-Author's Note-
This one went all funny and heart-warming on me. It wasn't on purpose!
Also, I am five kinds of butt: new chapter of Bio Of A Nihilistic Prankster goes up tomorrow, with my apologies.
Here's a short pre-story play for all you readers:
"At last, I have perfected my new multifilter!" cackles a redheaded witch. She hovers around a console rigged from spare soviet parts. The keyboard is built of scavenged furby eyes, and the entire thing is smoking and covered with what resembles some sort of alien afterbirth.
"Yes, mistress?" The animatronic Mickey Mouse with scissor hands gazes up adoringly, curious to see this lady-author's newest triumph.
"Behold these bangin' checkboxes I've hacked into the fanfiction site! I'll just uncheck any stories whose summaries contain 'lol-speech', more punctuation than letters, or references to how much the summary sucks. Voila!"
"Mistress, that composes eighty percent of all fanfiction!"
"Yes. Hey, what's this other box? ...Overly-long author's notes? Check, please!" If the scissor-mouse's face weren't an eternal frozen rictus, its eyes would have widened in horror.
"Mistress, no!"
-BLIP-
Chapter Two: Skills And Thrills
-The Treehouse-
Waking up early was bad. Waking up in a strange place was bad. Being woken up early, in a strange place, by the thrum of a stray crossbow bolt vibrating in the wood next to your head was all kinds of bad. Joshua was upright in a second, and managed to crouch like a ready, feral animal for all of two seconds before getting caught in the bed's fur blankets and tumbling to the floor.
"Zam! You're dead, fool! Your reflexes are like Neptr's, except I wouldn't trust you to throw even the most common of custard pies!" Joshua chanced a glance up, peering over his own pretzel-like limbs. BMO grinned maliciously, holding a metal contraption half the size of her own body.
"BMO? What the stuff, girl?" The robot hopped down from the seachest that had served as an impromptu platform. She lay the glimmering thing in front of his face.
"Here," she said. "You are sorely lacking in skills, padawan. Too many points in charisma, too few in war crafts."
"Buh?" replied Joshua as he rolled back into a fairly humanoid, if very disheveled, state. He gingerly picked the thing up from the floor. This is..." He knew what it looked like, but the design was odder than any he'd seen.
"That is a modified, B3-7 Ardsley Horse Crossbow. It is the finest and most compact of weapons." BMO's emulated eys shone. "It is a work of art. It pains me to give it to you, as I have all but fallen in love with its oh-so-sleek curves."
"But I've got a-" Hunting bow? He'd left that at home. His practice sword? Wooden and useless, it was doubtless floating on the ocean by now. "Um, thank you." He immediately saw the craftsmanship, even if he was no expert. Pushing this against everything re-tensioned the compound string, load it from this slot, and- BMO's continued speech cut off his train of thought.
"You need only your body weight to restring it, and any stable surface to brace on." She leaned forward over his sprawled form. "With this, you will learn skills," she said, in all seriousness.
"Skills?" She threw out her arms and sounded gleeful, then.
"Skills for stunts! Stunts for daring battle!"
"Oh." Joshua cast his eyes back down. "I can't fight, BMO. I got a bad roll at the start, even with mom and dad." The jargon was his uncle Jake's, but never phrased so pesimistically. The days of running had left him feeling unhappy with himself, and helpless.
"Anyone can fight, young Joshua," said the AI with no small shock. "Most don't, but they can. I myself am a ninja of no small skills! You just need a motivation. Jake and Flame Princess fought because they followed Finn. He believed, and they could feel that."
"Believed in... what? Everything he believed in has gone all messed up! It's like every bad thing he stopped was just waiting to be replaced by even darker monsters. Everyone says things are worse than ever." He remembered the corporal, guiding him through the forest. Flame elementals were eternally pessimistic- actually depressing them so that things turned out worse than they had expected was... some kind of twisted achievement. BMO just shook her body to the negative.
"While I am sure you have always heard good things about your father, Joshua, not many know that he could be a very, very sad man." That caught the half-human's attention.
