Chapter 39:
The airship was a lot smaller than the one Nadia had carried his team on in their quest to smash his father's dudes. It was still big enough to carry his truck, but maybe not much more. Certainly it was unlikely to have multiple decks and individual quarters. Stepping out of the car that had brought him, Finn reflected on his past–riding with E into mortal combat with alien dudes. Those were some of the best times in his life. He'd been madly in love with Emeraude and just as in love with Simone. Somehow he'd managed to dodge all the temptation, and he'd ended up with a marvelous family. Now, temptation seemed to have gotten the better of him. He'd sinned and sinned again.
His mistakes had cost him the love of the two biggest chunks of his life. Yet somehow he was still loved. Somehow his peeps still cared about him. Even Fionna had forgiven him. He was resolved now to be a better dude. For the madwomen who somehow still loved him. For the children he had and the one not yet born. He was going to do better. He still wasn't sure how all of this was going to work, but nobody wanted out. Lollipop had come by and made him breakfast, and Sarah had come to drive him into town, making it clear that they still wanted to be a part of this insane life.
Finn turned to the android woman and gave her a ginger hug. She was still a mess, with swatches of artificial candy-flesh being grafted on, and really should have been in Bonnie's lab resting. Her pain circuits were malfunctioning, and even the lightest touches came close to making her scream. "Get home," he admonished her. "I had to see you off," she reminded him. With a sly wink, the sex-machine said, "be careful of horny bitches. You're meat on the hoof, babe." Blushing to his hair, Finn shouldered his bag and headed across the field to where a crew of grid-face people swarmed over the airship. Halfway there, Nadia intercepted him. Speaking of which, the big man thought.
Nadia had never ceased trying in all the years he'd known her. She wasn't cunty about it like Breakfast, but she made it clear Finn was still on her hit list. She'd dated. Off and on. Each time, Finn hoped the dude would stick. He cared. He wanted her to be happy. With another dude. She always came back to him, and nothing he did, short of saying, "fuck off", mattered. Likely today would be no different.
"Hey, Nadia," he greeted the tall princess. It said something about where her mind was that she'd come in a skin-tight jumpsuit today that hugged her so closely he could read her lips. It looked uncomfortable and reminded him of the hot-pants E showed up for work in the day the aliens came. All they needed was a good attack from the Lich's dudes to show why that was a bad idea. "Good morning, my champion," Nadia replied. It was a good start. She wasn't immediately flirtatious. "How are things going with the forcefield biz," Finn asked? "Well enough," she replied as she teased his arm with one a fingertip. Yeah, he thought. This is going to be a problem. With Simone and E gone, she likely saw her way clear at last.
Stopping there in the middle of the field, Finn turned to her and said, "Nadia, I can't go there with you. Not now." Brows narrowing, she said, "but you can with Bonnibel? Or Marceline? Or the King of Fire?" Finn's jaw came open, as she told him of the awful fight the trio had had in his quarters–a fight Cherry had interrupted. "I should have known you were lieing to me," she snapped! The water turned on just like that, and she stormed off across the field. Great, thought Finn. Thanks, guys. He'd expected Bonnie or Marcy to blow things up one day. Neither of them was very good at keeping a secret like that. He just hadn't anticipated the person they were going to hurt. Shaking his head and muttering curses, Finn turned and kept going.
Arriving at the airship, he found an unmarked Banana-Guard truck tucked into the back along with a pair of small motorcycles and some camping gear. And Betty. The older woman was pacing nervously in the open space inside, muttering to herself. Finn walked up the ramp, tossed his gear in the back of the truck, and opened with, "I thought you and Simon used to fly all the time?" The way Simon had told it, he preferred the train. Flying had been frequently cramped and uncomfortable. Neither of the pair had piles of money back then, so they flew 'coach' whatever that was. "Not the flight that worries me," she admitted. Her face looked a little haunted. "Bad dreams," he guessed? Betty flushed, telling him he'd scored there. At the same time, she didn't want to talk about it.
