Chapter 26:
Huntress knew something was up when she saw her rival drive up to the palace with Finn in the passenger seat. She felt a stab of intense, burning jealousy, shortly followed by a jolt of terror. Ordinarily her boyfriend walked. He was so used to walking that, even with this marvelous contraption in hand, he would have walked into town.
But not today.
Just as the wizard feared, Finn was listless and even a little wobbly when he climbed out of the cab. Simone came around to the passenger seat, looking worried, unconsciously echoing exactly how the wood-nymph felt. She didn't want to go to a fucking meeting with Bonnie and the airheads. She wanted to take Finn back to her place, put him to bed, and nurse him back to health. Honestly, she was tempted to tell Simone to take him home. The only thing that stopped her was her hunger. She didn't want to leave him with the other woman at all.
The burning jealousy got worse when Finn put his arms around the taller woman and held her. She was taller and prettier, making the wood nymph feel more than a little inadequate. The wizard wanted to kill her. She wanted to make Simone disappear. She didn't care about the kid. Honestly, she would gleefully have shipped him off to an orphanage, but she wished Simone would just disappear. As they clung to each other, rocking back and forth, the wizard-woman forced herself to turn away. Thankfully the business got cut short. Simone got back in the truck and drove away.
As Finn's wife drove off, the wizard asked, "you ok, donk?" "Yeah," sighed Finn. He sure didn't sound alright. Huntress found her mind wanted to go back to the way Simone stared at him. She just knew what the other woman was thinking. She wanted Finn to quit. She wanted him to be a mailman like his brother or a street-sweeper–somebody who didn't get involved. There were days Huntress thought the same way. She didn't want to go exploring ruins or busting dungeons. She had plenty of money, and, now she had the man to share it with, she wasn't interested in risk.
Unfortunately, at the moment, risk was all they had. From the risk of death at the hands of the aliens to the risk of discovery by an angry wife, they were under constant risk. As Finn turned away from watching the truck make the corner, Huntress reflected on that. It was crazy. The risk had brought them together, but now it threatened everything they had built between them. Finn set out, and Huntress could do nothing but follow. "I'm sorry," said Finn. "For what," rumbled the wizard. "I almost killed you," muttered the hero. "You didn't," retorted his girlfriend. "You'd never hurt me." Finn flushed. Changing the subject, he asked, "what's Bonnie want?" "Beats me," sighed the wizard. "Usual shit, probably."
The committee was present when Finn and his companion walked into Bonnie's office. Only this time they'd been joined by Grid-Face Princess, and Betty now sat in the Grand Master's place. "You look like ass," announced Betty Petrikov. "Thanks," replied Finn. Huntress was glaring at the foreign princess in her skin-tight outfit. That bitch had the biggest knobs the wood-nymph had ever seen in her life, and the jumpsuit she wore was so tight, Emeraude could read her lips. The wizard scarcely saw how the bitch was able to breathe. In the chill of the room, her nips looked like they wanted to say 'hello'. Confronted with that, the jealous wizard would have taken her man and left immediately.
Bonnibel announced, "thank-you for coming, Finn. We wanted to be briefed on what you learned." Huntress blurted, "don't walk into traps..." Finn blushed, but he said, "they're getting smarter, PB. They know we're after them. It's getting a lot more dangerous. We need help." He didn't want to risk their lives anymore. He had a wife and child! Bonnie sighed heavily. The Gumball Guardian was still four days from completion. She still needed Rattleballs.
Turning her hard green eyes on the Grand Master's ambassador, Huntress asked, "any hope that his crustiness will send help?" "We're working on it," sighed Betty. "We have to be delicate..." "Delicate," growled the wizard? "You do realize what's at stake, right?" Interrupting, Bonnie said, "that's why I invited Grid-Face Princess. She may be able to help the Grand Master with his cloaking field. If we can free wizards from the project, we can get you some help." The wizard glanced at the enigmatic woman beside the Berry-Bitch. That wasn't the kind of help she really wanted.
