Chapter 9:

"I'm sorry, man," said Finn. "Your dad did something very wrong. He's got to stay in jail to pay for what he did." Sweet-P looked so lost and alone that it came close to breaking Bonnie's heart. She felt bad for him. She honestly felt sorry for having to do this. At the same time, this was the fate of Ooo they were talking about. The pig had shown himself to be a very untrustworthy steward for the Lich's Id. Fortunately, she had other options.

Turning to the two candy-people who stood nearby, Finn motioned for them to come over. "P," said he. "You know Rick and AJ?" The two detectives were the best in the Banana Guard. More to the point, Sweet-P knew them well. They were Finn's go-to when he wanted to discretely check up on the pig and Tree-Trunks to see how the Lich's prison was doing. Sweet-P waved to the two detectives. Rick shook the man-boy's hand and said, "hey, dude. How'd you like to take a ride on the train?" "Really," asked Sweet-P? "Can I?" He glanced to Finn and asked, "can I, uncle Finn? I've been really good." Grinning back at him, Finn said, "yeah, man. You get to take a train ride."

Rick and AJ took the strange man-boy away, leading him out of Bonnie's garden. They were bound for Sweet-P's room and then for the train station. Finn wasn't sure this was really a good idea. Honestly, part of him thought they really ought to put Sweet-P in the dungeon. He would be safer there. Bonnie had rooms down there that were pretty flippin' nice. He'd stayed in one after pranking her with glue in her shampoo once. At the same time, he had come to trust Bonnie's judgement. If she thought this was a good approach, he would accept it and move on.

Crossing the garden, he found Bonnie standing there waiting on him. She was dressed to the nines in a yellow gown today done in swatches of lace down the front and with a plunging neckline that went down between her plump boobies. Today's dress was cut to hug her beautiful body and emphasize her broad, curvy hips. She didn't have Simone's bust, but she had a butt that would have given his wife's a run for its money. She'd done her face, and she looked stunning. No sooner had he stepped into her office than Bonnie had shut the door behind him and let the curtain fall. Grabbing him by the shoulders, his old girlfriend spun him around, and then, seconds later, they were kissing.

Meanwhile, in the Grey Forest, Huntress Wizard once more came walking up the aisle in the Gathering Hall. She came sweeping down the aisle ahead of the strangers, wearing her full working regalia–knee-high boots, purple tunic, and enveloping cloak. And on her left forearm was the deadly Instrument that had slain so many. She'd typically gone for subtlety in the years since taking up with Finn the Human. That bracer had sat for more than a decade in the safe in their home in favor of a succession of baubles, bangles, and bracelets. It was a subtle sign to Simone that the gloves were off.

This time, as Huntress Wizard approached the gathered elders of the Clan, her eyes were all for the woman who sat there on the bench behind the Matriarch, subtly manipulating their host. Marjolaine couldn't help noticing that herself. That was a little worrisome. She'd heard some rumblings that the little bitch may have been poking around her operations the previous night. The big question? How much did she know?

Striding forward, the warrior-wizard stopped before the Matriarch, offering no bow and no formal greeting. The gloves were off, after all. Betty had argued with her about this. She'd wanted to try and do this on the sly. She'd wanted to just drop the evidence in a convenient place and walk away. Emeraude Baudin had cut that line of thinking off short. In a place where everybody was scamming everybody else, it would simply look like just another frame-up job. Better to confront her mother in an open forum where she wouldn't have time to think and scheme up a response.

Sebua frowned down her nose at the impertinent little witch. The young wizard always thought much too highly of her powers. She was always too-eager for conflict. Sebua had often wished for something–or someone–to deflate that massive ego. "Do you come here to make war on your own people," the Matriarch asked? Smiling a sinister smile, her eyes fixed on her mother, the Huntress tossed her phone on the table. "Actually," said she, "I thought I'd show you some pretty pictures..." Gesturing with a finger, she caused the phone to turn itself on, revealing a rather damning video.