Finn motioned for her to come along as he went up to the control room. There they found their pilots, Piotr and Vasilly. Piotr turned to him and said, "we'll be ready to move in fifteen minutes. I was told you're familiar with the seats. I suggest you buckle in. It will be noisy, so you should sit together if you want to talk." Unlike Nadia, he was all business. Finn vaguely remembered that the grid-face people were all linked by some kind of radio-gadget. They could think at each other, which made for some creepy dinner-parties when he, Simone, and E had visited with the kids. Had Nadia told her pilot about their little confrontation? The thought made Finn a little afraid. She was a princess. She could smash him for hurting her. They needed her, and, in spite of his promise to be a better dude, he found himself thinking that he maybe should have at least led her on into thinking that he would give her what she wanted so she would be happy in helping them.
As he walked back to the seats in the back, he found himself wondering how things had gotten this way for him. Looking back, he tried to figure out how he could have ducked Nadia without insulting her way back when, but he didn't really see a way through that wouldn't have had the grid-face people up in arms. As he sat down, he couldn't help thinking that things would be a lot easier if he were King of Ooo instead of a loser jumping to the whims of the various princesses. He could have sent Nadia to her room for a timeout!
Not long after their special passenger has aboard, the grid-face people got the machine underway. Sitting on top of the ruins of the observatory, Marceline Abadeer watched it go. She'd wanted to speak to Finn–to see how he was doing–but there had been no time for that. She'd barely gotten ten minutes–shared with three others. Face it, she thought. You fucked up. He would have been happy with whatever time he got from you. You pushed him away. For Ash and Bonnie and a half-hundred one-night-stands. You're as big a joke as your dad, Marceline.
"So are you and him a thing now," rumbled Marshall Lee. "'Cause I gotta' say, that's kinda' weird..." She'd felt him come up. "It's complicated," replied the Princess of Darkness. Adjusting his broad-brimmed hat to keep the sun off his face, Marshall sat down beside her. "Ok," he said, "what gives?" At her quirked eyebrow, he pointed out, "the sun's not burning you. I need to know why..." She'd disappeared for weeks. Her voicemail overflowed. He'd come by the house to check on her repeatedly. "I tried to save you," Marceline sighed. "You what," he asked?
Taking a deep breath, Marceline Abadeer began the story. She told him of her mother's sorrow and fear. She told of how she'd searched for a cure or a way to reverse the curse–to no avail. That led into her conversation with Finn and Bonnie, though she carefully omitted her encounter with Finn. It was silly. She'd never hidden anything from him–reasoning that she was raising him without hangups. He knew she was bi. He'd seen girls and boys both in her bed when he was young. Now she sort of thought maybe it hadn't been a good thing for a five year old to see her eating the box or some strange dude hitting her from behind.
"I did it," she sighed. "Just like always, I did just what everybody told me not to do. I confronted him." Turning to her boy, she said, "he held me prisoner for weeks, Marshall. He made me drink blood... He tried to force me to do his bidding..." Marshall shot to his feet, murder in his eyes. "Sit down," she growled! It came out in a deep, menacing tone–like an echo from the abyss. Marshall turned deathly pale. He recognized that voice and always would after his grandad tried to scare the shit out of him at six. "I accepted your grandfather's offer," sighed Marceline. "I had no choice..." "So you're leaving," he rumbled. "Not for two-hundred years," she said with a smirk as she rubbed the back of his leg. Grimly, Marshall nodded.
More seriously, she said, "as of this moment, I'm not the Lord of all Vampires, Marshall. You are. Death will be bugging you to send him souls." This was going south fast, and all he could really do was nod at each grim pronouncement. Marceline had more for him. "Your dad needs you, Marshall," she said. "As much as he ever needed me." "You have all grandad's power," Marshall howled! Tucking her knees up against her chest–the dress looked nice on her–she said, "I'm also proscribed from interfering. I... can't help, Finn. I can't do anything to save the people I care most about, Marshall. I can only act for someone who's given me their soul. If someone brings the Lich before me, I can take him to the Night-O-Sphere, but I can't hunt him myself. That means you have to be my hands."
