[It should be noted that while I am shipping an OC with a recurring character, I'll probably get bored and end it. If I don't I'll try not to let it get to egregious.]
Finn and Jake were playing Frisbee® (Not my trademark, by the way) under their tree fort. "Go long, man!" Finn said, throwing the disc. Jake stretched his body back to catch the powerful throw, using the momentum to return it many times faster.
"Look out, dude!" Jake warned of the speeding saucer. Finn jumped up and caught it. The sheer speed of it launched him back into the tree, at which point, an agonizingly loud crack was heard.
"Oh my GOB! Finn! Are you alright?" Jake ran to Finn.
Finn stood up, wobbled, and then grinned his silly "That was AWESOME!" grin.
"Oh. Okay, well, what cracked?"
"OWW!" Alan's voice could be heard from the Candy Kingdom. A few shards of glass fell out of Finn's backpack.
"Alan's mirror!" Finn and Jake both figured it out pretty quickly.
"Alright, let's go check on Alan."
Alan stumbled out of bed after a late night watching movies with Marceline. He would have happily slept until noon, but a "shattering" headache woke him. "OWW." He shouted dully. He fell out of bed, stumbled over to his nightstand, and turned on his lamp. He grabbed his mirror and grunted, "Finn?"
No answer.
"They broke it. They broke a centuries-old magical artifact. Brilliant." Alan said sarcastically, getting a gray T-shirt and blue-jeans. He stumbled down to a shower in his pajamas, cleaned up, shaved his meager stubble, brushed his teeth, and got dressed. He walked down to the main hall, where a high-society brunch was being held by Princess Bubblegum. "Good morning, Alan! If you'd like to dress up, you are free to join us!" PB called across the Hall. That was Politalk for "Get your butt in a suit and get over here. I need something to brag about, and Finn's not here.
"Alright." Alan mumbled as he walked back up to his closet. He returned in his favorite suit, the green one with a gold Celtic pattern embroidered on the cuffs. "Okily dokily, what is the topic of discussion?" He sat down at the table with Bubblegum, Wildberry Princess, Turtle Princess, the Dryad Princess from the "Hat Incident" and a tall, muscular man with gray skin. He had a carefully trimmed bottle-green beard and mustache, and he wore regal blue robes. He was Aldous, the Mountain King. "Greetings, young man. Young Bonnibel tells me you are one of the last humans on Earth!"
"Yep, and I can still barely get a date." Alan snarked.
"Alan!" Bubblegum admonished.
"Worry not, child. I like his sense of humor!" Aldous laughed for a moment, "So, where has your family been hiding since the war?"
"They didn't, that I know of. I was born in '94."
"As in 1994? I don't believe it! You don't look a day over 20!"
"Boy, do I feel it." Alan joked.
This was met with raucous laughter by the Mountain King, "Oh, Princess, why did you not introduce us before?"
"I was busy with a girl." Alan half-lied.
"Oh? An old fart in love?"
"Hyeh. Somethin' like that."
The princesses all went "Ooh!"
The conversation went on for a while, as Alan pretty much served as Bubblegum's political Ken doll. She bragged about what she said was his magical prowess (She compared him to Merlin, Alan felt his powers were more in line with Criss Angel), his ancient knowledge (he memorized the lyrics of every ELO song and could do a passable Monty Python), and his iron will (more like bronze in most cases). Alan eventually got up and left, with the excuse that he heard Finn and Jake, which was conveniently true. He walked to the window and called out, "Get me the math outta here, guys!"
"Are you alright, dude?" Jake asked.
"Yes, now please, get me the heck out of here! I'm sick of being Peabody's posable Alan Action Figure!"
"Peabody?" Finn was confused.
"Bubblegum!"
"Alright, hold on," Jake said as he formed into a slide from the window to the ground.
"Okay, now that I've escaped, what adventure can we go on?"
"Uh...We actually were gonna take it easy today, what with all the shipping craziness yesterday," Jake said, morphing back to his normal form.
"Huh. Okay, I guess I'll have to find my own excuse to avoid Bubblegum's frenemies, and Aldous. Aldous is actually pretty cool," Alan was talking to himself again.
Finn and Jake shrugged and walked back to the Tree Fort. Alan wandered off toward the town gates, before he stopped and turned to Finn and Jake. "Hey guys! Anybody lose anything?"
Finn stopped and stroked his chin in thought. "Well, I lost my favorite slingshot."
