Chapter 53:
The outpost was nothing more than a barren patch of concrete in the middle of nowhere. In a world that sometimes seemed as if it was a patchwork of barren, burnt, and rocky ground, interspersed with riotous growth, this place held nothing that made it stand out save the strange metallic objects there on the concrete. The Grid-Face People had painstakingly mapped out every forgotten and abandoned airfield across the face of the civilized Kingdoms. They needed them. Flying had always been risky business, but it was especially so in a world turned upside down.
The small crew on the field were wrapping up repairs to one of their engines. They'd been here for days, working at fixing their machine but mostly drinking, catching small game, and camping out at night. They were as Russian as the Lich's countrymen had been once-upon-a-time. He could almost smell the vodka and pirogi. It was almost a shame to kill them. But life is wasted on the living, he thought Turning to his minions, he said, "begin..."
Hundreds of miles to the west, Finn the Human lay dozing in his bed, lost in the void between sleeping and waking. Finding himself in the treehouse, he'd been amusing himself by wandering. At least he had until he ran into Ice King sitting there on his couch, playing Beemo. "Hey, Finn," the older man greeted him. Glancing down, he said, "I guess I should've expected this..." Finn blinked his eyes and found himself facing Simon. "Sorry, man," said Finn. "Was just dreaming..." "Nah, man," said Simon, "I never knew it until I was dead, but honestly those were some of the best times of my life... You were a true friend."
Flushing, Finn glanced away. He didn't feel like a friend. "Stop doin' that," Simon advised. "You and Betty both do too much of that." Which was another source of embarrassment. Moving on, Finn asked, "what's up?" "Wonderin' why you haven't told Betty and the kids about Simone and Emeraude," said Simon. Flushing, Finn said, "I didn't want to get their hopes up..." Finn sounded... off and Simon said so. Chuckling humorlessly, Finn reminded his old pal, "the path to the Night-O-Sphere's paved with good intentions." Frowning, Simon asked, "what does that mean?" With a shrug, Finn said, "it means I gotta' go..."
Finn woke to the feel of Sarah's soft sighs against his cheek and felt the pain of the moment all over again. It had been a crazy week for him spent mostly in an effort to please the people who shared his life–to leave them with positive memories. He'd failed of course. He'd failed because with all his girls and almost all of his family here at once there simply hadn't been time to spend solo-time with them all. He'd lurched from one crazy moment to the next–playing with Van and talking baby names with Cherry to making lunch for Bonnie to rough-housing with Bill, Fionna, and Shoko.
It helped not at all that nearly everyone was just as busy playing their part. Freed of her chains and death sentence, an invigorated Bonnie had thrown herself into the business of finding a way to imprison the Lich. That and undoing the damage Wildberry had done occupied most of her time. Cherry wrangled the council. Bill and the kids finagled the army, and Sarah and Lollipop played backstop, moving to shore up whatever job needed the help.
The deconfliction of who he found in bed was something of a miracle. He never knew what he was going to find when he clawed his way up the stairs to his home. Six of the eight regulars were still anxious about getting their share, with the three who were preggers being horny as mink. He hardly felt rested, though at least Phoebes only came by to snuggle. That would have made her visits a little better if Sarah or Nadia or Lollipop didn't use the excuse to crowd the line. And if he wasn't receiving nightly visits from them, there was Dr. P who often visited him to 'make sure'.
This morning he had Sarah on one side of him and Betty on the other. The android girl had just shown up in the middle of a torrid session with Betty and sat down to watch the show. She'd spent the entire time egging him on and suggesting things he ought to do to the older woman. Shockingly, far from being upset, Betty seemed to be even more turned on than usual. And then both women had proceeded to slip into bed with him and rub their heavenly bodies against him for over an hour, doing their best to keep him wound up when he really needed to sleep.
He was leaving today. They were out of time. He was out of time. They were going to throw the dice one last time and try to take down the Lich once and for all. He still didn't know how to find the Lich's other half, and that was putting his whole plan in play. He was sure he could take out Simone's body, but not even Baba Yaga knew what that would do to Yuri. Would he be destroyed? What would happen to his 'other half'. Focus, Finn, the big man told himself as he sat up. The ice was the immediate threat. Yuri had no way to get to Baba Yaga's home. With time, Nadia, Sarah, and Bonnie could dismantle the bomb. He just had to buy them time.