"Uncle Jake says the only times his brother wasn't shouting or laughing was when he was asleep, and sometimes not even then."
Pensively, at first, but picking up speed, text began scrolling down BMO's face.
"I cannot see like this, could you take me to the attic? It will be more private there." Joshua shrugged, and left the crossbow on the bed. He hoisted BMO to his shoulders and ascended the corner ladder.
The space was, like most of the treehouse, crammed full of the trophies of adventures past, loot, and video archives. He set the tiny robot down on the creaky floor beams.
"When he was seventeen, Princess Bubblegum advise your father keep journals, as a kind of addendum to the Enchiridion. What isn't in the Candy Kingdom Libraries, though, is what he had me record."
"BMO..." Joshua felt like he was suddenly treading on very private ground.
"Hush, now. If anyone has the right, it is you. I am only sorry I have peeked, myself. Though I must admit, 'faeseyes' was a very easy password to guess." Joshua had the grace to blush for his father's sake before settling cross-legged on the floor. The scrolling entries on BMO's face stopped, selected, and played.
"Are you set, BMO?" asks a voice, slightly raspy, but strong.
"Of course, Finn. Are you sure you do not want me to watch? I could provide very colorful commentary!" The image swings, and a tall, sinewy man with kind eyes and shaggy, blond hair settles into view. He chuckles.
"Maybe another time, BMO. Personality hibernate, please." The video dims slightly, but continues to record.
"Alright. Um. This is... whatever the last entry was, plus one, I guess." A hand reaches up and scratches the back of Finn's neck. "I've gotta work on remembering better."
"Anyway, the Duke of Nuts made a big donation for Peebles's library today. Really old stuff, I mean. Some of it was just post-war, printed by actual humans. The princess wanted me up there when they started loading stuff in glass cases and whatever. Something for the crowd's to get all appreciative about, and I'm not talking about my good looks, this time." A frown, somewhat puzzled but... tired, appears on his face.
"So I'm there, and all these relics are there, and I realize I'm standing between two of these cases. Like, just like I was numero three-o, y'know? And I felt, like, crazy-old. I'm only a kid, still, but I feel old! And I can't help but think, I'm just another relic. I'm still moving, but I'm like a left-over. Cold spaghetti in the refrigerator of history. My parents' bones are gonna be picked out of the ground someday, somewhere, and get stuck in a museum. If there's any bones left of them."
"Whatever I'm doing, I'm already history. Tomorrow's gonna happen, but it'll already be, 'On this day in the year whatever, Finn the Last Human fought so and so, which paved the way for a bunch of people who still exist.'" The image flickers, like it's jumping forward, and Finn is still there. A bit older. With new scars visible at the collar of his shirt and on the meat of his arms.
"I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna marry Fae. She wants to be a little closer to the Mountain Kingdom, which is cool, cause I grew up there, and I want to build us a house. We're gonna call it Kindle Cabin, cause apparently we're still dumb kids who like fire puns." The blond grins, wryly.
"I asked Peebs the other week, to, uh, check. About..." he shrugs, uncomfortably. "So embarrassing. But, I don't know if we can have kids. I'm as close to pure human as you can find, after the war, and I guess these days being less human and more... candy, lumpy, rock-dude or fire-lady, or whatever, makes it easier to have kids. Fae doesn't bring it up, but she keeps asking me if I like this name or that name, and won't tell me the reason. I'm worried I can't..."
The frames skip again. This time, the blond man is doing stationary somersaults He tries dancing with the camera, which is in all actuality an unresponsive BMO, and gives a big, broken grin.
"What was it Jake said? 'Practice makes perfect?' I guess that works for more than just viola. I get to be a dad! I'm..." he stiffens up. "I'm not a dead end. Something I made is gonna last forever, sorta. I'd never trade the good I've done for anything, but now it's... it's..." There is a time skip, but it only lasts seconds. The man in the frame is rubbing at suspiciously red eyes.