Jake pointed to Finn's behind. "Nah, it's in your back pocket."
"Oh, haha. Oops," Finn chuckled, "Well, I guess nothing's lost."
"Come on, there must be something that somebody misplaced, or had stolen, or something! If I have to listen to one more of Wildberry Princess's God-awful poems, I swear, I will go Morgan Le Fay on everybody up in here."
"Morgan Le Fay?" Finn and Jake both missed the reference.
"Nasty lady from old British legend. Liked to kill things." Alan explained laconically.
"Oh," Finn said. He thought for a moment, and another moment, and another, his face blanking out into an expression which looked more and more like an absence seizure. "I got it!" Finn called out.
"Good, I was about to call a doctor," Alan said, "absence seizures are a serious medical problem!"
"You can go look for Hambo!" Finn said.
"Hambo?" Alan was confused.
"Yeah! Marceline's old teddy bear! Her jerk ex-boyfriend Ash sold it to a witch!"
"Ash? You mean that idiot with the cherry blossom wand?" Alan asked.
"Yeah! You've met him?" Jake asked in response.
"Yep. Won this off him in a duel," Alan said, holding up the wand in question, "The numbskull couldn't tell divination from necromancy. So where is this bear?"
"Well, Ash sold it to a witch..." Finn began.
"Which old witch?"
"Not sure." Another reference over Finn's head.
"I'll go get some quartz," Alan sighed, getting tired of nobody getting his jokes.
Alan sat in his closet, hunched over a tiny table, over which a map was spread. A small piece of quartz swung, suspended from a length of string, making wide circles over the map. Alright, Alan thought, Where's Hambo the Teddy? The piece of quartz began to swing more quickly as Alan focused his mind on the quartz. The quartz normally would have come to rest somewhere on the map, but instead it just swung faster and faster before finally swinging so hard that it flew off the string and out the window!
"OW!" Princess Bubblegum could be heard shouting across the entire castle.
Crap, Alan thought.
"ALAN!" Bubblegum yelled.
CRAP! Alan mentally cursed while he tried to find some way to get out without crossing paths with Bubblegum. He fumbled through his meager selection of spellbooks, before selecting Ars Motum. He thumbed through it until he reached the chapter on teleportation. He could hear Bubblegum stomping down the hall toward his closet. He got out some powders and gathered his books into his rucksack. (One never know when they may need an extra spell or two...) He then shouted "Tharraingt asal!" before popping off to the outskirts of the Candy Kingdom. Bubblegum kicked down the door to Alan's closet and shouted, "ALAN! Why in Grod's name would you throw quartz out a window?" PB paused for a moment, took a whiff of the sulfur in the air and realized he must have cast a spell to get out before she could reach him.
Alan stood at the outskirts of the Candy Kingdom, thinking aloud. "Hrm...If the quartz couldn't find it, then either it's out of range, or somebody is using some strong mojo to hide it. Or it's destroyed, but that'd be no fun..."
"Watcha lookin' for, guy?" A talking chicken asked Alan.
"Have you seen a Teddy Bear, goes by the name of Hambo?"
"No. I'm a chicken. I'm not even real, I'm a spirit chicken."
"Hrm..." Alan said as the chicken walked through him, "Well, have you seen a witch, talking spirit chicken?"
"Which old witch?"
"The Wicked Witch! Thank God somebody got that joke!"
"What joke?"
"Nevermind. I'll just go beat the answer out of Ash."
He walked for an hour or so before coming upon Ash's house. He knocked on the door. "Ash? I need to ask you something!"
A piece of paper slipped out under the door. Alan picked it up and read it aloud:
Go away.
-Ash
"Ash, where is the witch you sold Hambo to?"
"I have no idea who you're talking about," Ash fibbed.
"Yes you do. Don't make me use your own wand against you!"
"Okay! Okay, I'll tell you! Just don't do that vine-y thing again!" Ash said, a hint of panic in his voice, "I sold it to an old water witch up north near the Unknown Lands!"
"Thanks." Alan said, taking out the Cherry Blossom Wand before waving it to produce vines, which grew to cover Ash's house. "Bye!"
Alan could hear Ash's groans of annoyance as he walked toward the Unknown Lands. He soon came upon a grungy-looking frontier settlement. When he walked into town, everyone stopped and glared at him for a moment before returning to their daily duties. The sheriff, a literal beanpole with a bushy and suggestive mustache, walked out to "greet" him. His hands were on his hips when he impatiently demanded, "What do you want, stranger?"