Leaning over, he kissed each of his ladies in turn, whispering, "time to get up..." As Betty fought her way out of sleep, Sarah sat yawning and watching him as he prepared to go. "You still have an hour," said Sarah. "Go and wash. Both of you. I'll make breakfast." As Finn watched her wiggling butt head down the stairs, Betty tugged on his arm, saying, "she's right, babe. Let's go." Thirty minutes later, Sarah was driving them at nearly terrifying speeds down the highway in Finn's truck. Finn sat in the back with Betty doing his best to keep her mind off what the android girl was doing.
He talked about their grandchild, and how happy and excited he was about that. He teased her about whether or not she'd join him in crawling around on the floor to play with him/her when the baby was born. Betty did her best to hold up her end of the conversation, but honestly her mind was occupied with the unpleasant burbling of her stomach and the embarrassing knowledge that her grandchild would be growing up alongside his aunt or uncle. And she was having trouble fessing up.
She felt like a fool. She was too old for raising a baby. Really, she felt like she was too old when she had Patrick. More to the point, she was adding to the burden when Finn clearly had too much going on already. He'd become almost melancholy the last few days, and she was certain nobody had noticed but her. She wasn't sure what was causing the change, but it had clearly been getting worse as they got close to jumping off to strike at the Lich.
Arriving at the airfield, they found a small armada of airships waiting. The big man was out of the truck and wrangling their gear almost before the truck stopped. Fionna had gone with the bulk of the army days before, taking Patrick with her so Betty didn't have to face her son. Instead, she shouldered her bag and followed Finn to the plane where her fellows were waiting. Another crazy part of her life. Cherry had more or less made it clear that she considered herself to be Finn's wife. Betty had a feeling the crime boss wasn't alone–nor did she really know how she felt. Did she dare make that claim?
Bonnie threw her arms around him and kissed him. Finn hugged her and whispered soothing words. Breaking that embrace, he went next to Lollipop and then to Cherry. That brought him to his most-envious sweetheart. Finn greeted her with a request. Motioning for Betty to get aboard, Finn took Nadia aside. Standing beneath one of the engines, he opened with, "my precious princess..." Nadia blushed to her hair and glanced away. Taking her face in his hands, Finn said, "babe, I ain't gonna' lie. This is bad any way you look at it..." "Don't say it," the proud beauty growled!
Relentless as his implacable enemy, Finn pulled her to him when she might have run off. "Baby, this is fifty fifty," he said. "If I fail, I need you to take my place. I need you to help PB and Sarah to make a safe place for Ooo's peeps." "You're not coming back," she accused him! "I'm'a try, princess," he whispered. Grabbing her ass and grinding his hips against hers, he said, "wanna' make a baby with you..." Nadia flushed. "I love you, princess," he whispered. "If you love me, respect my wishes. Ooo needs you. Ok?" Nadia half-heartedly nodded. "Royal Promise," Finn insisted. "Royal Promise," she sobbed before running away.
Finn watched her go for a minute. Then he came back to the ramp. Muttering curses, Piotr said, "for second time you chase away copilot..." Shaking his head, the pilot went up the ramp, motioning for his passengers to get aboard. Flushing, Finn said his goodbyes, took Betty's hand, and headed up the ramp. The pair buckled in, and Betty found herself a little anxious–not for the flight, since she'd flown for half her life before following Simon's voice through the portal. She was anxious because of her relationship with this man, the child in her middle, and the future that awaited them.
"What did you say to her," she asked? "I asked her to be my backup plan," Finn replied. "Her people can shelter the people of Ooo. If they can keep the ice at bay long enough, maybe Bonnie can find a solution." It was a grim assessment, but that was the man she'd come to love and respect. Taking his hand, the older woman lay her head on his shoulder and drifted off to sleep.