"His name's gonna be Joshua, just like mine and Jake's dad. The same dog who protected the Mountain Kingdom and built a family dungeon just to make sure I'd be ready to face the world. Jake got to keep the goofy hat, but the name's going to my boy. I'm gonna keep every bit of Ooo safe because Ooo is going to love him. There won't be a square patch of dirt that won't love him and be his playground. The world isn't a human place, anymore. It belongs to my beautiful wife's beautiful, chubby lil' infant." Finn leans into the camera.
"Happy birthday, kid. I'm gonna give you the world."
The video ended, and the room was dark, and quiet.
"BMO?"
"Yes, Joshua?"
"I think I could walk to the Candy Kingdom, instead. It's just low-level monsters, right?" BMO's face returned on-screen, and she grinned.
"We will raise your skills so high." The robot did a jig. "You will need a party!" Joshua felt himself more than a bit taken aback.
"I don't know if there's time to plan anything. Cakes take a while," he mentioned. Whether or not he deemed whatever it was that just happened to be party-worthy, he wouldn't flat-out refuse cake.
"Not that kind of party. A dungeon crawl party!"
-Northwest Of The Treehouse-
"This is dumb. This is so dumb." BMO scowled.
"No fear, Joshua. You must face your enemy! You must believe that it is counter to all good things in the world. To defeat it is to affirm yourself as a hero!" Joshua eyed the ambiguously female robot dubiously. He eyed his 'opponent'.
"It's a mushroom." BMO shook in anger.
"It is the devil born as fungus! Strike him down!" Joshua sighed, released the safety, and fired.
The semi-meaty surface of the large, utterly stationary mushroom quivered with the impact. Joshua was not impressed. Eyes, -angry, red, maddened eyes- stationed up and down the mushroom's body opened. Well, now he was impressed. It hissed.
"Do not let the spore launchers hit you!" cautioned the robot.
Spore launchers? It took a moment. Oh, those spore launchers. I really hope I get a shield as loot. Soon. As soon as he thought it, thin jets of yellow dust were arcing out toward him. He ran, dipped, and threw himself out of their path. Most of their paths. One, driven by the faint wind, arced toward him. His next 'skill improvement' would be learning how not to land on his own hands!
His worry was short lived. A spark leapt up, over his head and into the path of the spores. The fine biological dust ignited instantly. His inner fire elemental whistled appreciatively. Then the much less hypothetical elemental behind him started laughing.
"Takes that! Hot enough? I'll shows you yet for messin' with my party!" The little elemental, doing some sort of victory jig, halted at the hissing thwack of a pair of nunchaku. As wielded by a tiny, yet oddly intimidating robot.
"You are not in the party, Flambo. You are an NPC." The flambit sulked.
"Every party needs a mage. I know, like, t'ree spells, doll!" BMO looked unimpressed. "This is abouts the sink, isn't its?" muttered the living flame.
"You peed in it. That was my sink! I brushed my screen, there! It melted." The flambit shrugged sheepishly.
"Finn always put out the good coal! He was a bud- nevers said much whens I took more than maybe a fair share. It was the carbon, I swears it!" Joshua, who really did not want to hear about melting sinks, stepped in.
"He's sort of right, there," the boy said. "One ranged fighter, one mage, one... ninja. It's good party balance!" he claimed, trying to remember everything his uncle Jake had ever mentioned about dungeons, and the crawling thereof. Even if there hadn't been any dungeons so far per se, and he didn't think it was quite... sane, to crawl one so soon.
The AI seemed to consider this. She eyed Flambo, circled him, and at one point checked his teeth.
"We'll call it probation, then."
Their quest continued on for some hours, through roaming monster trails and deadfalls. Joshua was amazed at how fast his aim had improved. It had been wonky, until he remembered seeing his mother on their homemade range, sending flares into asbestos targets. He'd gone from handicapped by inexperience to useful in less than a day. He wondered, idly, what other adventuring tools he might take to...
Given his was the only sense of smell that wasn't focused imaginary or focused on finding tinder, he was the first to notice the orchard. The scent of apples was strong, ever-present, and homey. And somewhat... chilly?