"Oh...Er, I search for a witch."
"A witch? What are you, some kinda joker?"
"Hardly. I'm looking for a vampire's teddy bear, and-"
"You fraternize with the undead?" the sheriff practically shouted. He slapped a pair of cuffs on the unsuspecting Alan. He tried to focus and break the cuffs with his magic, but he was somehow unable to. "What the heck did you do to me? I can't use my magic!"
"Oh, so you confess to witchcraft too? Yer jus' diggin' yerself deeper, boy." A posse of townsfolk grabbed him and carried him to the local jail pending a lynching.
"Crap," Alan said when they chucked him into the cell.
"You will be tried, and you will be hung," the sheriff said bluntly.
Alan waited for the sheriff to leave before trying to get to work on the cuffs. "You won't get them open," said a voice on the other side of the cell. The voice happened to be attached to a women with blue-green skin and tattered blue robes, "I've been trying for two weeks. I'm afraid my time might be up, now that the other magicians ahead of me are dead."
"Wait, they kill people for using magic? Without a trial?"
"Well, the Lich sort of poisoned a lot of people against magic out here."
"That's hardly fair."
"I know! I was just walking along, minding my own business, casting water spells on the plants, when they scooped me up, cuffed me, and threw me in here with about twenty-seven other mages."
"Water spells? Are you, perchance, a water witch?"
"Yes, why?"
"Did you buy an old teddy bear off an idiot?"
"Perhaps...did he have white hair and grey skin?"
"Yep. What did you do with it?"
"I lost all my money in bad fish investments and had to sell it to a flambit."
"Shoot. Well, let's get out of these cuffs."
"How?"
"When you spend enough time at Renaissance fairs, you learn to notice crappy welds," Alan said, before trying to break the chain of his cuffs. He succeeded only in popping his joints. Painfully. "Unfortunately, it appears I did not spend quite enough time at ren fairs. Ow."
"What did you bring with you when you entered town?"
"A bag of old spellbooks and a Cherry Blossom wand. The one that idiot bought, ironically."
"He said it was for his mother's operation! That snot! Well, perhaps my friend Louie can help." The water witch quietly whistled at a crack in the wall, "I've been training him for a while, but this is the first time I've tried to put him into action."
She whispered to a rat that crawled out of the wall. The rat nodded and walked over to the sheriff's desk, ate the ham and cheese sandwich on it, rolled around in the papers, jumped up and down on the chair for a bit, and finally brought the key ring back to them. Right as Alan was about to uncuff himself, the sheriff walked in.
"What the...How did you get those?" The sheriff demanded.
"Does it even matter? Alan unlocked the cuffs, grabbed the witch's arm, his bag, and the wand, and shouted "Tharraingt asal!" after throwing a small handful of sulfur powder on the floor. The sheriff coughed for a bit, and when the smoke cleared, Alan and the witch were gone. A man walked into the jail with two nooses and noticed the empty cells. "What happened, sheriff?"
"They exploded. End of story. Let's go arrest some rustlers or something." If the sheriff had cheeks, they would have been extraordinarily red.
Alan and the witch had just teleported out of the frontier settlement. "Alright, where did that flambit go?"
"I don't know. He said something about cheering up a princess or something and ran off to the west."
"What in Sam Hill is to the west of here?"
"No, Sam Hill is to the southeast. Gotta go!"
Alan shrugged and walked to the west. Had he looked behind him, he would have realized that the witch was terrorizing animals with water magic.
Alan kept walking for the better part of the day, until night fell, and he decided to make camp. He set up a dinky little tent and used a small spark of energy to start a campfire. He cooked some turnips (he was a vegetarian, mostly due to that fact that he has issues with eating sentient beings), ate his food, and then turned in for the night. He then awoke to a small gray humanoid with tusks and pointed ears.
"Huh...?" Alan yawned, too sleepy to be surprised.
"Gimme all your valuables!"
"Don't have any. Just books."
"What's a book?"
"It's a stack of paper with a bunch of words on it," Alan yawned.
"STAP YAWNIN'!" the little man stabbed alan in the arm with his dagger.
"OW!" Alan shouted, snapping out of his sleepy state, "What the bleeble-blop was that for!"
"Gimme that ring!"