The women gathered at the table stared in horrified fascination as Marjolaine Baudin's maid auctioned off three of their kind to a mutant from Oceanside. The Lawkeeper glanced up at the wizard, who said, "if you hurry, you might catch them." Coldly, the Matriarch growled, "go and retrieve our kin, Sebua." Bowing until her head touched the table, Sebua replied, "at once, Mother." Rising, she rushed out of the Gathering Hall as if her clothes were on fire. Voice betraying anger, the Matriarch said, "the charge is treason and theft of life, Marjolaine. How do you plea?" "Not guilty, Mother," said she. "I will fight these heinous allegations." The Matriarch rose from her place, announcing, "you are dismissed, Marjolaine. Obviously, I cannot retain you as my advisor at this time."

The older woman rose and stalked out, glaring at her daughter as she passed. Her expression suggested that this wasn't finished. Emeraude wouldn't have had it any other way. There was a burden of hatred between them stretching back seemingly to the beginnings of the younger woman's life. When her former advisor had gone, the Matriarch turned to her visitor and the strange companions she'd brought. "And what would you have of me," the Matriarch asked? "To replace my old advisor...?"

With a shrug, Huntress replied, "what I want is for our people to stand together. What I want is for all of us to come together and build a better life. I have nothing against the Trade, Mother, but is that really all we can offer the world?" Those words–and the shocking tone of certainty they were delivered in–stunned the Gathering. No-one spoke that way to the Matriarch. No-one. The older woman pondered that for several minutes. Finally, she said, "very well, Emeraude Baudin. I will hear your words. Alone." She gestured, and her Speaker rose and began emptying the hall. The Matriarch rose and turned to go through the door to her quarters. Huntress moved to follow. When her mother would have gone after them, Simone stopped her, saying, "she's got to do this, mother." Betty was not happy in the least. She had no control over this, and that greatly displeased her.

Hundreds of miles to the south, Fionna pulled up to the entry of a barren, rocky canyon and stopped. The landscape around them was a uniform shade of grey and came strewn with rocks and the debris of a lost civilization. Ordinarily, it would have been a place that gave the pretty blonde joy. There were bound to be fabulous treasures to grab guarded by fierce monsters. This was a dungeon-delver's dream. All the Candy Kingdom dungeons were played out. Her dad and uncle had cleaned them out years ago. Unfortunately the bad bunny had other things on her mind today.

A lot of that was tied to the man in the passenger seat. They had quarreled repeatedly the last few days. He hadn't wanted to sidetrack to chase Penny's losers. Patrick had been far more concerned with Fi's health. He wanted to head for home–where they could see Dr. Princess or go to Wiz City to diagnose Fi's ailment. Naturally Fi wanted to chase down Penny's goons and make an example of them. Just now, Patrick sat there in the passenger seat, pretending to sleep.

Fi sat staring at the canyon for several minutes, feeling the strain of that painful silence. When Patrick continued to say nothing, Fionna snatched the bunny hat off her head. Scrubbing her fingers through her hair, the bad bunny said, "I need to do this, Pat. I need to put a stop to this. I'm not going to drag this back to my family!" Opening his eyes, Patrick said, "you're falling apart, Fionna. You're exhausted all the time now. Is this really the time to have a knock-down, drag-out fight with Penny's dudes?" Turning to face his lover, he said, "I'm your guy, Fi. It's my job to tell you when you're doing something stupid and dangerous. I'd expect the same from you..." After a few moments, Fionna nodded. He was right. She wasn't at full speed or strength.

Popping his lock, Patrick said, "alright. Since we're here..." Fionna blushed. Patrick smiled and said, "look and leave. We'll see what there is here and get out, ok?" Nodding, Fionna hopped out of the driver's seat. Shouldering her pack, Fionna drew her sword out and started walking. Patrick fell in at her side. They went up into the canyon, picking their way over bits of rubble and over boulders that looked like they had been torn from the earth by some titanic force.

