Chapter 21:
Star Mertens wore a wary look when she entered Princess Bonnibel Bubblegum's office. Her family had enjoyed a peculiar relationship with this woman since before she was born. She knew her dad had pursued Bonnie. She suspected he still loved her. Bonnie very much loved him, though she seemed incapable of showing it openly. What she couldn't seem to help doing was endlessly flirting with the man, which caused endless irritation with his wives. Fionna hated Bonnie, not least because of the fiasco with the brother and sister they hadn't known they had.
Star herself was ambivalent. She loved living in the Candy Kingdom. There was no more cosmopolitan place in Ooo. She didn't fear being targeted when she walked out of her home. She didn't feel like she had to fort herself in at night. Few if any people here gave her a second thought. It was the sort of place she wanted to raise her kids. Much of that was due to the candy monarch's tireless efforts. What Star didn't love was the bitch's manipulating and politicking.
The woman herself was seated in a big, high-backed chair. Finn had selected that chair–with help from Simone and guidance from Lollipop. The high back was padded with layers of dart and arrow-proof cloth. Motors in the wheels and base would whisk the occupant to the safe room down the hall at the touch of a button. Star knew Bonnie hated the chair, just as she hated the freedom-curtailing precautions Finn had instituted after Cherry's rebellion. That wasn't Star's problem though.
"The Vault's secure," the wizard declared. Bonnie, who had been looking at the latest food supply reports, glanced up at her, looking worn and frail. She wasn't sleeping. Again. Still. "Do we know who those men were," Bonnie demanded? "I need to get back to work." Star replied, "you can go today. They weren't after you. They were after the contents of a storage locker..." The tall princess shot to her feet at that news. Calmly, Star explained, "they got into locker seventeen..."
That seemed to change everything. The tall woman began to pace. She paced back and forth in severe agitation, all signs of fatigue gone. "What else do you know," the princess demanded? Startled by the sudden change, Star ended up more or less blurting out all Thor had told her. "Who was this man," demanded the candy monarch? "Name's Thor," Star replied. "I think he's either a hitter or bodyguard for a capo..." Bonnie nodded. "He likes you," she said. "We can make use of that..." Star wasn't sure where she was going with that.
When the young woman failed to respond to that, Princess Bonnibel turned to face her and opined, "you're eighteen, and you're a wood-nymph. I'm sure your mother's told you about getting what you want out of a man..." The wizard blushed to her hair at what her boss was suggesting. Bonnie said, "get everything you can out of him. I need to know what she knows. That's now job one. Dismissed." A shocked and appalled Star turned and wandered out wearing a disturbed expression.
When she'd gone, the princess went and picked up the phone. That was dangerous news. Dialing the phone, she waited, wondering if Simone would answer. Things had been a little chilly between them since Bonnie revealed her kids true parentage. To say nothing of Simone's obsessive work on Simon's campaign. Still, in spite of their rivalry and the current situation, Simone needed to know that someone had tried to steal the Ice Tiara.
For a wonder, Simone did answer. Whether it was because of the name of the caller or because she simply wasn't there, Betty Petrikov didn't interfere. The two had a brief conversation about the secret contents of Locker Seventeen. The former Ice Queen had never known what Bonnie did with the Tiara. Honestly, Simone didn't really want to know, and Bonnie had a vested interest in keeping the secret. Simone was saved from her madness, and the Tiara was much too dangerous to risk falling into the hands of some other fool.
And Bonnie, of course, had unfinished business with the entity inside the Tiara.
She had never forgotten the tempting words it whispered to her. She could have eternal life and a chance to experiment and experience as much as she physically could. She'd spent a lot of time poking at the Tiara in the days and weeks following Finn's miracle rescue. She'd made very little progress honestly. It would have needed her to give herself to the Tiara, if only briefly, to have a shot at understanding the dangerous power inside that collection of gold and jewels. In the end, there had been far more pressing matters at hand. She had colonies to establish, towns to build, and a nation to raise from the ashes of a global nuclear war. The Tiara had gotten stashed in the basement of her Vault. Now she had a bit of a problem. She'd moved the Tiara. She'd moved it years ago, doing the work herself so that not even Finn knew of the change. However, the fact that someone knew where it had been left her terrified about what else they might know.
In the middle of the conversation, her other line began to ring, and she was forced to end her conversation with Simone prematurely. She thought the young/old woman that had been the Tiara's slave would have some idea of the risk she faced now. Ending the conversation, she answered her second line, finding that this time it was Ragnhild with some very distressing news. Said news had Bonnibel Bubblegum on her feet again in a state of panic and terror. Finn had only been this gravely wounded once before, and he'd never been quite the same after.