There was a cold breeze spilling out from between the trees. Given that it was still a long way from winter, Joshua felt an instant growth of foreboding.
"Guys?"
"I can feel it, Joshua," replied BMO. "Let us investigate. I will sneak in, you two are... eehh, less subtle." The half-human really wished he could argue with that, but Flambo was, well, a flambit, and he himself shed embers like some shed dandruff.
Which was a comparison he did not suffer gladly.
Grudgingly, he nodded his understanding and watched the stealthy greenish-blue box disappear into the foliage.
"Ya knows? I thinks there's somethin' to that ninja business," remarked Flambo oddly. Joshua nodded gamely.
"Probably. You ready for this?" They set out, slowly. The cold grew until it felt like they were in some sort of naturally occurring grocery section, complete with freezers. The growing dark didn't help much to change that impression.
Joshua edgily checked and rechecked the tension on the horse bow, while Flambo actually started tossing a small, super-heated rock between his hands like a nervous, arsonist pitcher would.
They were approaching a clearing -the seeming source of the cold- when BMO's voice rang out.
"Guys, come quick! Bring fire!" she added, redundantly.
The two rushed forward, until the full light of the moon cast a clear vision of a small glacier. Feeling nonplussed, but still wary of the hulk sprouting eyes and turning out to be some sort of ice monster (in which case he felt no shame in admitting he'd throw Flambo at it), he caught sight of BMO pointing excitedly at something in the interior of the frozen thing. Since BMO didn't look to be expecting any trouble, Joshua lowered his two-handed grip of the bow and drew forward.
It was Tree Trunks. The nicest lady... elephant, whatever, thing to ever bake a pie. The same person who, with her pig boyfriend, had trekked to Mountain Kingdom to bring preserves when his mom was sick and little Joshua was left to take care of the household.
"Get her out," he barked at Flambo. "BMO, eyes up." He himself started circling the ice continuously, with an eye out to the forest. The cold coming at his back made his muscles cramp and shake, and he wondered if maybe he couldn't just widen his perimeter a teensy bit. That was, until a harsh, dry cough echoed from behind him. With one last glance at the empty orchard, Joshua hurried over to where Flambo was still waving his hands in a fiery blur over the tiny green elephant.
"Alright, kaff! Alright, jus' give me a moment, please..." Tree Trunks blinked a few ice crystals from her eyelids. "Well I'm darned if you aren't the oddest gatherin' of good folks I've seen t'date!"
"Hi, Tree Trunks!" chirped BMO, hugging the creature.
"Hey, darlin'. Flambo, your healin' touch is most appreciated. And young Joshua!" The half-human ducked his head.
"Hi. It's good to see you again. Are you alright?" He hefted the bow slightly. "Who did this?" To his surprise, she laughed.
"Aw my. Shyest thing to ever hop outta a hearthstone, you were, and look at ya!" She shrugged back toward the frozen block. "But this was just the Ice King's doin', no trouble at all."
"The Ice King!" BMO began scanning the skies.
"No, no! Don't be all excited, now. He's just... he don't know no better, you know? He'll be talking to you, remember he had to do somethin' and when he says ta hold that thought... he just assumes you'll hold it better if'n your thoughts ain't movin', as such."
"The guy freezes ya... so's he can... unfreeze ya when he remembers that yous and he was havin' a conversation?" let out Flambo dumbly.
"Yes... he's not too bright, sometimes, you understand," said Tree Trunks as if embarrassed for the old wizard's sake. "I usually thaw out quick enough, but I'll admit that it's a bit embarrassing. And when the husband is home and he's got to drag out a hairdryer on an extension cord..."
"Um," said Joshua, which seemed to sum up the situation. He gently released the tension on the horse bow. "Well, we were on our way to Candy Kingdom for, uh... to..."
To what? he asked himself. He was supposed to be under the watch of Princess Bubblegum, warrior ruler that she was. But here he was, learning skills (for stunts! chirped a memory) and just... having the time of his life! He never went far on his own, and with his impromptu party or not, the rush of independence was leaving him light-headed, all of a sudden.