Late that same day, Star Mertens came slipping through the heavy growth around Penny's latest camp, angling for a way in. She'd been trailing them for days since Laurel Princess's train had gone. They'd moved at night when the undead were strongest and most difficult to see, limiting her chances to get close to see what they were doing. It was clear from the steady progress they made and the level of organization the camp had that they were acting on a plan. They weren't here hiding. They were pursuing some goal the Lich had, and she wanted to know what that was.
She spent a while watching as one of the Dipped passed by, enjoying the sick and twisted pass-time of dissolving the local shrubs and plant-life for the fun of it. A disgusted Star wished she dared blast him/it. As she watched, the sick fucker finally grew bored and moved on. Laying there in the quiet, Star waited several beats until she was sure he was gone. Then she slipped through the perimeter and into the camp.
The little woman kept her eyes peeled, and her senses were alive to the sounds and smells around her. The whole of the place reeked of death and decay, and she was very much nauseated by everything she saw or smelled. It was worse than being in Cherry's dope lab. Only there seemed to be no respite. There was no hidden room to give her a break from the offensive sensations and reward her for her persistence. Instead, the deeper she penetrated into the heart of darkness, the worse things got.
Creeping along, dodging the patrolling undead, the young woman finally penetrated to the heart of the camp to find a clearing, freshly cut in the woods and open to the sky. There in that clearing stood a scaffold with a worm-eaten wooden arm hanging over a tall vat. This wasn't the first she'd seen such a vat. She clearly remembered one from the trap in Laurel Kingdom. She'd wondered then what the vat was for. Now she got an unforgettable demonstration of the horror that the Lich was capable of. There were two Grid-Face people there in the clearing–a man and woman. Both had been stripped to their orange skin and bound in wooden collars that imprisoned their hands.
At first the little woman stared in puzzlement. What did the Lich want with cyborgs? Then, as she watched in fear and worry, the woman was forced to march up the scaffold to the top. Once there, one of the evil creatures forced a wooden contraption into her mouth, wedging her mouth open. As she struggled and squealed, the sole living person in the clearing fastened iron shackles around her ankles. Then, as the wood nymph wonder stared in horror, the poor woman was hoisted aloft by her feet, hung out over the vat, and then slowly lowered inside. As Star stared, the wooden vat bubbled over, putrid black filth boiling over the sides as the victim struggled and fought, her arms banging into the sides of the wooden vat. And then slowly the struggles ceased. When the chain was pulled back out of the vat, it came up with a jumble of corroded metal bits and pieces, tied together with bits of plastic. The woman was gone, save for a few bits of gristle that stubbornly clung the to tech that had been inside her body.
The man hurled curses at them. Star recognized bits of phrase that the Rusalka and Princess Nadia had used when shouting at each other. It did him little good. Just like his companion, he was forced to climb those stares. Once atop the rickety scaffold, he too was carefully shackled about the legs, and his mouth wedged open. Then, just like his companion, he was hoisted aloft and plunged into that corrosive muck. This time, when they withdrew the dunking arm, the shackles came up with a blob of liquid darkness. As a horrified Star looked on, the former cyborg flowed out of his shackles. Grabbing the man who'd operated the machine by his throat, the Dipped dissolved him down to nothing. Star immediately lost breakfast lunch and dinner. Now she knew. She'd had no idea what the Dipped were or how they came to be. She could have done without finding out this way.
Backing away from that scene, her mind reeling from the horror, Star made the first mistake of this little expedition. She stepped on a half-rotten stick, causing it to snap with an audible *crack*. It quickly became apparent just how fast that mistake could become her last as a half-dozen of the undead rushed towards where she was. The little woman did the only thing she could right then. She fled, fast as her feet would carry her.
Bounding over fallen trees, tearing through the forest, the wood nymph wizard fled for her life. If they caught her, she could expect to be dissolved like that man–if she was lucky. If she was unlucky, she could expect to be put up on that scaffold–to be treated to the horror that Princess Suadela had been subjected to. She'd be the Lich's slave, her body and mind lost, and she'd never have a chance to punish Penny Sweet for taking her moms away.
