Chapter 19:
The construct before them was vast. It was the biggest single thing Finn had ever seen in the world, stretching hundreds of feet across a mountain valley. A second massive structure hung hundreds of feet in the air over the vast metal disk, forming the antenna's signal source. "Who could you talk to with that," Blargetha whistled? "That's what I'm afraid of," Finn retorted. Who had Peihong been talking to with this machine?
Thor, who was scanning the scene with a telescope, announced, "troops." Finn turned his binoculars to where his Guard Captain was looking. "Guns," Finn muttered. It figured Bandit Princess's dudes would have guns. It felt like his hoped-for dream of a return to a gun-less world was just that. It felt like there were just too many peeps out there with guns in their hands or the means and knowledge to make them. Problem for another day, Finn decided. In the right now, those guys were the peeps he had to get past. He needed to find Peihong. She was the author of the madness. Shut her down, and this whole thing came to an end.
Finn dispatched scouts to various corners of the valley, while he and his hand-picked troops settled in to wait. A couple of hours went by with several members of the band getting a little antsy to be moving again. The trip up from the coast, with the goo-creatures milling about and constantly approaching the camp at night, had many of them on edge. The King was their example, moving through the gathering, whispering to the worried and terrified. His words brought calm and encouragement to men who were afraid of all the ugly little things they couldn't see.
One by one the scouts came back, bringing news about where the Bandit Princess's guards and defenses were. She had a couple of cannon that had to have been dragged up here with great difficulty. Those were placed at what appeared to be the main entry. Those alone would have been enough to hold him up and turn this into a siege. The good news was that his cornered rat had left herself a couple of back entries to her fortress. His scouts had managed to get close enough to identify three and figure out how many guards were defending them. Finn took up a stick and began sketching out what he wanted Thor and his solders to do.
Inside the fortified control center, the source of the King's troubles picked up the radio and announced, "go." As the men in the control room watched, the ogress's expression subtly changed. A frown developed on the evil creature's pretty face. These men had lived in a fairly constant state of terror these last few weeks. If it wasn't the danger of the plan their master had settled on, it was the reality that the King of Ooo was coming. For them. Now, it appeared that the retribution long foretold had finally arrived. Hanging up the phone, the ogress began barking orders, dispatching her troops to the main entry and the two emergency exits. It was time to throw down. They would live or die here.
Up on the surface, Billy the Human approached the main entry with Olesia at his side. Peihong could see them on the cameras. She had a surprise for the flame-cunt. Striding over to a panel on the wall, the ogress grabbed a knob and began to turn, releasing water to the network of water-sprays on the surface. On the screen, the elemental dodged away from the first of the sprinklers, only to get sprayed by the second. Billy found himself running to his girlfriend's aid, conjuring ice to block the spray of water from hitting her. At the same time, the cannons opened fire on the troops they were leading, pinning them down. More troops came pouring out of the emergency exits, hitting the attackers there hard in the face.
Up on the surface, Finn stood listening to the traffic from his soldiers over the phone. Things were going just as he expected them to. The Bandit Princess had defenses on defenses here. She'd had plenty of time to fortify the place after all. He was a little disturbed to hear that she'd specifically targeted Olesia–and through her, Billy. But there was no time for worry right now. Billy had to do his job, and Olesia, if she wanted to be part of this family, had to hang tough and do hers.
Finn turned to his unpleasant companion. Blargetha stood next to him wearing nothing more than her panties. Everything else was in a neat little pile. They stood atop an air shaft leading below. "Ok, princess," Finn said, "time to go in." She wasn't happy about this. At the same time, she was well aware that this could be the difference between living and dying for all of them. Summoning all her concentration–and no little bit of courage–the plush princess began to ooze down the ventilation shaft. Finn tied off a heavy rope as he waited and prepared to follow.
Moment by moment, the King waited, as he listened to his friends and family fighting with the thugs and jumped-up bandits that his foe had gathered here. Mostly, the business was a stalemate. That was by design. He didn't plan on losing anybody to what was a glorified diversion. Finally, Blargetha's voice came through. She was inside the base. There were no guards in sight. Finn dropped the rope and checked it twice before shinnying down the rope to the bottom of the shaft.
He emerged into a room full of disused junk and forgotten machinery. Rusted remnants of old tools suggested the place had been a workshop of some kind. The big man imagined the previous owners of this place putting these machines here with the plan to fix them or use them somehow. They'd never gotten back to their work. The world had ended around them. It was another melancholy moment that threatened to send him into one of his soul-searchy spirals. Shaking off the mood, Finn handed his mistress her clothes and bade her get dressed. While the bare-assed look was nice to ogle, there was work to do.
Jerking on the rope, he signaled for the small party of soldiers waiting at the top of the shaft. Moments later, the eight of them came sliding down the rope, with Thor in the lead. Nodding at Blargetha, the big man said, "take her and see if you can find the control room that runs the antenna. Shut it down, if it's running. I'm gonna' look for the Bandit Princess." Without a further word, Finn stepped off.