"...just adventuring, you know?" He heard a slight shuffle and cough from his smaller companions, which he gamely ignored. "We've been clearing out some monsters on our way from the treehouse, heh." The elephant brightened.
"Well, let it never be said I let an adventurer leave on an empty stomach. Why ,I remember the time Billy hisself came through, though that was quite some time ago and you'd surely not want me to bore you..." She motioned with her trunk for them to follow her.
"Of course I'd want to hear about that!" exclaimed Joshua. He glanced at BMO. "We'll be right along, Tree Trunks. I've got to have a quick word with the, uh, team." The elephant cheerfully hurried ahead, listing pie ingredients out loud. BMO, however, was sternly tapping her foot on the mossy orchard floor.
"Just adventuring? I know this may seem exciting, but people will worry if you are not at the Candy Kingdom soon, Joshua! The guard you were with is dead- if no word arrives, then they will think you are, too!" Joshua's eyes bugged, just a bit.
"Easy, BMO! I know. We are going there. It's just a tiny bit embarassing telling everyone I'm hurrying over to my babysitter, understand?" BMO settled down immediately and looked contrite.
"My apologies, Joshua. I did not mean to upset you! And you are right, it does no harm, it is not really a lie..." She shrugged. "Let us go get some pie, yes? Between here and Candy Kingdom, we can detour, just a little bit. There are some small, broken cliffs where we can train you in additional stunts." She looked up hopefully, and Joshua grinned at her. He had to remember how much she was doing for him- otherwise he would still be at the treehouse, waiting for a ride, and not getting to do any of this.
In the robot's own words, he would still be an NPC.
Before they left the treehouse, BMO had programmed up a little chart for him. To keep track of his skills, she said. He was, by her count, level 'four', now. It was sort of hilarious, since the numbers were completely arbitrary. The little ding! he got with each new level was sort of cool, though he still had no idea how cloud-watching gave him experience in woodcarving, of all things.
They ate well that night. Well, he and Flambo did. He did, at any rate... who knows how much the little flame elemental favored the taste of carbon-black pie crusts?
The cabin was crowded, but Tree Trunks seemed happy to pull out extra bedding and chatter away long into the late evening. Storybooks just didn't tend to mention that this barbarian nearly died because he was allergic to wheat, or how that adventurer's companion-fairy had such a low attention span that she just had to alert the hero to every shiny object they passed with a, "Hey, listen!"
It was just math, and Joshua finally dozed off with a smile on his face.
-The Cotton Candy Forest-
"Run. Run, run run-run-run!"
"I'm runnin'!"
"Faster, steed!"
The last statement was BMO's, who was perched on Joshua's shoulder and facing toward their pursuer.
"Hey... BMO," said Joshua between breaths, "How many... levels is... that one worth!?" The tiny robot batted his sparking hair.
"Negative-infinity levels in your 'getting eaten' skill! That is a bad skill, Joshua!"
"Wait, wouldn't negative levels make me- oh, Glob!" A syrupy, rock candy-barbed tentacle swung past the half-human and scored the turf of the hill to their left. Dirt showered his face.
"Give me a... direction, BMO!" Running flat-out from the monster was only keeping them alive by virtue of the thing's wanting to pause and try to lash them to shreds every few feet. It had chicken-like legs, but the rest of the mindless beast seemed to resemble an armored sea anemone.
Nothing, thought Joshua, should be that horrifying when it's obviously made out of candy flesh.
"Lef-, no, um, rig-, not that either! Go faster!"
"Faster isn't... a direction!"
Flambo -and Joshua blessed the fire elemental's frantic little heart- leapt and spun a full circle, hurling tiny, gathered stones. The pebbles had been heated to near-incandescence. The half-human heard the monster shriek.
"Bad idea!" shouted the elemental. The heavy pounding of the monster's steps picked up in tempo, and Joshua felt the tiny hairs on the back of his neck prick up. BMO hugged the side of his head and wailed.