That would have been heavy, heavy news before his change. Now, it left him shaken. "Mom," he said plaintively. She knew exactly what he was going to say. He was her wounded little boy. He'd never had the chance to grow up and grow into being a man because he'd had no dad there for him when he needed one. Another of her mistakes. If he acted like a spoiled child, it was because she'd denied him that essential piece of his upbringing. Now, with them out of time, she had to play 'dad' once more. "We're gonna' survive, Marshy," she said. "You're good stock. Your dad's a real badass." Sitting down again, he took his mother's hand and said, "my mom's really special too." Marceline lay her head on his shoulder and said, "I will visit every chance I get." "Me too," he replied.
Meanwhile, the airship carrying Finn the Human went winging its way across the sky, heading east. As the plane soared across the sky, Betty stared down at what had once been Europe, remembering her days as an exchange student and activist. The world had been brighter, and she'd been full of fire then. Later, she'd lost a lot of that fire. The struggle to stay employed in a shrinking economy and her hunger to start a family had quenched some of that fire. And honestly, she'd had a grand time living the Continental lifestyle. When she'd taken the leap into the future to rescue Simon, in her mind she was just going on with that life. She'd expected a utopia where all her activism had born fruit. She never imagined a world where the bastards had blown everything up!
The land passing by beneath them showed the scars of that savage conflict. They flew over scorched desert and glittering lakes that had been bomb craters. The plane passed scattered villages that existed in the shadows of once-great cities. All of it served to remind her of the world she'd lost, leaving her psyche even more battered than before. Characteristically, Finn simply stretched out and went to sleep as if none of it mattered. A voice inside her said, he was alone before, Betty. He never knew your world. Why would he mourn it? No answer came, and Betty herself fell asleep.
She awoke to find the alien visage of one of the grid-face people staring down at her. Glancing around her, she found the truck and the motorcycles were gone, and there was no sign of Finn. The rear doors were sealed up, and she felt a moment's panic. "Captain is waiting outside," said the cyborg. Rising, Betty took only a moment to stretch the kinks out of her back and legs before following the strange man to a man-size door at the rear of the plane. Walking down the stairs there onto the rough, rolling ground, she found herself staring at the rising sun. They'd been flying all night! Finn was there, standing beside the truck and talking to the other pilot.
Thanking the man who'd awakened her, the former activist shouldered her bag and walked across to her escort. All alone with him, she thought. This was going to be interesting. As she approached, the second pilot turned and got on his way. Nodding at her in greeting, he jogged back across to the plane and joined his fellow inside. As a startled Betty watched, the two swiftly hauled up the ladder and got that door shut–literally hauling up the gangplank and stranding them here. "Th-they...," she stammered! "They'll be back in seven days," said Finn. "Whether we're here or not. Let's go." Just like that.
The big man climbed into the truck and shut the door. The plane was already taxiing. With a sigh, Betty went around the front of the truck, finding one of the motorbikes lashed on there. Climbing into the passenger seat, she tossed her bag in the back and shut the door. "Lock it," said Finn. She frowned at him. "This is the wilderness," Finn replied. "Baba Yaga messes around with creating dangerous creatures." Betty locked her door.
Silence reigned as the big man steered the truck over and around rough terrain. The journey wasn't a fast or easy one, and Betty found herself wondering why they had landed so far away. Crossing a stream with water leaking in under the doors, the older woman finally had to ask the question. Tucking her long legs up under her on the seat, the wizard asked, "couldn't they have dropped us closer?" Finn, who had never been keen on Betty's company and her whiny attitude, had to struggle not to blow up at her. Coldly, he replied, "Piotr did the best he could. This far from home, he's got just enough fuel to get back. With the truck in back, he had to glide in instead of just dropping down with the engines. He'd never have been able to take off again."
Betty shut her mouth. This was one of the reasons she'd never liked him. He was such a smug SOB with an answer for everything. She often wondered how her daughter put up with him. She kept wanting to claw his eyes out. The bastard. Just like every man there ever was, he just sort of slip-slid through life with no cares. Even Simon, God rest him, had just managed to stumble on the artifact that let him survive the end of the world. Women always had to work at it.
There was a small hitch getting up and out of the stream, and he ended up having to resort to the winch. In the end, after a two-hour trek across the barren Siberian Tundra, Finn drove them out of a dark, scary forest and up to an unlikely stone structure there on the frozen ground. Parking the truck, he got out and went straight to where he'd chucked his gear. As Betty got out, he was hitching on his sword. It appeared this was the end of the line. His hostile eyes told Betty he was moments from shouting. The way her dad did. Rather than fight, she got her own pack on and joined him before the strange monolith.