That was the thought that sustained her as she took the twists and turns of the forest, tearing through the undergrowth in an increasingly frantic effort to escape the fate the undead had in store for her. She could hear and smell them, rushing–flowing–ahead of her, trying to cut her off. They didn't have to fight the forest. They could simply dissolve it. She had her weapons. There were a lot of them, but she had her weapons. Would it be enough? If you stand and fight, they'll swarm you, she thought. She and Billy had held their own against the monsters in the trap house. They'd been holding their own until forced to flee. With her brother at her side, she'd managed a draw. No, fighting wasn't an option.
Breathless, she finally stopped to assess her options. She could make them kill her. She could do so much damage, that they would have to kill her. It seemed that was the one hope she had. As she was considering that, a hand came out of nowhere, enveloping her mouth, and she felt a powerful arm wrap itself around her middle. Momentarily she was up in the trees, staring down as the undead converged on where she had been. "It was here," muttered one of the Dipped. "I smelled it. It was right here." "Her," said another. "It was a female. Probably a nymph by the scent." "Where in hades did she go," demanded a third? There were a lot of them. Star shivered as they went tearing back and forth beneath her feet. If one of them got the idea to start dissolving trees, she was still a goner. In point of fact, she had no idea who it was that had saved her ass.
It as a boy. She could feel his hard body against her back–and the beginnings of a woody against her butt. Question was, why didn't they just look up? They had a pretty good ability to sniff her out. How was it they didn't look up and find them up here? No questions were forthcoming though. Her mysterious benefactor said not a word as the undead went back and forth, up and down. Finally, their master called it off, summoning the evil things back to his side. When they had gone, Star tried to fight her way free of the man holding her. Instead of letting go, his grip tightened. Suddenly they were flying.
Star very nearly squealed in fright as they went soaring through the trees at breakneck speed, twisting and turning around tree-trunks until they were very far from the undead and their camp. Only then did the stranger descend. Star counted down the seconds as the ground got closer. Just when she would have elbowed him or tried bashing his face with the back of her head, he just let go. The little wood nymph bounced once, going end over end and landing in a heap. Coughing, she came up swinging–or tried to. A foot held her right hand down, and when she managed to get her cloak off her face, she found herself staring up into her little brother's eyes.
"What the fuck, Marshall," snarled the wood nymph?! "Saving your ass, kiddo," he replied. Rolling her eyes, Star jerked her arm out from under his foot, saying, "I'm almost six months older than you, so who's the kid again?" The Vampire King blushed to his hair. Climbing to her feet, she said, "and what kind of sicko gets a hard-on rubbing against his own sister." Glancing away, he said, "you have a nice butt, and you kept grinding your ass against me." Flushing to her hair, she said, "you snatched me off the ground, jackass. You're lucky I didn't feed you a blast-bolt." He grinned at her and said, "then you'd be dissolved..." The little wizard glanced away. He wasn't going to let her forget that.
Moving on, she demanded to know what the hell he was doing here? "Purple-face dropped me off," he said. "That's the whole reason she was here." Star goggled at him. Airily, he said, "dad figured they'd take her for a spy. Gave me a perfect chance to slip into their camp. At least until you came along." "I was doing fine," she muttered. That made him howl laughter. Moving on, she demanded, "I got there late. Wh-what did you see? Why were their Grid-Face people in the camp?" "He's trying to capture a plane," said Marshall. "Don't know why, but he wants one of them alive... uh... undead to fly him somewhere." Star grabbed at her hair in fright. She knew where they wanted to go. There was one place on Ooo that could interest him. Baba Yaga was in danger!
"W-we have to get back to dad," she howled! "What," retorted Marshall? "Why? His orders are to stay right here and follow this guy." Taking a gadget out of his pocket, the Vampire King said, "I'm gonna' do boneface with this." Star knew what it was instantly. It was a very similar device to the one her mother had used to save her dad from the alien bodysnatcher. "Gonna' snatch him up same time dad's hitting the other half. Then we stuff him through a portal to the Night-O-Sphere so my mom can handle business." "But it won't matter if he gets his hands on whatever the witch has in her lair," Star retorted! "You got no idea what it is," laughed Marshall. "Dad does," she murmured. "I think he was afraid of what it could be. We have to warn him. You have to fly me to him." Rolling his eyes, Marshall said, "it would take a week. He's out on that island by now." Star gave vent to a bout of cursing.