"I know someone who can help," Bonnie told the woman on the other end of the line. "Keep him stable, and I'll want a sample of that goop." Ragnhild swore she would have someone collect a jar of the strange gooey glop that had been the murderous creature that attacked Finn. She'd send it south on a special train under heavy guard. She didn't want to be overrun with the things after all. Froyo Princess signed off and hung up the phone. Bonnie immediately turned to her address book and dug out the number of the one person on Ooo who could heal Finn's cursed arm.
Meanwhile, an irritated Vampire Queen awoke to find herself sitting in the dust next to a massive granite boulder in the middle of a rock quarry. Around her, hundreds of the restless dead, dressed in neon safety vests, sat swilling coffee, and eating lunch. Marceline's eyes locked with those of a handsome, antlered mutant with laughing brown eyes. "Mornin', beautiful," he greeted her. Marceline gave him a wary look. He gave her a sweet smile as he bit down on the cheesy dog that was his lunch. As he swallowed, he grimaced in distaste. A glance at her side showed she too had a lunchbox–much like the one she'd had as a kid. And suddenly she was really flippin' hungry.
Let's see what I've got, she thought. Flipping open the lunch-box, she was surprised and disgusted to find blood-pudding and a thermos full of warm, red blood. "Ok," muttered Marceline. "What gives?" With a shrug, the mutant replied, "you were a dick in life. You gamed a lot of people. Got over on some, and now you're paying for it. If you do your time, you rise to Dead World. If you miss your shift too many times... well, you go to the Night-O-Sphere." The mutant shuddered at that last statement.
The vampire shot to her feet. She wasn't dead! She was undead. "No point squawking," said the mutant. "The old man has your ass for ten years for every dick move you ever pulled. You can't get out of it. You just got t'pull your weight..." Nodding at the lunchbox, the mutant explained, "it's symbolic. I hate cheesy sauce. It kind of killed me. You just have to eat it. If you starve, you'll miss your shift..." Just then, a frail old man in a hard-hat and safety vest strode into view. "Ah, Clarence," he greeted the mutant. "Boss," Clarence replied. "Was just tellin' the newbie how this works..." Nodding, the foreman asked, "do you have any questions, Ms. Abadeer?"
Marceline growled, "I'm a vampire! I don't belong here! I demand...!" Frowning, the foreman said, "I'm afraid not, Ms. Abadeer. According to the records, you died during the Mushroom War and had trouble moving on. I'm afraid you've been a very bad girl. I have you for ten-thousand years..." A shocked, horrified, and angry Marceline got in his face. At least she tried to. One moment she was snapping at him. The next, she was burning. It felt worse than anything she'd ever felt from the sun. On top of that, she tasted a sharp, metallic tang in her mouth like gargling aluminum powder.
Softly, the old man said, "I was born millenia before the mushroom bombs fell. I have no idea how it felt to die that way, but I can't imagine it's pleasant, Ms. Abadeer. Please don't try that again." Gently he helped a sobbing Marceline to her feet. "Do your time, Miss," he said. "Rejoin your loved ones in Dead World. Clarence here only has four-hundred years left." With that, he left them.
Marceline glared hatred at the old man. "He's trustee because he's been down here longest of anybody," said Clarence. "Anyways... Break's over." It was time for the work to begin. Marceline watched as the young mutant put on his hard-hat, shouldered a prybar, and walked up to the nearest boulder. As he pried at it, the boulder suddenly moved as if it had a mind of its own. Clarence gave the vampire a sheepish smile as he leaned in to try again. To Marceline's horror, everyone around her was engaged in the same futile pursuit. Nodding at a demonic rock-crushing machine, Clarence explained, "we turn big rocks into little ones. It's six months off for each boulder and three for the little ones..." Nodding at the tools next to her lunchbox, the mutant said, "I'd get started. You only get one grace day every ten years..."
It was late in the day when Billy Mertens returned to his father's hospital room after a day of running around trying to manage the investigation without the Captain. He would hardly have expected to find Cherry Cream Soda curled up on the chair in his father's hospital room, sleeping in her coat. From the look of her, she'd been there for hours, which sort of gave the lie to what he'd been telling himself the last year and a half. He'd been telling himself that both Cherry and her henchman were users. They were bitches who just took all they could out of you and dumped you. If you were lucky. He'd told himself that JJ would have ultimately killed him anyway. He'd been trying to convince himself that she never loved him–that it was all some scheme to con him until she got what she wanted. That shocking scene sort of gave the lie to his thoughts and put him right back where he'd started.
