A song of fire and Finn chapter 9:
Death and the traveler
Finn, jake, ice king, and flame princess arrived at the candy kingdom, and every thing seemed perfectly fine, until they got to the castle. They walked past the guards, through the long hallway, and up the winding staircase, into the conference hall. They opened the large candy door to find, princess bubblegum and billy dead on the floor, and Marceline unconscious, a wide figure made of blue fire was floating above them. It was the flame king resurrected by Calcifer. The flame king heard the door open, and turned towards the door axe in hand, without hesitation he charged. The flame king swung his axe, and spewed fire at Finn and jake. Finn readied his swords and prepared to block his swings, but his axe sent Finn flying, the flame kings new form was much stronger then the flame king he had fought before in the coliseum. The ice king quickly jumped into action and proved his ice well worthy against the flame kings fire, he froze one of the flame kings Legs solid. The flame king got enraged by the cold pain, he melted it quickly and trapped the ice king in a sphere of fire. Jake tried the tactic he used on Calcifer the first time they fought, he stretched around the flame king, but before he could suck out the air, the flame king dispersed and appeared outside of jake. The flame king smacked jake with a giant hand of fire nocking him against the wall.
"JAKE!" Finn shouted in fear for his friend, "now your gonna pay!" Finn picked up his family sword with both hands and sliced at the flame kings torso repetitively. The flame king was cut into pieces.
"HAHAHA" the flame king laughed, as he regenerated the slices through his body.
Flame princess was in the doorway trying to process how she could possibly be seeing her father at that moment. The last time she saw him was when he had found the loophole with Finn in the coliseum, Calcifer had turned him to ash in his weekend state, she wanted to hug her father, to tell him to stop fighting, but she knew it wasn't him out there, well not him anymore.
The ice king had worked his way out of the sphere of fire and began to fight again, he shot snow at the flame king, the flame king dodged it. The flame king shot a fireball, the ice king blocked it by conjuring up a wall of ice. He created a fist out of ice and smacked the flame king square in the jaw, parts of the flame kings face froze, then melted, extinguishing small insignificant portions of the lame kings face. The flame king swung his golden axe at the ice kings head, the ice king dodged it the best he could but his crown got nocked off his head, and made a loud clang on the ground as it fell out the window to the candy streets below.
The flame king swung his axe at Finn again, Finn blocked it with his sword. Eventually after the battle continued on another several minutes the flame king threw his axe to the ground and yelled, "ENOUGH!" in a booming voice. Massive flames surrounded Finn, Jake, ice king, and flame princess. The flames slowly started closing in, slowly but surely, inching closer to them. Finn thought to himself, NO! it can't end this way, if I die here then all hope for Ooo is lost, if I die here then Calcifer wins! He can't win! He just can't. Finn thought of all the people who were counting on him, all the people he had met along his adventures, all the people who would die because of Calcifer, choose goose, mannish man, all the princesses, party pat, tree trunks, cinnamon bun, all of them and so many more, just gone. Finn began to cry again, like he had done when flame princess was attacking the goblin kingdom, back before all of this.
The fire was extremely close now, it singed the edges of jakes fur, and parts of flame princesses fire began to mix with the blue flame creating a beautiful purple flame.
The group each took in one final breath, a deep one, trying to make it count, when they heard a noise. It was a terrible noise, like something terribly unholy was going on, upon further analysis the sound was music, music from an organ. The fire stopped moving closer just in time, but it was still up, and extremely hot, causing Finn to sweat.
A powerful and suave voice began to speak, "your time was up days ago, time for you to go back home..." the sound of a blade cutting through the air followed immediately after the voice, along with the dispersal of the walls of fire that were closing in. Standing in the room was peppermint butler, and a tall skeletal figure in farmers clothes, holding a large old scythe, it was death. He spoke again, "am I late for the party?"
"YES!" Finn screamed, "he already killed princess bubblegum, and Billy!"
"oh that's no problem" out from under his sleeve came the souls of billy and princess bubblegum, they went into their correct bodies, and they each awoke with a scream.
"AAAHHHH!" they yelled in unison.
"what happened?" asked Billy.
"Calcifer Resurrected the flame king, and used him as an assassin to try and kill us, well he succeeded in killing you guys, but death here brought you back to life" jake explained.
"so I have you to thank for bringing me back to life" billy said as he shook deaths hand.
"it's bad for business, but I suppose I get enough of it" death replied, chuckling after he spoke.
"and thank you candy butler, for being here in time to save Finn and Jake" Princess Bubblegum leaned forward and gave peppermint butler a kiss on the cheek.
"oh it was nothing, your majesty" the candy butler said blushing uncontrollably.
"wait!" yelled Finn, "you brought them back to life, you could bring Susan back too!" Finn yelled excitedly.
"I wish I could Finn, but Susan was human, and the rise of humans was long before the creation of magic, complicated things like necromancy won't affect her, or you for that matter" death explained.