Bonnie moved the discussion onward, saying, "please give us your report, Finn." With a heavy-hearted sigh, the hero launched into his report. He told his boss all about how the aliens had tried to put together an attack on Wizard City using a Trojan Horse. He told of how the alien-body-snatcher had waited out for them in plain sight and made it easy to find him. They'd gone there, expecting to deal with an easy mark and get home, but the creature had ambushed them.
"He knew our MO," muttered Finn. "He was expecting to have Huntress come in through the front door, and he was going to jump her bod and use it to trick me." Worried faces followed that exposition. "Instead," sighed Finn. "It was me at the front door, and he ended up snatching my bod instead." Uneasily, the two brainiacs edged back from the hero. "Huntress got it out of me," Finn assured them.
"I'm so glad to hear that, Finn," murmured Bonnie. "Go on, please." Finn explained the alien's plan, telling them how the alien would have used Huntress's body to infiltrate Wizard City, killed the guards at the Grand Master's palace, and then snatched his body too. "But why," asked Phoebe? "They know they can't just wander anymore," said Finn. "They need a place to sit tight and build their transmitter. Weird as some of them look, they would have fit right in in Wizard City, and they had tech to kind of fake being wizards too." And Bonnie would have had a difficult time destroying them inside an allied city. It was a bold plan.
"How do you know all this," asked Wildberry Princess? With a grimace of distaste, Finn admitted, "he got in my head WP. He had all my memories and thoughts..." But Finn had his as well. That was very interesting news to Bonnie. Before she could start questioning him about the aliens and their plans, Finn told her, "it's all a big jumble right now. I-I'd have to sit down and try and organize it all..." "I think we might have to look into that, Finn," said the Princess. "In the mean-time, I think you should rest." "What about the aliens," he asked? "We've crippled them," said Bonnie. "I think we can slow down until we can get you some help." "Ok, PB," sighed Finn.
The dynamite duo headed out, leaving the princesses to their discussions. In spite of having come dressed to attract the hero's eyes, Grid-Face Princess immediately asked, "dare we trust him?" Bonnie retorted, "he'll be fine. Right now we need to look at our next move. There's still a lot of these guys out there. I want to track them. Finn may not be able to take them out now, but we need to keep tabs on what they're doing." Nodding in agreement, Phoebe said, "I'll put some of my intelligence agents on it. These guys have to have fires too."
Breakfast Princess suggested, "well, maybe we should give Finn a month off. He can come to my Kingdom for rest." Rolling her eyes, Slime Princess asked, "didn't get him to fill that nasty hole between your legs last time?" It was something of a sore point with Slime Princess that she was one of the few princesses Finn hadn't made out with. Breakfast had repeatedly rubbed her face in it. The two immediately started bickering, and Wildberry Princess had to separate them. Moving on, Bonnie said, "we still need to figure out what to do about defenses. Even if the cloaking field works, it will drastically reduce available sunlight while it's on. We need to figure out an early warning system to alert us, and we may have to accept that somebody's going to figure out that Ooo's still here."
Knowing exactly where the candy-monarch was going with that, Wildberry growled, "I will never agree to building more weapons, Bonnibel! We've already seen how potent the weapons you already have are! You and Princess Phoebe came close to war already! We don't need another arms race here!" Which she'd already said before. Wildberry had derailed the last seven attempts to build a consensus around defensive measures, and Bonnie was considering how to isolate her so she could move the conversation onward. In the now, the candy monarch accepted defeat with all the grace she could muster and let the meeting break up.