Turning to her brother, she said, "what have they been doing? Is there a Grid-Person airship near here?" "Yeah," he said. "There's an old airfield over yonder. Those dudes came off of it." "One of them survived," muttered Star. "He's got somebody to fly him and a machine to ride in. We... We'll need to stow away. Tell me you can get us on that plane." The Vampire King said, "you really think he's goin' to Siberia?" "I'm certain he is," Star murmured. "Baba Yaga guards something. Like every princess on Ooo, she's in charge of guarding something really dangerous. Dad had a suspicion that the Lich wanted it for some reason." "Meaning it could be a weapon of some kind," murmured the Goth kid. "Ok," he said. "I guess I'll follow your lead."
Marshall flew them back to the camp, enveloping them in his own personal cloud of darkness. He'd always thought his mother's ability to maker herself unseen was a fun parlor trick, but he'd come to discover that it was anything but. He'd always felt the darkness. It was always there, teasing at the edges of his senses and making him want to do dick things to people around him–even the ones he loved. He'd come to feel it rather keenly when he had crossed over into being a full vampire instead of just a half-breed. There was an intense, burning need sometimes to do hurt to people, even if it was only minor. He fought that need on an almost hourly basis, and found himself pitying his mother who'd been fighting this hunger for a thousand years.
Still, nothing had prepared him for the feel of invisibility. He'd never felt the darkness as keenly as when he first drew the cloak over himself. It was like being enveloped–even smothered in darkness. The darkness permeated his skin, clawing at him and wanting to become one with his soul. And it was the moment he most wanted to do harm as it awakened horrible ideas in his mind–ideas like raping his sister to hear her screams. It took all his will to fight the hunger he had inside him. He hungered to act on his rage to hurt people, and he understood, a little, how his mother could be so loving and yet so bitter, angry, and even cruel.
It helped to focus on the things that mattered. He focused on those things he cared about with a laser accuracy. Star was, after Shoko, his favorite of his sisters. She wasn't annoying like Fionna, and he sort of got her. Her mom was as much a black-sheep as his was, and he saw that in unguarded moments when she was angry or when she was focused on something like this. She had the same need to prove she was Finn's kid that he found in himself. Now they were going to prove it once and for all, and he found joy in that. Hugging his sister all the tighter, the tall man drew his darkness down tight around them, as he settled in the highest branches of a tree overlooking the forgotten airfield.
"Can they hear me like this," burbled Star. "If you're loud, yeah," said the vampire. Star didn't like this feeling. She didn't like the skin-crawling feeling of his invisibility. Necessary evil, Star, she thought. In moments like this, it helped to focus on the things that were important to her. She wanted a baby of her own to raise. Seeing her stepmoms and their excitement had awakened her own excitement. She wanted to have a daughter to raise, and she promised herself to try and live up to her own mother's example as she focused on the activities down below.
There were an awful lot of undead down there. He was going loaded for bear, but then he was going to face a creature that her father suspected had been old before the Mushroom War. Star knew the witch was powerful. She'd seen Baba Yaga's power firsthand. Just as Star's father had said, it would take an army to defeat the Rusalka on her home ground. "How many do you think he can squeeze on the plane," Marshall asked? "Beats me," growled Star. It wasn't the largest of planes, but then the Lich wasn't really thinking of coming back. "It matters, Star," said Marshall. "Even I can't hide us from a plane loaded to the walls with those guys."
Fortunately, it appeared he wouldn't have to. Done with the business of getting the plane ready to go, many of the undead turned and began walking back to their camp. Star told her brother, "now's the time. This is our best..." Marshall was already in motion, gliding swiftly across the intervening space. He moved so fast, it stole her breath away. At the plane, the tall man hesitated only a moment. Then he was diving through the cargo-bay opening, slipping in before the evil crew inside could shut it.
Hundreds of miles away, Finn was in the middle of a fitful night's sleep. His sleep had gotten better since he essentially quit worrying about the women in his life only to take a drastic turn when he came to realize just how close his mortal enemy was to destroying the world. Now, as a worried Betty lay beside him, the big man thrashed and moaned in his sleep, telling her just how hard this was on him. In his dream, the big man was facing boneface with the bomb in his hand, and his feeble mind couldn't figure out how to press the button. He couldn't do it.