If Cherry loved his dad, then JJ must have loved him. If JJ loved him, why did she agree to be Cherry's muscle? Why did she lie to him? And why did she try to kill him? Just the sight of the gangster there in his dad's room sent him into a state of turmoil, and he froze there in the door.
Stepping past the man who'd summoned her, the Queen Bee strode into the room, sifting the air with her keen sense of smell. The scent of evil and death had been powerful even as they rode up to this place. In this room, it was so powerful it almost made her want to turn away. At the same time, there he was. The great love of her life lay there comatose, his beautiful flower looking diseased and dead to her eyes. Striding forward, she came to his bedside for a better look.
In spite of what she had feared, his flower wasn't quite dead, but it wasn't doing very well. It was also doing harm to him, draining the life and strength from him. And there was something else at play–something... darker. It was also trying to drain the life from him. One or the other would probably have been survivable. Both at once was too much for even a man like Finn. The Queen Bee went into the pouch at her hip and drew out a jar with a supply of the Royal Honey in it. Dropping to one knee, she opened the jar, telling Finn's son, "open his mouth please." Billy was at the other side of the bed in an instant, prying his dad's square jaw open.
Cherry woke from an awful dream where she found herself standing at Finn's graveside to the sight of a massive bee-person standing there over her lover, pouring honey down his throat. She went crazy then, jumping on Breezy's back and attempting to tear her head off. "Stop," shouted Billy, as the mad little woman tried to strangle his father's savior. "We're trying to save his life!" He had to tear Cherry away from the Queen Bee, who stared at her in shock and fear. It was only when she saw the look in those dark eyes that she realized what she was dealing with. "I value him too," Breezy wheezed. Cherry stared at her in surprise, but Breezy only smiled back.
After a moment, the little woman was calm, and the Queen sensed she was no longer a danger. Smiling, gently, the tall bee-person mouthed the word 'watch'. Turning back to the patient, the Queen Bee began to sing in her hauntingly melodious voice. Billy found himself overcome with emotion as she sang. He didn't understand the words, but on an instinctual level, that song spoke of longing, love, and the pain of loss. Before his eyes, his father's right arm began to regenerate, growing and rebuilding itself until it was whole again.
Finn's eyes popped open to the sight of a beautiful creature that stood as tall as he. As his eyes came into focus, pale yellow skin and eyes like pools of liquid darkness along with delicate sylph-like wings filled his vision. That face was familiar to him somehow, and he burbled, "Breezy?" Then, stronger, he said, "it is you." He sat up then and gave her a good looking over, saying, "wow, bro! You look great!"
Smiling down at him, the Queen Bee replied, "and you look awful, Finn the Human. You better start taking better care of yourself, or I might kick your butt." Blushing, Finn grinned back at her. Realizing who had healed his arm, Finn offered profuse thanks. Reaching out, he gave his former wingman's hand a squeeze. Solemnly, he said, "that's another one I owe you..." Smiling archly, she said, "perhaps I'll find a way for you to repay me..." "Uh, yeah, sure," Finn replied with a smile. Yawning and stretching, the bee-woman declared, "that took a lot out of me." Billy stepped forward then, saying, "let's get you somewhere to sleep."
With another sweet smile for Finn, Breezy took her leave, with Billy walking her out, leaving Finn alone with his evil girlfriend. When Breezy was gone, Finn turned to Cherry, who promptly threw herself on him and cried. "I-I'm sorry," he babbled. He had often wondered how much she really did care. Now he had his answer. Straightening, she slapped him as hard as she could. "I didn't mean for things to go down that way," he murmured. "Things just got out of hand." Cherry was barely mollified.
The little woman settled on the edge of his bed and took his newly-restored hand. Finn flushed to his hair. At the same time, he found himself at peace with this. She was his lady. One of them, anyway. He loved her. It was what it was. Giving her hand a squeeze, he asked, "what happened after I went down?" With a heavy sigh, she said, "Bill finished off the creature that attacked you. We still don't know what it was. We sent a sample of the remains down to Bonnie for her to examine. After that, Bill found the simpleton in the next room. He was unharmed and in good spirits, so it looks like someone was using him for bait."