And that, believed Joshua, should have been the end. He could feel the approaching, razor-sharp lash, arcing toward his spine. Maybe it would knock him over, though most likely it would shear him in half and he was going to die!
His vision exploded into white, and for a moment he believed that he'd suddenly received an unexpectedly painless death. But then his vision wasn't white, just seemingly... having jumped.
The beast was thrashing, turning, trying to find him. Joshua was a good sixty feet away from the thing, somehow. Flambo, shocked into stillness, was staring at him. He nearly got trampled for his inattention, but scampered off on all fours, away from the dazed beast.
"That thing yous did! Do it again!" shouted the flambit. Joshua stared.
"What thing?"
"The thing! Do it!"
"What did I do!?" Joshua shook off his confusion and loaded his crossbow while he still had a few, precious moments in which to stand still.
He took aim, and watched with surprise as the bolt flew true. The tendon stretched tendon at the back of the creature's bird-like claw was severed. The muscles in the limb pulled uselessly, seemingly to roll up into the back of its leg.
Sick! quailed Joshua. However, it did exactly as he'd hoped for- the creature was too slow to chase them. The thing was squealing and thrashing, now.
BMO gaped, first at the monster, and then back at the boy.
"You should, um, finish it quickly, Joshua," said the AI. "It might have powers of regeneration!"
That snapped the boy out of his daze. If nothing else, the shot had been too nice to waste this chance. He lifted the crossbow and restrung it, only to find he couldn't aim. The boy found his hands were just shaking too hard to make fine maneuvers.
Easy enough, just close the distance. He did so, unsteadily at first, but he forced his legs to straighten out, some.
"So what was the thing that he did?" came BMO's curious voice. Joshua steadied his weapon and stalked just a bit more confidently.
Easy does it...
"He just, he, uh, yous and he both vanished! Like, you both was there, and then sorta crackled, and fire's zippin' over to wheres you was next, and theres you was!" Joshua tried to process this while still watching the thrashing animal, but when it suddenly clicked in his mind, his focus disappeared completely. He spun.
"I did what!?"
The beast roared. Whiteness, again, and Joshua's arm was bleeding but he was ten feet further away and his good arm was raised and aiming-
Sss-thunk!
The bolt hit the monster's center mass and buried itself. The candy beast shuddered, and finally went still.
"Man you did its again!" cheered Flambo.
"Oh my," came BMO's voice.
"What on earth is going on here!" This voice was new. This voice was powerful, and demanded his immediate attention. Joshua spun in place.
"BMO? Flambo? And-" Princess Bubblegum's eyes locked on the young boy's form.
"Hey Peebles! I'm, um, wait, that monster wasn't yours, was it!?" Joshua felt horrified. Horrified that he might have killed one of the Candy Kingdom's ruler's experiments, and horrified that, so stuck was his head in the stories of his father, the last week, that he'd referred to her royal person as Peebles!
-Five Seconds Earlier-
The mutant they'd been seeking for over a day had been spotted. Its trail, left as if in an enraged hurry, had cut a wide and easy to follow swath through the cotton candy forest. Princess Bonnibel Bubblegum, loaded to kill and just wanting to get this chase over with, found herself marching into a page out of history.
The monster was already slain. A blond boy, who seemed to glow, was standing in front of it with some kind of drawn weapon and he was wearing that stupid green backpack and-!
Two of the smallest and most famous characters in the kingdom were standing next to... next to...
"Hey Peebles!"
"Oh Glob, Finn!" she whispered, inaudibly. Then she caught herself. The boy's head was lightly smoldering, by the Cosmic Owl's sakes! Common sense overtook nostalgia, and she shook her head to clear it. Too small, too fine-boned.
"J... Joshua! I hardly recognized you!" The young half-human, half-fire elemental shuffled his feet a bit.
And that's not even a half-truth, she privately admitted. Out loud, she added, "We were expecting you any day now, from your mother's messenger bird. Did something happen?"
The boy's expression took on a half-bitter cast.
"Yeah... you could say that, your majesty."