When the others had gone, Bonnie found herself alone with her rival, Phoebe. "Make you wish you hadn't sabotaged my giants," rumbled Phoebe? Flushing, Bonnie nonetheless gave it right back, replying, "who do you think sanctioned my raid on your kingdom...?" Phoebe's jaw came unhinged. Nodding, Bonnie said, "a Berry Kingdom sulfur merchant told Wildberry about your giants. He heard it in a card-game with an elemental. Wildberry brought the news to me, insisting that I had an obligation to restore the balance of power." "That little...," growled Phoebe! She barely stopped herself from going incandescent and burning Bonnie's floor. The candy princess interrupted her with, "we now know it was a mistake. We need to figure out what to do now." Calming herself, Phoebe nodded. Bonnie was right. They needed an army–one that none of them had sole control over–and they needed it yesterday.
Meanwhile, Finn and Huntress were walking down Gumbald Boulevard, bound for the Banana Guards' headquarters. "You sure you're ok," asked the wizard? "Nope," replied Finn. The flip way he said that made her want to slap him. At the same time, she really wanted to make him go home. "Got stuff to do," he said. "They... don't really perform well when I'm gone..." He meant the Banana Guards. Huntress was far south of impressed with the pink Princess's army. She thought the little idiot should be working on more battle-robots right-fucking-now.
In spite of his words, Finn's mind was on Huntress. He was in turmoil, just now. His mind was a jumble of emotions. He was angry. He was angry at himself for falling into that trap and angry at that terrible alien for what it had done to him. At the same time, he was intensely aware of what he'd almost done to Emeraude. He'd been close to carving her up like a piece of living origami.
The alien had acted on his strange, love/hate relationship with her. He was intensely, painfully aware of just how much he loved the little jerk-face. She was the center of the universe as long as he was in her presence. At the same time, he was happy with Simone and Billy and still intensely, madly in love with his wife. Every moment he had with the wizard was stolen from his wife and child. Every minute he gave her brought him closer and closer to his own destruction and the loss of everything he loved.
And he resented that.
He resented Huntress for putting him in this spot–for continually doing everything she could to tempt him. He knew it wasn't really her fault. It was his. He was married. He was supposed to say no and mean it. Still, as hard as he tried, he couldn't resist her. It was crazy. As long as they were in this town, he could push her away. The minute they were out there, it was a different story. It was like they became two different people.
Arriving at the Headquarters, Finn made haste to say his goodbyes. It hurt. The wizard did her best to put a brave face on, when she knew he was doing just what he always did. Every time they walked back into this place, he broke up with her. It was like clockwork, and she could almost time it down to the second. Walk through the gate, tell his girlfriend from the road that he was done with her. It made her want to beat his ass. She wanted to smack him around. He was hers! Didn't he see that?!
Seizing his face in her hands, she said, "we need to talk, Finn. We need to talk about... things..." Pulling away–looking like someone had just shoved a knife into his heart he said, "yeah, E... We... we'll talk... Not right now, though. I'm... That took a lot out of me..." As the wizard stared at him, Finn the Human turned and went–really staggered–into the headquarters.
He did try to work. He honestly put in all the effort he had in him. Unfortunately, after the rough weeks of riding up and down the road in Bonnie's beat-up old truck, chasing aliens, getting shot at, and living hard, he just didn't have it. He had been exhausted before the alien snatched his bod from him. He and Huntress had slept on the cot in the back of the truck or out in the bed more times than he cared to remember, and they were both pretty thoroughly beat up. In the end, Finn ended up drifting off with his face on the desk, slobbering on a pile of reports.
That's where Bonnie found him. He looked old to her eyes. He looked like he was burning up his life before her eyes. That said something about how hard this had all been on him. He and Huntress had both been at this far too long. She hadn't realized just how much she'd asked of them until Finn had come in looking like he was falling apart. Her heart went out to him. Reaching out, the Princess pushed him into a sitting a position.
