Star watched as he stumbled across to his truck and climbed behind the wheel. He sat there a moment, staring off into space, before finally starting the engine and driving off. Star sat there a moment longer, waiting. She gave him a head start now because he'd screamed at her for following him a few weeks back. Then she carefully pulled into traffic behind him, following him across town to the nasty apartment he'd shared with Junior.
Everybody had expected him to come home after Junior died. They'd all been looking for him to pack his stuff and come back to the treefort. Star had cleaned up his room and swept the dust out, gotten him fresh sheets and blankets, and even worked up a home-coming feast. Billy never came back. Indeed, nothing seemed to be the same anymore. Everybody changed. One day they were one big happy family. The next, Star's whole world imploded. The two ladies of the house–Star's resolute moms–had packed their bags one day and convoyed out to Wizard City, proceeding to spend all their time there. Her sister had just thrown her shit in the back of the beater she drove and taken off. None of them had seen Fionna in more than a year. They got calls and postcards but nothing else.
Shoko was buried in her work. Between playing at ambassador to the Fire Kingdom and working on some sort of mystery project over at the new Observatory, the Candy-Kingdom's Deputy Leader had no time for the siblings she'd suddenly discovered she had. Bon was managing his baby boy, his flaky wife, and the duties his mother was neglecting while she tried to secure an alternate food supply for the Kingdom. Cherry Cream Soda had left a pile of cash on hand in her twisted bid to protect the citizens from starvation, but they were burning through that cash at a precipitous rate. If that weren't nearly enough, Wildberry Princess had been pushing for sanctions against the Candy Kingdom for all the dope the Cherry Soda Gang had been peddling in her kingdom.
In short, life in the Candy Kingdom was a bit of a mess right now, and Star was trapped right there in the middle of it. She was going to follow her brother home. Then she was going to do a little bit of cheating. She was going to use her authority as a member of the Banana Guard to go lights-and-siren back across town to school where she'd try to stay awake through class before heading home to catch a few precious winks of sleep later. If Billy's grief was killing him, it wasn't doing Star any favors either.
Just as always, Billy drove straight back to the wretched neighborhood that Junior had called home. Her brother was a mess–all but inconsolable. He'd lost his wife. He'd lost his babies. He'd more or less lost his whole world in one ugly moment. It didn't really matter that it was all a lie. It didn't matter that fucking Junior had played their whole family. He'd been deep into the wonderful life that he was expecting to live, and it had been snatched away. It was like Glob had made Star's brother a cosmic joke, and the young wood nymph often thought that somewhere Jake Junior was laughing at him. The bitch had played suicide-by-cop and left Billy holding the bag. There were moments Star was very tempted to burn down the fucking building so he could never come back here again.
As she watched, the older man went into the building and up the stairs. Within moments he was lost to her sight. Shaking her head, Star turned the car around. Reaching under the dash, she flicked the switch for the lights. She'd hit the siren when she was out of this neighborhood. There was no need for her brother to know she'd been here. That would cause another un-needed fight and make it harder for her to look after him.
The sinister black truck was over a mile away when she finally flicked on the siren. Startled candy-people and mutants piled out of her way as she floored the accelerator. She was running a little late. Her teachers had been growing more and more irritated about her perpetual tardiness lately, and the principal had sent her father a series of nasty-grams. Star knew it because she'd had to forge her father's signature on an answer. Her dad was so buried in his own depression that he never bothered to read them. The only time they really saw each other was in the mornings when she was headed out of work and he was headed in. She wanted to fix that. Their family was coming apart, and she wanted to fix that. She just hadn't figured out a way to do it.
Her mothers weren't returning her calls, and it sometimes seemed they barely returned her dad's calls. The only bright spot in her life at the moment was little Van. He was growing like a weed, and he was so cute. Star tried to spend as much time as she could with him, giving him the things that nobody else seemed able to give him just now. Half of his young life was spent with the babysitter. That was a bit better than being with his sociopathic mother, but still...
One thing at a time, thought the wizard-girl as she wove her way through traffic at high speed. She'd owned this truck more than a year, but it hardly seemed that she got joy out of it. The only real driving she did was back and forth to work and to classes. She'd never really had it outside of town, even after having it custom built for the rough roads. It was another in the long string of things that was frying her about life right now. She had a little money, and she had her freedom, but it sure didn't taste as good as she'd thought.
She rolled up on Toffee High in a cloud of dust to find that morning bell had rung and most of the kids were already inside–all but a handful of borderline truants who took flight the minute they saw the lights. Ignoring the idiots, Star grabbed her bag and rushed inside to the girls' locker room. She had to get out of her uniform, get back into her street clothes, and hustle upstairs to class before she was really late. Getting detention and having to stick around after class would get in the way of going home to see her little brother.
Today, Mr. Porker was at the board with his back turned when she slipped into class. She was at her seat and scratching out notes on the ginormous equation he was working on when he turned around. His eyes suggested that he had noticed she wasn't there a moment ago, but he said nothing. Star did him the service of not attracting further attention. She stayed head-down and kept on working. It helped not at all that many of her fellow nymphs had left town when their mothers were summarily arrested, jailed, and exiled by Star's mother. Now she stood out in the crowd once more. Thanks, mom, thought the wizard-girl.
When class ended, Star gathered up her materials and tried to slip out with the rest of the class. Unfortunately, the towering slab of pork-jerky got in her way, preventing her from leaving. "Detention again, huh," murmured the wizard? Scowling down at her, the physics teacher said, "I don't understand what happened to you, Ms. Mertens. You were one of our best students. Now you're hanging out with the truants..." Star flushed to her hair. He thought she was hangin' with those losers?! "I've tried to get your father's attention," said the big candy-person. "I've been half afraid that somehow someone else has been getting the letters I sent..." Star did her best not to react. She didn't want to confirm that. "Now, with parent-teacher conferences in a few days, I expect to raise these issues with him personally," said the teacher. "You can go now, Star. We'll be chatting soon."
Great, thought the wizard. She had better lay hands on her father before the conference because if they didn't put up a united front, she'd get squashed. She couldn't afford that right now. So what do I do, she thought? Stay up late looking for daddy? Miss class and stay late at work? It was a vexing problem, and she had no time to put together answers. She had another class to get to.