"What is it," Betty murmured? She couldn't help running her fingers along the rough surface of the ancient stone. With a heavy sigh, Finn said, "it's the entry to a Door Lord's sanctum." He'd seen a lot of these in use by some pretty heavy-duty ne'er-do-wells over the years of his life. Not all of Ooo's rulers were as circumspect as Bonnie. Many Door Lords had gotten their comeuppance at the hands of outraged royalty and worse. Betty turned to her minder and asked, "how do we open it?" Finn sighed heavily. This was the place where things turned ugly. "We tell the truth," he rumbled.
Betty frowned at him. She couldn't have heard that right. She'd been expecting him to say something like 'bash it' or 'use magic' or even 'find a hidden key'. 'Tell the truth' was about as far down the list of things to say as she could have gotten, even with help. Face gone hot, Finn said, "Simon explained it to me, once. Door Lord's like to humiliate their opponents. They like to divide you up so it's easier to beat you. The door will only respond if we tell it exactly how we feel about each other." Betty's mouth came open, and she stared at him in horror.
When she opened her mouth, Finn shut it for her, saying, "no amount of magic or weaponry can open the door. The door itself isn't actually real. It's just a... damn, now I have to try and remember that fucking word Simon used." She laughed at him. "Boy, you're not very bright," she laughed. The door lit up fractionally, and she found herself staring at it. He wasn't lieing. "Yeah, but I don't go around rubbing people's faces in their problems, either," retorted Finn. The door grew fractionally brighter. Betty's face whipped around, and she demanded, "is that what you think of me?"
Finn coolly told her, "you're the biggest asshole I've ever met, Betty. I haven't been able to stand you almost since I met you. You treated Simone like crap every day of her life, and I always hated you for it. All she ever wanted was for you to love her. That's all she wanted. Just a chance. She had nobody but you and Simon, and you shit on her all the time. She fucking went to her grave wanting to please you. The kids and I lost the last year and a half of her life because of you, and even your own son hated what you'd tried to turn her into."
Betty burst into tears. For a long, long while, she stood there bawling her eyes out. Finn wasn't moved in the least. It seemed he really felt all of that, and in spite of his promise to her husband, he wasn't going to let her walk away from any of it. The worst part of it all was that she knew so much of it was true. She'd kept Simone away from her husband out of jealousy and fear. She'd been terrified of that beautiful young woman, and, at the same time, terribly jealous. She would never have admitted any of that. Now the world was going to hell in a handbasket, she was standing on the edge of the abyss, and the only way forward was to come clean and reveal all the evil in her heart.
Choking back a sob, Betty admitted, "i-it's true. I treated my daughter badly. She... loved me. She gave me everything she had in the last year of her life, and I spit on it. I almost cost Simone her son and daughter..." The door began to glow brighter, but it still failed to open. Betty looked up at Finn with a bleak expression, but he was unmoved. This wasn't his doing. He didn't have any shortcuts for her. She had to come clean to get the door to open. Turning back to the door, the proud older woman told it, "I was jealous of my daughter's beauty. I-I was jealous that she seemed to have everything I didn't. She was pretty and blonde and young, even after two kids. She... had a wonderful husband... the sort of man I-I fantasized about..."
Finn's face went red hot, and the door went brighter than it had before. Still, though it appeared they were getting warmer, the door wanted more. Betty was still holding back, and Finn said so. Blushing to her hair, Betty admitted, "I wanted to break them up. Deep inside, I wanted to catch her husband at cheating or something. I wanted her to be as unsatisfied with her marriage as I was in mine. My husband was giving me everything he had in him, and I didn't even appreciate him. I-I wanted prince-charming. A big, big man with a big, fat dick and rippling muscles, there to obey my every whim... I... I wanted my daughter's husband."
Just as Finn had predicted, the minute that shocking statement got made, the door opened. As if he hadn't just heard that exposition, the big man stepped through. Betty was a beat late and stood there staring at the black void beyond those stone doors. Finn reached back and grabbed her by the wrist, dragging her through before the door shut.