Patrick often wondered about that. The whole history of that world had been lost in nuclear fire. Every record was destroyed, and the people were long since turned to dust. Even Bonnie Bubblegum knew little about the war itself. His parents were both from the time before the Mushroom War, but his mother had missed the entire thing. She'd been plucked from the time before the war and deposited a thousand years into the future. The only people to live through the whole business were his father and Marceline Abadeer. Neither of them was very interested in reliving those days. Patrick's innate sense of curiosity had him often aching to see the sort of force that could uproot a boulder that was as big as a house and fling it that way. Glancing over at his girlfriend, who was industriously scanning the terrain around them, he realized that he better pay attention if he wanted to leave this place alive.

He felt giddy some days. He was so in love with her. More even than when she'd been his fantasy idol, Patrick Petrikov was into Fionna Mertens. She was the kind of girl you could settle down with. They could communicate with each other. She was stubborn, and there were times that bugged him. At the same time, she also seemed to have a sense for when she was being a butt. That was more than he could say about his mom. Betty Petrikov would hound his dad until she got her way, and she rarely offered an apology for doing it. Fionna rarely pushed something that hard, and usually it was of vital importance.

Honestly, he could see why this was important. They had made the joint decision to disappear at the end of the rebellion. They'd decided to go on the road as a way of drawing the knives and bullets of the Thief King's dudes away from their peeps. The last thing either wanted to do was bring that right back home! Fi had a little brother who wasn't even a year old, yet! If not for her condition, he would have agreed with her that this needed doing. Any chance to put a dent in Penny's grand plan for them was welcome. "Fi," announced Patrick, "I'm sorry for being stubborn about..." "Shhh," the pretty blonde hissed! Patrick shut his mouth in mid-sentence.

Fionna drew him up against the lee of a massive rockfall. Crouching in the shadow of the jaggedy stone slabs that lay stacked up to the sky, Fionna pointed at something through a gap between boulders. It was a structure. Squinting at it, Patrick frowned deeply. The building looked to have predated the Mushroom War. His mother had shown him pictures of the architecture. This place was made of stacked bricks–masonry construction–and looked like an old factory. It was a creepy, ghost-ridden place. The overcast, sunless sky made it look sinister, giving the broken walls the aspect of jaggedy teeth. Their former prisoner had described it to a T. They'd left him in the swamp, broken knee and all. He was free, but Patrick didn't think he was enjoying his freedom. Turning Fi's face to his, Patrick said, "ok. Let's go in and look around. Ten minutes?" "Ok," she replied. "Ten minutes." Then, with a grin, she added, "I love you, Patrick."

It was crazy. Out of the blue. She rarely said things like that. Under the circumstances, it kind of gave him the willies. This wasn't a great place for that. "Let's do this," he replied. "Stay close. No wandering..." After a moment, he added, "in fact, I'll go first." "Nuh-uh," she said. "I can block arrows, Patrick. I... I wouldn't want to live without you." Another shocking pronouncement from lips that found those words hard to say. He wasn't really sure what was on her mind right now, but he was certain it wasn't good. More to the point, it made him nervous with all they were up against. He'd seen too many old movies where the guy lost the girl right after they exchanged those words.

It came close to killing him to let her take the lead. He was still wondering about that damned sword. He'd noticed how fast Fi moved now. In the early going, he'd just chalked it up to all the training she'd done growing up. Now he had a different answer. It had to be the sword. She sometimes moved faster than the eye could follow. Nobody living could do that–except her dad. Her dad carried a sword with a spell on it that let him move like lightning. It was looking more and more like that fucking sword was causing the problem. Now she was walking ahead of him with that sword in her hands, when he had become all but certain it was draining the life from her.

The two crept through that eerie place, climbing over and around piles of crumbled brick and smashed machinery. There was a wrongness here. It was like coming into a place that sort of ate all the ambient cheer and replaced it with an intense and abiding gloom. It was the sort of place Patrick had always associated with the horror-movies from his dad's old collection of pre-war videos. If you hung around here long enough, you'd find some terrible, ugly dude hangin' out in some dark corner, waiting to jump out at you.

Signs they found in the ruins suggested that a number of people had been camped out here–just like their thug had said. But doing what, thought Patrick? No answers presented themselves, though, and they pressed onward. Much of the place was open to the sky, but there were portions of the structure intact–like tombs–dotting the site. Tempting as it was to go poking around in there, not even Fi wanted to go in those, and honestly Patrick almost felt as though somebody was staring back at him from the darkness inside.