"No! Now go away, you little...Whatever-you-are!"
"I'm a goblorc! Half-goblin, half-orc! Now gimme that ring!" the goblorc made a grab for the ring, but Alan pulled away.
"Listen, punk! You're messing with the #7 adventurer in Ooo, right behind Tim the Enchanter!" Alan said, charging a magical bolt.
"Oh yeah? I'm Luffy, the #3 Bandit in all of Ooo!" he shouted, pulling out a repeating crossbow and firing three shots, one sticking in Alan's leg.
"AH! That hurts, moron!" Alan shouted, flinging a bolt of energy at the goblorc. The blast connected with Luffy's face, sending him a good few hundred feet away. "I'm the greatest wizard."
Alan got up and packed his things, carefully removed the bolt from his leg, put out the fire, and went on his way. About half an hour after he left, Luffy returned to find that Alan was out of sight. He tossed his balaclava on the ground in frustration before a lion jumped out and mauled him. The lion then stood and said, "#4 no more! I am #3!"
Alan continued for a while before he began to smell brimstone. A volcano? Here? Alan thought to himself, before noticing a sign which read, You are now entering the Fire Kingdom. Careful, it's hot! "Oh, that would explain the lava," Alan said to himself before attempting to walk into the kingdom. Hew managed to jump back out before his shoes melted.
"Crap, that's hot! Maybe one of the books has something..." Alan dug through his bag until he found a book titled Elementary, Dear Wizard: Elemental Magic and You. He flipped to the page on defensive spells and found a "Flame Shield" spell which seemed to fit the bill. He traced a small circle on the basalt at his feet and wrote ancient-looking symbols around the circle. He then focused his mind and said, calmly but intensely, "Is féidir leis an Spiorad Dóiteáin Azure Cosain dom." The chalk lines burst into hot blue flames, forming a dome which covered Alan's body. The dome receded, leaving heatless blue flames crackling across Alan's hands. "Shway."
Alan walked into the Fire Kingdom, treading carefully to avoiding falling through the hot rock. He saw a small congregation of fire elementals chatting at a nearby cafe. He walked up to the counter and asked for a tea, placing a gold coin on the counter. The server tried to pick up the coin, but it melted in his hands. "Dang it...Not again! Ah, well. I'll get you your tea. Alan grabbed his tea, took a sip, and nearly blew flames out of his nostrils. It wasn't that hot, but man, was it spicy! Alan liked the taste, but more pressing matters were at hand. He walked up to the group of fire people and asked, as nonchalantly as possible, "Hey, has anybody seen a flambit with a teddy bear?"
The elementals glared at him for a moment, before they noticed the blue flames on his body. Their eyes widened, and one elemental said, "Yes, of course! He headed to the palace, sire!"
"Sire?" Alan shrugged as he walked away, toward the large citadel in the center of the kingdom. He waved to one of the guards, who immediately lowered the drawbridge. "Wow, the people here are crazy friendly!" Alan remarked as he walked into the castle and straight to the Fire King's throne room. "Hello? Has anybody seen a flambit with a stuffed bear?" Alan called into the large room, which happened to be filled to the brim with incendiary courtiers. Everyone turned and gasped. "Oh my Grob!" shouted a particularly stout nobleman, short and round like a campfire, "It's the Azure One!"
The Ice King woke up from a nap in his throne. "The Azure One!" he shouted, standing ramrod straight.
Now, the funny thing is that, according to Fire Elemental oral tradition, the Azure One was the first human to ever learn the magic of Elemental Fire, imbuing him with an immunity to heat and wreathing his hands in blue flame. Also of note is that the Azure One promised on his deathbed to return to the Fire Kingdom and build it into the greatest empire the world has ever seen. This would turn out to be very...interesting for Alan.
"Who is this Azure One guy, and why do you think I'm him?"
"You're not the Azure One? Guards! arrest him for impersonating a Messiah!"
"Impersonating a who, now?" Alan said, before being quickly beaten to a pulp and placed in the stocks.
"This will teach you to mock our faith!" the Fire King said, giving the signal for flaming fruit to be thrown. It was late a t night by the time this happened, and the commotion of Alan being punched repeatedly woke up none other than the Flame Princess.
"What is happening, father?" the Fire Princess said, rubbing her eyes and clutching a worn blue teddy bear.
"Oh, nothing dear. Just a heretic," Fire King said, waving FP off.