Finn immediately came awake. Babbling apologies, he backed away from Bonnie. "It's alright, Finn," said the Princess. Wiping at his mouth, Finn stared up at her in fear and shame. He couldn't stop thinking about the awful things the alien wanted to do to his best friend. Taking Finn by the arm, Bonnie made him get up and go over to the couch by the window. Sitting down with him, Bonnie said, "it was bad, wasn't it?" Finn glanced away–out the window. It was obvious that he wasn't ready to talk yet. It was like the day after he'd met his father–when he'd come home to her shattered and with only one arm. He hadn't been ready to talk then, either. Eventually she'd gotten it out of him, though. "I'm ordering you to take some time off, Finn," said Bonnie. "Go home and stay. Don't come in to work." "Ok," sighed Finn.
As she rose to go, he asked, "what about E?" Bonnie stopped where she was. The candy monarch was a little surprised that the hostile, suspicious wood-nymph had told Finn her true name. At the same time, she understood how close their experiences had made them. "Those orders will apply to her, too, Finn," said Bonnie. "So you don't need to worry. She'll be fine." Finn nodded. Thanking Bonnie, he lay his head back against the cushions. Simone would be coming by to get him when she was done shopping.
Across town, Simone Mertens sat down in the chair in Doctor Princess's office wearing an excited smile. Finn's condition wasn't the only reason she'd ridden into town with him. Honestly, if not that she already had an appointment to see the doctor, she would have kept her husband at home in bed. He'd been a wreck last night, tossing and turning in bed as if in a constant nightmare. In the end, Simone had gotten out of bed and curled up on a chair in the corner, watching and worrying over him as she faded in and out across the night.
She was going to have to talk to Finn about the path his career was going. She knew that he had to do this. The world still needed him, and there was no-one who could easily do the things he was doing. At the same time, it was getting to be time he walked away from all of that. She wasn't sure what he could or would do, but she wanted him away from that business. Especially with today's news.
"Yes," announced Drusilla Princess. "You're pregnant." Excitedly, Simone said, "how long?" "Just a few weeks," said Dr. P. "Everything looks normal. I'll want to do a checkup on you in a couple weeks, just to be sure." Simone nodded. There was no question she would be right here doing just that. "I also want to see Finn," said the Doctor. "Hmm," asked Simone? "I'm concerned," said the doctor. "From what you described, Finn's got some problems. I want to see him and make sure he's alright." "I'll try, dear," said Simone. "He'll be stubborn..." "Do what you have to do," said the doctor, "but I want him here. That's very important now that you're pregnant again. I want to be sure he's mentally fit to be taking care of you." Simone swore she would twist Finn's arm to come down.
Simone headed out. She needed to do a little shopping, and since the truck was here and available, she planned to stock up as much as she could. Weaving her way through the streets of the town, she hit the farmer's market for some fresh veggies to supplement the garden. Then she bought as much bread as she thought they could consume. Driving past the meat-market, she went in and sprung for a big side of beef that she could butcher up however she wanted and paid to have it delivered along with some ice. That last was something of a sore spot. It was one of the things she missed about the Crown. They'd had flash-frozen food to keep them for weeks. All she had to do was thaw it out.
By the time she was done shopping, Finn was pretty much done at work. Her poor little boy was exhausted, and one of the guards had to pretty much help him walk out to the truck. A worried Simone buckled him in next to their baby, shut the door, and jumped back into the driver's seat. "Baby," said she, as she started the truck up. "I think you should go to the doctor..." Just as expected, her stubborn little boy refused, saying, "just wanna' sleep... I'm'a... I'll be ok." "Alright," said Simone. "But just for now. If you're not feeling better tomorrow." Finn promised he would go see the doctor if he wasn't feeling better tomorrow.
As they rode across the grasslands towards the treehouse, Simone took Finn's hand and said, "I've got some news for you, honey. His face turned towards hers, and he looked anxious and worried. Squeezing his hand, she said, "nothing like that, babe..." Finn waited on the punch line. "We did it," announced Simone! "We're pregnant again, baby!" Finn's expression softened, and then, as if the sun had come out from behind a cloud, he grew excited, becoming the happy little boy she'd fallen in love with.