'Your majesty.' Funny, she almost felt like telling him to stop being so uptight. 'Peebles' was a name between her and friends, or at least had been, before Ooo's most famous heroes had been caught in a running, five-year fight against chaos.
"Right then," she said, cutting off her own erroneous train of thought. "Let's join up with my hunting party, this victory of yours has freed up the rest of the day," she said, suddenly feeling enthusiastic after having seen the monster brought low. The stupid thing had evaded them for way too long...
Joshua grinned.
-Candy Palace-
Joshua boggled at the sight of the Candy Kingdom's main settlement. He hadn't been to visit since he was a great deal smaller, traveling with his mother. It was larger, now, and more populous. It was also a great deal more fortified.
The walls were taller, thicker, and more intricate. Tiny gates littered the town's interior, acting as chokepoints that could close at a moment's notice.
"It's wonderful," he remarked. "You've, ah, added a bit since I was last here, your highness." Old lessons in etiquette were coming back to him, but only in a frustrating, slow trickle. The princess sighed.
"Indeed, we've had to build quite a bit. I've had to step in and start producing banana guards, since the population wasn't rising fast enough, naturally."
A reminder of what his uncle Jake had called 'PB's scary science stuff'. Joshua tried to mentally recount the 'zombie checklist'. Just in case.
"The last two years I've been advising the neighboring kingdoms on fortifications and defensive measures. That is, when I'm not leading hunting parties to clear out the dangers that keep cropping up like weeds in fertile soil," the pink-hued woman admitted. "The Earls of Lemongrab have been digging mazes of acidic juice-moats, which have become quite problematic in and of themselves."
"Oh," replied Joshua, for lack of anything better to say. "Is there... um, have you gotten any news from the Fire Kingdom?" he asked. If he'd had this much trouble finding his way here on his own, he was still left without a clue as to how his mother was faring. His worries were eased, though, at the princess's sudden look of excitement.
"Just this morning a messenger arrived, bringing tidings of your mother's good health! I was worried that I'd have to send a rather... disappointing reply tonight, but your fortuitous appearance has changed everything!" Joshua, cheered by the woman's own obvious enthusiasm, suddenly straightened up and bit his lip.
"Um, princess, if it's not too much to ask, and I know you've got to tell her about what happened to Corporal Mismelt and all, but do you think you could leave out the monster attack? I don't know if Flame Elementals can suffer heart attacks or not, but..." The princess seemed shocked at the reminder, but rubbed her index finger against her lip thoughtfully.
"Yes, I suppose that might be a bit much. Perhaps I could at least stress how you were safe and kept your distance." Joshua felt slightly numb, and he concentrated on keeping as still a poker face as possible. He'd had the good sense not to mention nearly drowning, nearly getting trampled, provoking monsters or nearly having the skin of his back torn off in strips.
That had definitely been a good decision.
BMO and Flambo, walking alongside us, began whistling innocently. In tandem.
"Let's get the three of you settled in, shall we?"
They ate more sugar that night than Joshua had ever been allowed to have in a given week, and he was feeling the effects. BMO had long since gone into her power-saving mode. Joshua's fingers bounced on the arms of his chair in a staccato rhythm. They'd received a massive guest suite for the length of their visit, one that was traditionally, completely flame-proof. It was great, and opulent, but Joshua felt like his eyeballs were going to start vibrating.
"I... need to do something. Anything," Joshua said out loud. Flambo, just as jittery, nodded.
There was an archery range, and he could go practice with his crossbow, but he felt like he'd just be improving too slowly without moving targets. Aiming really did come naturally to him, but that had the side-effect of leaving him frustrated without an adequate challenge. There was the library, but he couldn't bear to sit still, let alone read.
"I knows! We could go do that thing!"exclaimed the flambit. Joshua eyed him curiously.
"The thing you said I did before, with the monster?" The very 'thing' he'd done again just moments later, finding himself out of range of the monster's limbs. Flambo nodded excitedly.
"Yeahs! It was awesome!" The suggestion didn't come with some sort of epic internal debate- between being curious as heck and just as restless, Joshua was out the door before Flambo had even gotten up.