The pair found themselves in a darkened hallway. "W-where are we," Betty asked? Switching on one of Bonnie's Everlasting Nuklear Torches, Finn said, "a place between worlds... This place was a mani... a muninfestation of the Door Lord's will..." "You mean manifestation," rumbled the older woman. "Yeah," said Finn. "What you said..." Frowning, Betty asked, "how is it still in existence? I thought you said he was dead..." With a shrug, Finn said, "Simon figures these guys become part of the structure when they croak. They turn into physicaler energy or something..." "Metaphysical," muttered Betty. This was going to be a long trip.
Stepping off, Finn said, "get your whatsis ready. Those Dipped dudes may be in here. Matter of fact..." He took off his coat and handed it to her, saying, "put it on. Zip it up." Frowning, Betty asked, "what can a coat do?" With a shrug, Finn replied, "they can't rot that stuff. It's artificial. Like the stuff Phoebes always wears. It's like armor against them." Betty swiftly donned the jacket. If anybody had asked her what she thought of polyester, she would have said she hated it. Now it was possibly going to save her life.
Silence reigned between them. He apparently hated her guts too much to be bothered talking to her. She was still smarting from the humiliating exposition she'd been forced to make. To a man she hated. Yeah, I get hot and wet for musclebound he-men, she thought. It's biological. I'm wired that way. Most women are. I made the right choice. Simon was a good man and good provider. Not an overgrown boyscout. "If you're going to talk to yourself," opined Finn, "maybe be quieter so I don't have to hear you call me names..." She very nearly kicked him.
Instead she refocused on the job. The space around them was far grander than she'd expected. The corridor alone was twenty feet wide and the floor covered in stone. The walls–what she saw of them in the light from the lamp–were done in elaborate reliefs and frescoes. Stopping Finn there in the corridor, she had him shine his lamp on the wall. Under Finn's watchful eye, she carefully examined the stone. "Amazing," she burbled. Taking the lamp from his hand, she scratched at the rock and sketched pictures of the artwork in her notebook. "Anything," he asked? At her puzzled look, he added, "are you learning anything from the pictures..."
Betty just stared as he said, "I know peeps can look at ancient dudes' paintings and stuff and learn things about them. I'm handicapped, not stupid..." Flushing Betty realized she'd sort of misjudged him. They'd told the truth. To each other. Could they build from that? "Truce," she offered? "Deal," Finn replied. Scratching at her nose, she asked, "got another lamp?" He went in his pack and dragged out a second. "Don't lose it," he admonished her. Nodding, she said, "I know the rule, Finn. Out here, two is one. One is none. My dad drilled that into me when we went camping..." Nodding, he stepped back to give her space.
As she worked, he asked, "which spells do you know?" Guessing at what he was really asking, she said, "Simon taught me to make ice walls and blast bolts..." "Pretty limited," rumbled Finn. Glaring at him, she snapped, "not all of us are as addicted to killing things as you..." Stepping off, Finn retorted, "no, but it's important to know when somebody's standing behind you doing wiz-biz..." A shocked and embarrassed Betty rushed to catch up. "Ok," she sighed. "I deserved that." He said nothing to that. Instead, he told her, "the way this works is I play meatshield. You stay behind me. You can step out to use your power on whatever we're fighting, but you get behind me..." "But they can rot you to nothing in the blink of an eye," she reminded him. Tapping the peculiar armor on his shoulder, Finn said, "not with this, they can't." They had to touch him. He didn't have the same limitation.
Finn motioned her to silence as they stepped out into the biggest section they'd encountered yet. The light from the two torches was almost swallowed by the vast space they stood in. "Trophy-Hall," said Finn. This was where a Door Lord stored his stuff. Finn had only ever seen two of these sanctuaries before this. Now he stared in awe at a place that beggared both of those. Just as Finn uttered the words, 'stay close,' an inky blob of darkness leaped out of the darkness at Betty.
For those of you following along at home, Simone and Emeraude/Huntress are NOT, repeat NOT dead. At least not yet. However, because of what the Lich did in the past with Billy (killing him and mimicking his voice and mannerisms), most people are assuming they are. Hope that helps with the confusion.