Finn flushed. It had worked like a charm. Laying back against the headboard, the big man opined, "sure was nice of Breezy to come help me out..." Rolling her eyes, Cherry told him, "boy are you a dope sometimes. It couldn't be more obvious that she loves you." Finn's mouth came open, and he just stared at her. Reaching out, Cherry touched his face and said, "but you already have someone..." Finn's blush came back. He had six someones. If she ever found out, she might end up fighting Bonnie, E, and Simone for the right to cut his little bro off. Leaning forwards, Finn brushed his hand against her face, causing a shiver to go through her. Taking her face in his hands, he kissed her soft, red lips.
Cherry stared at him for several minutes, her eyes showing something akin to fear. At the same time, there was a shocking bit of hope there as well. Shaking off her shock, the little woman rose and gathered on her coat, saying, "we'll get you out in the morning, honey... After the doctors have had a look at your arm..." And then she left him there. Finn lay back. He was hungry. And tired. At the same time, his mind was racing, going down a hundred different threads at once. He loved them. He loved all of them. With all their quirks and bad habits. How could he explain that, though? How could he make them understand, when he barely understood it himself?
Finn wasn't the only person to find healing in Breezy's song. Strangely enough, Billy now experienced a sense of well-being that he hadn't felt since the moment he found out JJ had been lieing to him. He felt... at peace. It was like all the pain and anger and all the hate in his heart had evaporated, leaving only the good feelings from his days with his wife. He still remembered the things she'd done, but they didn't really seem to matter.
Rounding a corner, the young man ran quite literally into Ragnhild. "I-I'm sorry," she burbled. "I came to see if Finn was doing better..." Smiling, the younger man said, "yeah. He's fine. Breezy was able to heal his arm." Nodding at one of the hospital's rooms, the young man said, "she's sleeping it off before heading for home." "Oh," burbled the older woman. For some reason the hunky younger man was practically scorching her with his eyes just now, even after they'd more or less agreed that their little encounter was a mistake. She was a little turned on and a little uncomfortable all at the same time. After Billy delivered the good news, a bit of an awkward silence reigned between them.
Reaching out, Billy cupped her chin in his hand, tilting her pretty face up towards his. In just moments, he was delivering a scorching kiss that made her heart flutter. "Oooh," she squeaked when he grabbed her ass. Spying the empty room he'd passed earlier, Billy pushed the beautiful princess inside and kicked the door shut.
Marceline wasn't passing nearly as wonderful a night. After hour upon hour of back-breaking work, literally chasing boulders across the barren desert of the quarry, she'd returned to where she started to face down the prospect of a truly loathsome dinner. One thing was certain, she had to at least go along to get along right now. She didn't ever want to feel that awful feeling of burning again. She still thought of escape, but she would have to be much more careful about how she did it.
When she returned to the spot where all the prisoners ate, she found Bonnie's nasty little servant standing there waiting on her. She was halfway tempted to rush him and beat the crap out of him. The only thing that stopped her was the fear. Was he a trustee? Was he protected? She didn't really want to find out the hard way. "What the fuck do you want," she demanded? "I-I'm sorry," babbled Peppermint Butler. "I-I should have warned you, but I didn't know what you were planning..."
Marceline wanted to bash him. She would have if she hadn't been rendered powerless. This guy was a dark magician, and he apparently had friends in some very dark places. "What's his beef," asked the fallen Vampire Queen? With a heavy sigh, the rogue manservant explained, "the master has been working for some time on a grief-stricken woman who lost someone close. He's influencing her to try and release a very dangerous entity into the world once more..."
It didn't take long at all for the vampire to figure out what he meant. Losing all control, the Vampire Queen grabbed Peppermint Butler and shook the shit out of him. "You mean that motherfucker is trying to free the lich," howled Marceline?! Breaking free, Peppermint Butler replied, "keep your voice down!" He quickly scanned the scene to see if anyone was looking. When he was sure there were no watchers, he said, "she's almost succeeded. She had the lich's vessel in her grasp." A horrified Marceline grabbed at her hair. All her friends were in danger!
She began to pace. Bonnie, Finn, Simone, and Simon... They were all in terrible danger! And she was stuck here! Turning to face Bonnie's flunky, she growled, "you gotta get me out of here!" With another heavy sigh, Peppermint Butler replied, "if only I could, Your Highness. My pact with Death is very specific. I get to hang around down here as long as I want. The minute I do anything that disturbs the status quo, he'll kick me out." And there were a lot of irritated demons looking for him. Marceline fixed the little shit with a baleful stare. Calmly, she said, "I will get free one day, with or without your help. You won't want to be hanging around anywhere if anything happens to my friends while I'm trapped here." With a squeak of fear, the butler dropped the dinner he'd brought her and rushed off.