They walked, albeit hurriedly, down the corridor. Joshua made sure to greet every servant and citizen still out in the late hour, which in all honestly likely doubled the length of the trip. The people here were strange to Joshua's eyes, but happy in a way he didn't often see in the Mountain Kingdom's inhabitants. This really was the safest place in Ooo, these days.
They stepped out into the warm air of the rear courtyard. It wasn't quite as spacious as the archery range, but it certainly looked a lot nicer. And, as a bonus, it was empty. Since Joshua wasn't entirely sure what he was supposed to be doing, or how to do it, he felt marginally better about not having to do what he didn't know how to do in front of other people, at least.
He winced. His last thought had been far too wordy.
"Alrights, let's sees what you got!" Flambo grinned and rubbed his hands gleefully.
"Alright..." Joshua focused. Then strained. Then grit his teeth until he could hear the enamel wearing down. "Mnngh... nothin'. I don't think this is working, Flambo." The flambit waved him off.
"Crazy talk. We've gottas... what was it? Right, we've gotta replicates the conditions! Like science!"
"What conditions?" asked Joshua, cautiously. Flambo grinned, and raised a tiny fistful of molten pebbles. "Oh. Oh, you've got to be kidding m-eeeee!"
Dzat! K-dzat!
Pebbles, flicked with eerie accuracy, struck the dirt around his feet. Joshua danced, rolled, and shouted what few obscenities he knew at the tiny creature.
Dzat!
"Augh!" There was a mark seared into his cheek, now. He could feel it. Half-flame elemental or not, molten rock moving at those speeds wasn't something he could just shake off. He could bleed, after all.
Flambo eyed him and readied more rocks.
"This is for yous own good, kid. That thing saved yous life! We gotta get it workin' right."
"I change my mind! I don't wanna do the thing!"
"Then this is gonna hoits..." The next round, for one brief second, filled Joshua's world. It was bright, brightness in his eyes, and then there were stars. Joshua realized he was lying on the ground, but that he hadn't, at any point, actually fallen. He was just there. Blearily, he realized he could make out a fading heat trail. It was spearing right through where his head would be, were he standing.
Joshua glanced over his own chest at Flambo, who was grinning like the smug source of all evil.
"You smug, sonnova-" There was a cough. Both he and Flambo glanced over to where Princess Bubblegum was taking tea with BMO, with Peppermint Butler at their side. A small assortment of off-duty guards and kitchen staff had gathered as well.
The princess, he noticed, was clenching a notebook in pencil. She smiled and gazed... well, he'd have to describe it as 'hungrily' at him. He fought the urge to shiver.
"Do you think you could replicate that feat while mobile?" she asked.
And so it went. Questions, all along the lines of 'can you do this?' or 'what if we changed circumstances via...?' and so on.
But those requests were... they were so easy! Half of the time, Joshua found himself trying something before the princess had the time to verbalize it. Doing it in quick succession, like some sort of anti-strobe light. Forty feet straight up into the air, from where he'd free-fallen for less than a second before appearing back on the ground.
There was a wall he couldn't have climbed with his bare hands. Within the very instant he set his sights on it, he was on top of the hard candy crenelations. He tagged a startled guard before sending himself back down to the courtyard.
He crossed the entire length of the open space in one shot, and repeated the action until he felt something ache inside of him. Midway through his next disappearance, he failed to disappear at all and just stumbled onto the turf.
Bubblegum was hovering over him in a second, but he just giggled up at her. He felt like pulled taffy, and he ached like never before, but it was all somehow, indescribably wonderful.
"Again!" he cackled, but was unconscious before the princess could do more than let out an exasperated giggle.
-Author's Note-
Yikes, I just can't stop writing longer and longer chapters. I hope you liked this one!
Now, just like with my other story, 'Bio Of A Nihilistic Prankster', I've got a bit of a reward system going. If we hit one hundred reviews with this one-way train to destruction of a story, I write you all a oneshot. One for which I'm very open to suggestions.
See you all next week!