"Maybe you're not meant to," declared Simon. Finn whirled around to find his old friend standing there, dapper in his ugly blue robes and white beard. "Finn," said Simon. "Why're you trying to carry this alone, man? You've got Bonnie. You got Cherry. You got Betty. You even got a pile of kids. Why're you doing this? Why haven't you told anybody about Simone and Emeraude being alive?" Setting down the bomb–the Lich was gone anyway–Finn turned to his friend and father-in-law and said, "I can't save them, Simon. Not this time." "What," howled the wizard? "Finn, you're not making sense."
Shaking his head, Finn said, "that's what he wants me to be worried about. That's why I'm having trouble with the bomb. I can't kill the woman I've loved for twenty years. I was acting out and acting like a jerk when I cheated on her, but I could no more kill the woman I love than I could fly to the moon. That's why he took her from me. He wants me like this. Indecisive." "Boy, that's a big word coming from you," Simon burbled. Flushing, Finn realized that he had sort of been using bigger words lately. A corner of his mind wanted to puzzle at that, but there really wasn't the time. "I'm... I gotta' take that out of the fight," said Finn. "Make it not be about him and me and what he did to my girls." That sounded ominous to Simon, but before he could say a word to change Finn's mind, the big man said, "this is goodbye, Simon." And then he was forced out of Finn's dream.
Simon found himself floating above his best friend and his wife, staring down at them. Betty was still awake, but he wasn't sure appearing to her was a good idea right now. As uptight as Finn was about bangin' Betty, Betty was even more ashamed, and the feeling got worse when she knew he'd seen them together. There were other people he could work on. Heading out of the shack through the handiest wall, he cocked his head to one side, listening for a familiar heartbeat. Fionna was on the far side of the camp. His granddaughter had been a little sheepish about being in a family way and a little embarrassed to be seen carrying on with someone. That gave Simon an opening.
He found his granddaughter in the shack she shared with Patrick, sitting up on a crate playing Beemo. The little robot had come along for the grandest adventure ever, and now he sat, bundled into a heavy coat, while he tortured Fionna with the Most Insane Game Level Ever. Simon walked up next to her and asked, "how's it goin', Fi?" "Pretty good, grampa," she replied. In that moment, Fionna did a double take. Then, far from screaming, she jumped into the air and threw herself on Simon in delight. Or rather she threw herself through him, smacking into the corrugated metal wall of her shack. "Sorry about that, Fi," said he, as he gestured, picking her up off the floor where she'd landed. "I... you...," she gabbled. With a shrug, he said, "I'm still dead, Fi. I... needed to talk to you." Fionna glanced around her. "That guy ain't still lookin' for you," she asked? With a sigh, Simon replied, "probably. That just means I have to be quick, punkin. I got some news for you... You need to go talk to your dad about this, soon as you can..."
Minutes later, Fionna blew past Patrick without so much as a word, leaving her fiancé staring after her. She passed Billy not long after. As Patrick came huffing and puffing out of the darkness, the older man asked, "was that?" "Yeah," he said. "Got no idea what's going on..." But it seemed to be rather important. Fionna wasn't even wearing her coat. The two men rushed after the tall blonde, shouting at her to stop, but Fionna never slowed down. She didn't slow down until she reached her father's quarters. There she began banging on the corrugated metal that was shelter against the cold here on this frozen island.
Groggy, Finn came to the door, opening it up to find his daughter there waiting on him. "Fi," he burbled? "Wha...?" "Mom's alive," she shouted. Jumping up and down, she grabbed her father by the shoulders and shook him, shouting, 'mom's alive' over and over. That was how Billy and Patrick found them. Finn, awake now, knew immediately what this was about. Simon had likely gone to what he thought was a court of appeals for the decision Finn had made. He intended to give the old man a piece of his mind if they ever talked again. In the now, he brushed past his daughter and came out into the cold, dressed in his pants and shoes and nothing else.