Breeching the innermost portion of the site, they found a strange scene. The ground was bumpy and rough, and portions of it looked as if they had been sprayed with acid. There was a sort of haze there, and the air didn't feel good in their lungs. Strangest of all, there were wooden scaffolds there, looking as if they had been there since the dawn of time. The wood was gray and worm-eaten. At the same time, the construction suggested that it had been built recently. And there were tubs and crumbling vats that looked too new for the age of the site as well.

It all left Pat scratching his head. He liked puzzles ordinarily. Really, he loved them with a passion that made Fionna think he was just the least bit crazy. At the same time, he didn't love this puzzle. The more he thought about it, the more he thought they ought to get out of here. They hadn't found the pack of Thief King's dudes that they were looking for. "What's that," asked Fionna? She was reaching out to some unrecognizable black goo that lay on the ground at the base of one of the scaffolds. "Don't touch," growled Patrick! Fi jerked her hand back. They'd had a chat about that after one really nasty adventure. Shivering, wrapping her arms around herself, she said, "let's go, honey. I... I don't want to be here anymore." It was the best thing he'd heard from his girlfriend all day.

Back in the Grey Forest, Huntress Wizard sat before the Matriarch doing her best not to flub the biggest conversation of her life. They'd gotten shut down the previous time. Many of the Matriarch's cabinet had a deep-seated distrust of the outside world, and they'd come armed with suspicion. Fed a diet of half-truths–likely by Marjolaine–several had wanted to exile Huntress on the spot. The wizard had talked them through that rough patch and earned a second chance to have her ideas heard. Now she was using all the cunning she possessed.

"And why should I allow this, Emeraude Baudin," asked the Matriarch? "How does this serve us?" It was pretty clear what Simon got. It was also clear that this woman stood to make substantial gain out of this deal. Coolly, the wizard woman replied, "power." Leaning back in her chair, Huntress declared, "the being who becomes Grandmaster will be beholden to whoever helped him win. That could be us." "Us," rumbled the Matriarch. "You speak like one of our Clan..."

Emeraude coldly reminded her, "I did you a favor. You presided over an empty village in an empty forest with nothing but the old and weak for company. They would have forgotten you and every other so-called elder. They're back here because I forced them to move on. Now there are two-thousand here with the spark. That's the single largest voting block in Ooo..." "Not counting water-nymphs and sprites," the old woman interrupted. "They outnumber us..." With a smirk, the wizard interrupted, "but nobody's organizing them. The water nymph's are happy selling snatch to sailors who drop anchor on their islands. They haven't even dreamed of anything else. Maybe after we've swayed a government, it will start to concern them. We'll be well down the road by then..."

The shrewd older woman pondered that. She looked at it from every angle, and she realized the younger woman was right. At the same time, she knew power corrupted. She wasn't sure she would have chosen this woman to speak for them. She would have to think on this a little longer. In soft tones, the Matriarch said, "I will consider this. Return in two days." Rising, Huntress offered a polite bow, then turned and got on her way.

Betty and Simone were waiting on her outside the Matriarch's home. As she scanned the scene looking for Simon, Huntress announced, "she's thinking about it..." "That's it," Betty groused? Simone hushed her. "How did she react," asked the younger woman? Spotting Simon buying ice-cream for a pack of squealing kids, Huntress replied, "let's not talk here..." She stepped off, leaving Simone and her mother to catch up. Simon saw them as they crossed the street, and he quickly extricated himself from the pack of kids to meet them.

As the quartet headed back to Marphisa's place, Emeraude explained, "it's not as simple as you think. You come from a world where people obey laws and everybody you meet isn't out to screw you. Just because I busted up Marjolaine's scheme to sell girls on the down-low doesn't mean I can be trusted..." A frustrated Betty demanded, "so what do we do?" Emeraude replied, "we're about to play a game called full disclosure." They were going to prove their trustworthiness by revealing all their own dirt. And they still had to finish smashing Marjolaine. She was still a threat.