Up on the surface, Billy was doing his best to defend his girlfriend from the sneak-attacks of dozens of hidden sprinklers that would pop up, seemingly at random, to spray the young elemental. Olesia was in bad shape with brown stripes across her burning flesh in multiple places. She was in tremendous pain, and Billy feared this was killing her. And what was he, an ice-wizard, going to do to help her? He was trying to maintain the wall around them, but the wall was a danger to her too. The chill of his ice-dam risked sapping her heat too. And, if that wasn't enough, the raging madness inside his skull was doing its best to get loose.
Those seductive whispers suggested slaughtering everybody in the valley for vengeance for Olesia's death. The Ice Tiara wasn't the elemental's biggest fan. The entity inside him hated his girlfriend for the numerous times she'd saved him from madness. With Olesia gone, who would protect him from himself? Ironically, that was the one thing he clung to in the moment where he was at risk of losing his mind. The Tiara didn't care about his love for Olesia. It wanted her gone, and anything it suggested would likely speed her demise.
He was in the risk zone. Like his dad had told him so many times, everything came with a risk and a reward. Just getting out from under the sheets in the morning was a risk, but you could die in bed too. The risk here was losing his mind if he took too much power from the Tiara. The reward was continued life for his lady. He had to get the entry cleared so the soldiers could move in. That would let him move O somewhere away from the front door and out of range of the sprinklers. "Hang tight, baby," he said, as he stepped out in front of the cannon.
Weakly, Olesia begged him not to go, but Billy was determined. One of the guns drew a bead on him. Focusing his will as the iron muzzle of the cannon swung towards him, the big man congealed the air, chilling it so deeply that the gunpowder in the breech fizzled. He could feel the massive feedback, and he intercepted as much of it as he could, feeding it into Olesia. The Tiara was trying to take control of him now. Working quickly, he dumped a heavy load of snow over the two cannon crews. It wasn't enough to take them down, but it distracted them long enough to let the troops move in close.
Now, Billy found himself struggling with the fiend inside him. The big man turned his back on the cannon, knowing that if he faced his lady, the fiend would freeze her to death. The pain was almost blinding. His head felt as if somebody was beating on it with a hammer. "No, no, no, no, no," he shouted! Momentarily, he found himself on his knees, wondering how he'd gotten there. He could feel Olesia's hands on his shoulders for a moment–burning him–and then the feel of that was gone. When he turned around, he found her laying there in a heap. That had probably taken everything she had left.
Inside the bunker, Peihong the Bandit Princess cussed up a storm. Her guns were down. Shrieking at her remaining officers, she sent the last of her soldiers scurrying up to the entry. It was down to the last roll of the dice. She was down at the bottom of her bag of tricks. Moments after they'd gone, a noise behind her announced, she was also now out of time.
"Well, hello, Finn," burbled the Bandit Princess, as she turned to face him. "Peihong," Finn greeted his foe. Glancing around her, the ogress opined, "clever... You misdirected me..." She'd sent her troops on a wild hog chase. They were alone here. Striding forward to face her, he said, "I can't let you continue to stockpile weapons to threaten the world, Peihong." That made her laugh. "You sound like every other moralist fool I've encountered, Finn," she chuckled. "You all say the same things. 'I can't let you... It would be wrong to allow...'" Shaking her head, the evil woman opined, "you act as if this comes from some flawless moral foundation, but it's really your own appetites and conceit of desire. I'm honest about what I am. Can you say the same?"
"You're trying to trap me with trash-philosophy," Finn replied. "You're right, Peihong. You're honest about what you are–just like my dad and every other sick fuck I ever had to put down. You're an evil piece of shit who's gotten used to getting by in the world on other people's misery. You use your own unhappiness as an excuse to justify hurting other people, but the truth is you're a lazy fuck who doesn't want to work." Her face fell. There was a moment's pause, and he realized that he'd finally shut her up. He'd actually shut her up. And then the fight was on.
One step. Two. And then they were exchanging blows, with the Bandit Princess pounding away at him as though he were a block of wood from the old factory where she'd worked as a child. They circled and darted at each other, fighting for advantage. This really was where she came alive. He could see it in her eyes as she got a little of her spirit back. "I would have split the world with you," she growled! Finn laughed in her face. "You're not capable of sharing anything, Peihong," he said. "You're a user, just like my dad. You'd have screwed me the first chance you got."
As they danced and darted, he laid out all the ways she'd tried to game him–from her attempt to place traitors in amongst his cabinet and allies to her attempts at inoculating herself against his wrath through pregnancy. She was a violent, angry schemer, and the only time truth left her mouth was to mask the lie that followed.