Billy asked the question, "what do you mean?" Fionna told her big brother, "grampa Simon came to me! I saw him in my tent!" "Huh," asked Patrick? "It was kinda' like gramma... I mean Betty said it...," babbled the blonde bunny. "I... uh... He was there in our room, Patrick. He came to me to tell me my moms are alive! Both of 'em!" She couldn't wait to tell Star! Billy turned to his father, who's unhappy expression told Billy a rather dangerous story without his lips even moving. Finn had already heard this. He'd heard it from Simon himself. Calmly, he asked their dad, "how long did you know?" Without even flinching, Finn replied, "couple weeks. Simon appeared to me when I got busted up in the crash."
Fi stopped in the middle of her celebration, her big, grey eyes going wide. "W-what," she howled?! "Y-you didn't tell us?!" Finn replied, "I wasn't sure I could trust it. I'm still not sure it matters." That had all three youngsters staring at him. What did that mean? Calmly, Finn said, "the ice is getting to a phase where it'll be self-sustaining, in spite of the sun..." Pointing upwards, he said, "it's already altering weather patterns across the face of Ooo. We should be in spring by now. There should be rains. Instead, it snowed over the sea in Ragnhild's kingdom." Billy flushed. The boiling sea was just that. Heated by magma from the Fire Kingdom, the sea to the north of Ragnhild's domain was almost always churning. It wasn't right for it to be snowing!
"Wh-what's that got to do with anything," Fionna demanded? Finn replied, "I have to focus on ending the threat to Ooo, Fi. I... can't get caught up trying to rescue your mothers. Not right now. I have to destroy this island. That has to be my focus. Anything else comes second..." "Daddy," howled Fionna?! "You can't just let that fucker keep moms! What the junk?!" "I'll see you in the morning, Fi," said Finn, as he turned away. Fionna grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around. Her face red with rage, she slapped their father hard enough that Billy winced. Patrick grabbed her and pulled her back.
Softly, his father in law said, "this is how it has to be for me, Fi." In spite of the gash her diamond-hard nails had made on his jaw, he was calm and cool as ice. "I have to carry this burden," he said. "I have to do what has to be done. You... have another choice." Reaching in his pocket, he took out the gadget that the Wolf gave them. Taking her hand–the hand that had just slashed his face open, Finn folded the little device into her palm, curling her fingers over it. "Choose wisely, Fi," he said. Then, without a further word, he turned and went inside the shack.
Fi turned and stormed off, pulling at her hair and screaming as she went tromping back through the darkness. Billy immediately rushed after her, leaving Patrick staring at the door to Finn's hut. He was staring at the door, thinking of the shocking sight he'd glimpsed through the doorway. Was that his mom?
Billy followed his sister all the way back to her quarters, listening to her rant and rave about wanting to tear their father into pieces. He'd seen her in this state only once–the day their mother was taken. He'd been willing to give his father the benefit of the doubt then, and he'd calmed Fi down and gotten her down off the ledge. Now he began to wonder if she hadn't been right. What was their father doing? Think it through, Bill, he told himself. There's always a reason for the things he does, even when we can't see it. Finn had been doing this sort of thing–dealing with horrifying things like this–well before they were born. More to the point, Billy knew what a man caught in mischief looked like. He'd seen it hundreds of times working with the Banana Guards. His father was doing what he believed was the right thing.
Isn't it, thought the young man? What should he be doing? Sacrificing Ooo to save one person? Was that what a good man did? Sacrifice millions of lives for one? He thought back to the moment on Ragnhild's train where he'd had her and Anders sitting on his lap. He would have abandoned the train and everyone else on it to save the two of them. That was what he thought a man was. Now, he realized he'd been half right. Sometimes, it seemed, that wasn't quite enough.
Fionna slammed her door open and stormed into the shack beyond. Billy caught the door before it shut and stepped in after her, closing it on the sub-zero temperatures outside. He called out to his sister, "Fi?" "I don't fucking want to hear it," she shouted back! She was pacing and screaming and flailing her arms as if she wanted to wring their father's neck. "Fi," said Billy. "Talk to me. Tell me what you're thinking." The pretty blonde stopped right where she was. When she turned to face her brother, he saw angst, pain, and no little anger in her eyes.