The bear! Alan thought, noting the obvious. He then piped up and said through a fat lip, "Hey, is that a teddy bear?"
"Why, yes. One of the flambits gave it to me after I left the court of Prince Finn, the Water Elemental."
"Finn the...nevermind...May I see it, please? It belonged to a friend of mine."
"Very well. Release him!" the Fire Princess said, pointing at the stocks.
"Dear, we can't just release criminals!" Fire King said.
FP just stared with the closest thing a Fire Being could get to puppy-dog eyes. The king looked at her, and then at Alan, who also wore his best puppy-face. He waited for a moment, and finally broke down and said, "Fine...release the prisoner."
Alan was released from the stocks before any flaming fruit could be thrown. He walked up to the Fire Princess and examined the bear. It appeared to have a generic Flame Shield spell cast on it. He looked at the bear, and then back to Flame Princess, who obviously held the toy dearly. How could I ever separate such a cherished thing from a girl so young? Alan pondered his moral predicament. He then punched FP in the gut and ran off with Hambo. "Like THIS!" Alan yelled at nobody in particular. A bunch of Fire Guards, the Fire King, and the Flame Princess all gave chase. Alan reached into his pocket to pull out some sulfur, and he stumbled. Right before the Fire Elementals could dogpile him and overwhelm his Flame Shield, he managed to toss it on the floor and shout the incantaion, teleporting him out of the Fire Kingdom. The guards summoned their flying fire drakes to give chase, and they followed him south for miles, throwing a few balls of fire at him, before finally losing him in the Cotton Candy Forest. He turned and walked toward Marceline's house, nursing a few minor burns and scorches.
Meanwhile, in the Candy Castle, Bubblegum was feeling terrible. Finn and Jake were standing next to her, trying to calm her down. "Don't worry, PB, It's not your fault!" Jake said.
"Yes it is! I used him like some kind of show and tell, and I lost my temper, and he ran away!"
"Nah, he's just out for an adventure!" Jake replied.
"He's been gone for three days! He never leaves for longer than a day!"
"No worries, Peebles!" Finn said cheerfully, "He can handle himself! He's the #6 adventurer in Ooo, after what happened to Tim!"
Marceline was strumming her bass and humming a Kiss song at her house when she heard a knock at the door. She opened the door with a "Hello?" only to see a badly bruised and scorched Alan holding a burlap sack. "Dude, what happened?"
"Mirror. Brunch. Frenemies. Awesome old guy. Jake slide. Quartz. Bubblegum's eye. Tharraingt asal. Lynch mob. Witch. False messiah. Flame Princess. Dragons. Cotton Candy Forest. Brought you a present."
"Come in and let me get you some ice. And burn ointment. And bandages. And maybe a coffin." Marceline half-joked, sitting Alan down on her sofa. He was still holding up the burlap sack. Marceline returned with some medical supplies and asked, "Why on Earth would you go to the Fire kingdom to get a present?"
Alan dumped the contents of the bag into Marceline's hands. Marceline just stopped for a moment. She put her hand on her head and sat down.
"Hambo."
"Uh-huh," Alan grunted, trying his darndest to keep conscious.
"...I...I can't believe it! I thought he was made into a potion. How did you-" Marceline turned to Alan and realized he was asleep. She carried him back to the Candy Kingdom. He smiled, not entirely asleep.
About fifteen minutes of quick flight brought Marceline and Alan to the Candy Kingdom. It was late at night when she flew into the window of the Grand Hall, where Princess Bubblegum was getting ready to turn in and head up to her chambers. "Alan!"
"Here ya go, Princess," Marceline said, setting him down gently, "He's had a long couple of days."
Alan grunted and woke up. "Hey, PB. Still mad at the 'quartz thing'?" he yawned.
"No. I'm sorry I used you to impress the others. I just look up to King Aldous, and I just wanted to shut up that smug Dryad Princess and her "naturally grown houses" garbage.
"Nah, it's alright. I need to come out of the closet anyway."
Everyone looked at him for a moment.
"I couldn't agree more," Bubblegum said, "But for now, you need your rest."
Alan nodded and stumbled up to his closet.
"So where did he go?" Bubblegum asked Marceline.
"Oh, you know, here and there." Marceline replied, holding Hambo.
Marceline walked up to Alan and kissed him on the cheek before flying away. Alan smiled wearily all the way up to his closet.