A/N Enjoy the chapter friends!
Chapter 12: Rooftop race
Ealier
Fin and Marceline took one last look at the rubble-filled hole before continuing on their way.
"Think they'll be ok?" Marceline asked.
"Yea. I'm sure It'll be a cakewalk for them." They smiled at one another for a moment before leaving the alley and looking around at the surrounding city. It was just more of the same: derelict buildings, decayed structures, and rotten roads.
"Huh... Kinda depressing actually..." The vampire queen mumbled to herself as she ran her hands over an ancient motorcycle as memories flooded her mind. She shook her head a bit.
"Uh, You ok?" Fin asked. Marceline shook her head again, but this time with a small smile.
"Dork. You and your worry. Yea, I'm fine. Just... just give me a minute." Marceline spent a few minutes to yer own thoughts before composing herself and cracking her knuckles. "Lets get this show on the road. We gotta make it there before they do." Fin smiled and nodded. As they walked, it was almost... peaceful. Sure, the creaks and cracks of the ancient structures loomed in the distance, no birds sung, and the eery nature of the overgrowth hung over them, there was a calmness to it all. Fin wondered when was the last moment he had downtime to himself. To just rest and reflect. He had no idea, and frankly, wasn't too bothered by it. In his mind, he was a machine, built to move constantly. He would have compared himself to a shark, but that would have associated him with the ocean and he wasn't having any of that. True, he conquered his fears, but past experiences are past experiences and those can't be remedied as easily. "What're you thinking about?" He was taken a bit by surprise at the question, but answered it anyway.
"Meh. Nothing much. Just machines, sharks, and the ever present crushing depths of the ocean."
"...Weirdo." Marceline replied woth a slight shoulder punch. Fin chucked as well as Marceline, but their small episode of laughter was quickly dashed by a noise that sounded far more organic than they would have liked. The froze in their tracks and listened. They heard nothing at first, but they didn't dare move. They listened more, and listened closely. True enough, they weren't alone. There was... breathing, of one would call it that. It sounded more akin to the choked gagging of someone with sludge in their throat. Fin glanced at Marceline and slowly pulled out his sword. He tiptoed towards the noise with Marceline floating close behind. They came up to another alley from which they assumed the noise was coming from. The pressed themselves close to the wall and inched close to the edge. They then carefully peaked in the alley and beheld a small group of... things. There was three of them. They had seen these creatures before; the irradiated monsters from the pit. The zombie-like creatures were hunched over something and they looked like they were consuming it. Fin readied his sword.
"Dude!" Marceline harshly whispered. "What are you thinking?"
"There's just three of them. We can handle it."
"And what if there's more, huh? Then what?"
"We'll just have to be quiet then." Fin replied.
"Ugh..." A third 'voice' interjected. They quickly looked and saw, to no surprise of Marceline, that the creatures had heard them and was staring them right in the face. Fin let out a slight yelp and sliced it in half. It died pretty easily. The two remaining ones let out a loud growl and descended upon them, but Fin and Marceline were fast. Marceline cleaved one into pieces with her axe bass while Fin took care of the other one. It was all over in a matter of minutes and whs honestly pretty underwhelming.
"Huh. That was easy." Fin mentioned, but Marceline slapped the back of his head. He hissed in pain and rubbed it while shooting a glare at her.
"Shut up. You wanna jinx us?!" She chastised him.
"Bah! It's over. If there were more, we would have seen them by now-" Of course, no sooner had the words left his lips, more and more of the creatures oozed out from whatever hole they were hiding in. Fin gave an apologetic look to Marceline, who frowned in response at him. The creatures spotted them and wasted no time in giving chase to the juicy morsels.
"Eep!" Fin readied his sword and prepared to fight, but he quickly saw that it was for naught. More and more of them poured out of impossibly small cracks and crevasses. They had no choice but to run. But where? They came in through a one way alley, and there was no manhole to retreat to. They had no options of escape. "Unless..." Fin thought to himself. He quickly looked up and saw a decrepit fire escape attached to an old, but stable-looking building.
"No way man. That won't support our weight." Marceline said. Fin gave her a confused and almost judgmental look.
"Then fly dummy!" Fin shouted.
"...Oh yea..." She said at last. Then, wasting no more time, Fin jumped up to the rickety supports and began running up as fast as he could as Marceline floated right next to him giving him words of encouragement. However, the creatures began to ascend as Fin did and started weighing down the supports. The fire escape became wobbly and the rivets and bolts holding it onto the building began to give way. Fin had to run fast. He climbed the stairs as fast as his legs could carry him as the creature's overbearing weight began to bring down the stairs. Just as he was nearing the top, he glanced up and saw the final bits of metal holding it all together give way. Fin soon found himself in free fall. He wondered, for a moment, if this was the end, but a pair of arms wrapping themselves around him would not allow that. With a feminine grunt of effort, he found himself atop the building. He was then dropped and he rolled a bit to break the fall, but found he wasn't the only one. He looked over and saw Marcline, slightly winded, lying beside him.
"Dude..." She said. "Lay off the snacks." Fin mumbled an apologetic reply, but the cracks and crunbling of the very building they were standing on interrupted him. The sudden jostling caused by the falling of the fire escape must have been to much for the old building to bear. The whole thing was turning to dust around them and crumbling down.
"Run!" Fin shouted. Marceline didn't need to be told twice. The two bolted in the opposite direction, but soon came to a gap between the building they were on and the next. They had to jump to get to safety, and jump they did. However, the collapsing of the first building caused a domino effect to all adjacent buildings. Their eyes widened as they began to building hop from rooftop to rooftop. At the same time, they saw hundreds, if not thousands of the creatures littering the streets below, drawn to the noise. Therefore, even when the buildings stopped collapsing behind them, they ran. They ran and ran until they had no more roof to run on. Marceline looked down and saw an ancient pile of refuse and trash. Marceline told Fin to jump. After giving her a confused stare, Marceline told him to trust her, and so he did. He jumped and so did she but she used her flight abilities to cushion the fall into the trash. In the end, they only ended up with minor wounds and scratches. They stood up and dusted themselves off and looked around. Much to their surprise, they saw that they were right in front of the building they needed to be at. "Whew. Thank goodness." Fin said. He then looked at Marceline, who was staring at something. "Uh... Marceline?" Her only reply what's a Sly smirk and a finger pressed against her lips while her other and pointed at three figures in the distance. Fin saw what she was pointing at and sparked back. They both snuck up on their prey and descended upon them.