"It's like he doesn't even care that our moms could be alive," howled Fionna! Billy nodded in acknowledgment of that. It didn't look good what their father was doing. If you only looked at it from a selfish standpoint, it looked a lot like maybe he was just going to do in his wives for the chance to keep on screwing around with his harem of horny princesses. But there was a flipside to the argument–one that transcended all the emotional angst. It was something that Fionna didn't really see or understand because she was still so much younger than their father. Billy had barely been able to see it himself.
"Fi," he whispered. "Have you considered what's at stake here?" The bad bunny-girl looked up at him with a frown. "Ooo's at stake, Fi," her brother murmured. "Do you know what that means? Not just a few women. Not just a town. Not even somebody's kingdom. The whole flippin' Everything-Burrito. If the Lich beats us, if we go down, then the world dies. Ooo'll be reduced to a barren ball of rock. Even if our mothers are alive in there somehow, he can't let that sway him. Don't you see, that's why the Lich chose to take them. He wanted leverage on dad. The only way to take away that leverage..." "...is to let them die," muttered Fionna. It was a horrible thought, one that left her close to screaming.
Then, as she finished processing that thought, a worse one hit her. Shooting to her feet, she said, "w-we have to stop him!" She wasn't making sense, and Billy said so. "He's going to kill himself," howled Fionna! "That's what his plan is!" He had the bomb. He was going to blow himself up and the Lich with him! Uneasily, Billy rumbled, "I-I'm sure he doesn't mean that, Fi..." "I'm gonna' lose my dad," Fi howled?! Angry as she'd been before, now she was inconsolable. "He took my moms, and now he's gonna' get daddy too!" Billy grabbed her and held her as she cried and cried.
Back at Finn's cabin, Betty had words of her own for the Hero of Ooo. She'd listened to the exchange and realized that there had been things he'd held back from her too. She'd been wondering and worrying at why he was so melancholy and moody. Now she had an idea, and she didn't much like it. Just now, he was sitting on the rough pallet that they'd been laying on, staring into space, looking as though he had given up everything.
"Finn, I don't understand," Betty said. "If there's a chance that Simone and Emeraude..." The big man replied, "the thing I want most in the world would be to see them again. To hold them. To tell them how much I love them both. I think about them every day, Betty." The older woman had learned some valuable lessons about men in general and this one in particular over the preceding months. She well knew that there was a brilliant mind capable of some surprisingly deep thoughts hidden behind that rough facade. "Then why, honey," she asked? It sounded almost plaintive. He wasn't the only one who missed Simone.
He turned to look at her, his blue-blue eyes burning into hers. "I have to be better than that," Finn replied. "With all of Ooo at stake, I can't let myself think of what I want or need. Because that's what he wants. That's why he took them. I... have to let them go." A horrified Betty jumped on him, shouting at him. Finn grabbed her and held her until she began crying. "Finn," she pleaded. "I can't save them, Betty," he murmured. "Not this time. But you can. You can maybe save Emeraude. You can help Fi and the others maybe to save Emeraude." Those words sounded ominous. Stepping back, she demanded, "w-where're you going to be?" With a shrug, Finn said, "I'm'a make sure he doesn't get away."
Horrified, Betty went storming out into the darkness, brushing past her son without even noticing him. As the door banged shut, Patrick stared after his mother in shock. Was she? Was she sleeping with Fi's dad? A part of him was horrified and disgusted by the thought. At the same time, what did he expect? His mother was alone, and they were both a mess. They'd spent days, maybe even weeks cooped up in that awful maze together. And then, at the end of the day, did it really matter. Something had made her upset. He needed to know what it was.
The young man found his quarry pacing in an empty aisle, pulling at her hair and muttering under his breath. Walking up, he took her by the shoulders and spun her around. A startled Betty flushed to her hair as she realized that her son now knew the truth. At the same time, she needed him more than she'd ever needed anyone. Throwing herself on her boy, she cried on him, giving vent to wrenching sobs. In the midst of the tears, he managed to understand just one thing. "I lost Simon and Simone," whined Betty, "and now I'm gonna' lose Finn too..."
Almost there. :) Next time: Showdown with the Lich along with Showdown with the Lich.