"and I see you got the ice king to help us" billy said.
"yup he's with us" Finn replied.
"alright good, I think everyone should take five for now, we'll meet up here tonight" billy suggested to everyone. They all kind of needed it too, after all billy and princess bubblegum did just die.
Finn went outside, to find the knight with real k'ck armor, who could tell him about the armor he got from the flame king. He was by the gate to the candy kingdom, along with the other knights.
"hey knight guy!" Finn shouted, "I'm ready to learn about my armor"
"ah good, let's go somewhere we can talk"
"I bet tree trunks has got some apple pie in the oven right now, if we leave, we should get there just in time"
"alrighty then"
Finn and the knight left for tree trunks hut, finn was right on, by the time they got there tree trunks was just pulling some pies out of her oven.
"oh hello Finn! How nice to see you!" tree trunks said, "can I get you and your friend some pie?"
"we would love some!" Finn was happy to see that the war had not spread here, in fact tree trunks probably didn't even know there was a war going on.
"so who is your friend Finn?" tree trunks asked politely.
"they call me the traveler, nobody knows my real name, not even me" the knight answered.
"why do they call you that?" asked Finn
"it's an appropriate name, I show up one day out of the blue, help out and do my part for those who need it most, then disappear as mysteriously as I appeared. It's not an easy life but it is my life" the traveler answered.
"I thought you were one of the knights?" Finn asked.
"I am today" he said, "now do you want to know about that rare armor you poses?"
"yes please tell me" Finn replied intrigued. He pulled it out from his bag and set it on the table in between the two plates with steaming pieces of pie on them.
"ah yes..." the traveler said running his finger across the picture etched into the armor, "this is from the time of humans, long before the great mushroom war, and about 2000 years before the ice king put on the ice crown, forever throwing off the course of humanity. This armor depicts an ancient warrior called a samurai, they lived on a small island area isolated from the rest of the world, he is fighting an evil deity in the form of a fire breathing dragon"
"wait what? What do you mean when the ice king put on the ice crown and threw off the course of humanity?" Finn had forgotten all about his armor and wanted to know more about what happened in the past and what exactly this traveler knew about humans.
"humans were suppose to achieve incredible feats, other races from across the stars intervened in there development, and guided them to success, the human race was supposed to leave this planner and join the others out there beyond this galaxy, and eventually beyond this dimension. But that all changed when the ice king found the ice crown, an object of cosmic horror, intending to drive the wearer Insane and freeze all life as we know it. The humans were never suppose to find that object of power, and the others apologies to your species, and it's untimely demise"
Finn was having an extremely hard time believing what he was hearing, all of this was so fast so sudden, he was being told things that weren't meant for mortal ears.
"the ice crown called upon the great freeze, which put the planner in a state of metamorphosis, most were driven as mad as the ice king, and created things like magic. Others tried to preserve themselves, they reinstated the values of science. Soon enough the ones who aligned themselves with insanity and magic lost their humanity and became things like candy people. The ones who stayed sane, and human, eventually found it impossible to survive in this new ever changing, and logic defying environment, and soon almost all of them died out. After almost a million years nature worked itself out and the inhabitants here became sane once again, for the most part. That is why you feel strange here Finn, that is why you will never truly belong here."
"I don't understand..." Finn said scooping the last piece of pie into his mouth.
"you won't understand, let it sink in, and tell no one" and with that the traveler disappeared, as mysteriously as he appeared, just as he said he would.
"oh and Finn..." the voice returned, "there is another like you, well he was like you once, you will know him when you see him".
Finn thanked tree trunks for the pie and headed back to the candy kingdom, the entire time thinking about the information that was just told to him.
Once at the candy kingdom Finn reunited with flame princess, "so what did you find out?" she asked him
"more then I should know" Finns thoughts switched gears back to flame princess, she was still unable to touch him, why? He thought, why does fire still burn even after the complete metamorphosis of a planet, the fall of a species, and the rise of magic and madness, it doesn't make sense.
"what does that mean?" she looked at him confused.
"well this guy told me about more then just the armor, he told me about humans, and what this place was like before it was called Ooo, and all this other crazy stuff... It kinda hurt my head..."
"how would he know all that?" flame princess asked.
"I don't know, but I wish I did" Finn replied.
"I think it's about time to meet billy and the others back at the candy castle" flame princess said.
"yeah let's go" Finn and flame princess went into the candy castle and into the conference room to meet Billy, princess bubblegum, jake, Marceline, the ice king, and death.
"Finn, flame princess, good your here, now let's get started" billy prepared to address everyone in the room, "even though we now have death and the ice king, Calcifer will still be too powerful, is there anyone else that anyone might know, anyone with enough power who can assist us? Everyone looked at each other, jake and Finn were scratching there heads trying to think, princess bubblegum shrugged, and flame princess just shook her head.
"I know someone..." Marceline spoke out, looking out from under her sun hat that was resting over her head as she leaned up against the wall.