Those hard words filled her with rage, causing her face to go bright red, and she got rather reckless in her attempts to smash him. It was funny in a way. Funny and strange. When you got right down to it–when you managed to strip away all the lies and conceits, people like the Bandit Princess knew what they were doing was awful. They just didn't like to face it. Raising her blade for a brutal overhand blow that would have smashed him, she opened herself up to a strike that slashed through her dress and along her ribs on the left side. With a yelp of pain, the evil ogress darted back.
"Good, one," she growled. "You do fight as well as you fuck." Modestly, Finn shrugged. They were back to circling, with the ogress looking for an advantage. "How did you get the sword to come back to you," she asked? "You already know the answer," Finn replied. He'd promised Sybil that he would refrain from using the curse unless the need was dire. Given that she had spies in the palace, she likely knew that. Her eyes said it. She had a chance against him. She had a chance to defeat him where there had been no chance before.
That was what made it easy to kill her, ironically. This really was business. In Cherry, he had found an old friend who'd gone astray. Underneath the layers of filth she'd daubed and decked herself in, Cherry was a vulnerable soul corrupted by a hunger for vengeance. In Ingrid, he'd found an abused child who'd been acting out of rage and pain and who'd been taken advantage of by an evil man. Maja might have believed she was only acting out of business interest and sheer survival, but something changed the night they met in Engagement Ring Kingdom. There had been a spark of something that changed the dynamic between them.
Peihong was different, though. It had been scheme after scheme from the moment she came into his world. From her attempts to turn his family and friends against him to the attempt to get herself pregnant, the Bandit Princess had been on a strategic campaign to nullify his advantages when this moment came. Much like Chelsea, the ogress was irredeemable. Maybe it was the evil they'd suffered from an early age, or maybe it was something that had always been there waiting to get out. The two partners were two peas in a pod–with dark specks where their souls should be.
The Bandit Princess smiled. It was back to distraction again. She meant to distract him, so she could score a killing blow–before he decided that this situation counted as 'dire need'. "How did you find me so quickly," she asked? "I figured it would take you months to find this place." Modestly, Finn replied, "I persuaded your partner to talk." Which he knew she already knew. "Did you kill her, Finn," she asked? "Or did she betray me on her knees?" "She threw herself out a window trying to claw me with her nails," Finn replied. "She told me everything in an effort to get me to reach out to her–so she could take one last swipe. She fell to her death."
It was a pathetic way to go, and he said so. "You're not going to fare any better, Peihong," said Finn. "Surrender, and I'll put you in a nice cell in my VIP dungeon. Life. But it'll be a comfortable life." He sounded so very certain. It almost made her laugh. Without his curse-powers, he was a mortal man, and they were evenly matched. Reaching deep inside herself, the ogress launched an all-out assault.
Finn calmly deflected her first blow as if she was going in slow motion. He'd been doing this a lifetime, and he was no longer handicapped by his true age thanks to Maja. Switching hands almost in mid-strike, he turned a second blow, even as the grass-word sprang from his palm. Turning Peihong's third and fourth strike with the Finn-Sword, he opened her defense, then jammed the grass sword up under her ribs and into her lung. Almost immediately she collapsed, dropping her sword in favor of clutching at the wound.
"Didn't think you'd do it...," she wheezed. Finn replied, "I'm tired of death, but the life of Ooo is more important than that." Her eyes darted around just then, and he knew what she was looking at. The ghosts. She'd told him about the ghosts of the men and women she'd murdered. "I see them," she wheezed. "They're waiting on me..." "I can't help you," Finn sighed. "Your crimes are too great..." She was going straight to hell. Don't pass Go. No stop in Death's Quarry.
Indeed, Finn felt a familiar presence at his side. "Brianna," he announced. Peihong's face constricted in terror. She could see the Hand of Abadeer. He knew what Marceline was required to do to this woman. It still saddened him. This was a waste. A waste of a life. The wound was taking a while to kill his enemy. "Make it quick, Brie," Finn murmured. "I don't want her to suffer." Drooling blood, the ogress stared at him. She wouldn't have granted him that courtesy. Reaching out, the Hand of Abadeer cruelly tore the ogress's soul from her body. Finn could feel her scream. As the lifeless body fell forward to lay face-down in the muck, Finn murmured, "goodbye..."
As he turned away, his phone rang. It was Blargetha. Flicking it open, he said, "just killed her. What's up?" His face constricted in a frown at the slime-princess's next words. "On my way," he said. Sliding his sword back into its sheathe, the big man set out at a run. Sounds from the hallways suggested that things were wrapping up. With no leadership, the bandits would likely be throwing in the towel. He just prayed nobody else lost their lives in this. He didn't even want to kill Bandit Princess's dudes.
Following Blargetha's instructions, the big man made his way back through the hallways to where he'd left her and Thor. From there, he jogged through the maze to the makeshift control room. Coming through the entry, Finn scanned the scene, finding the place empty. "Where's Thor," he asked? "Chased the last of the people in here off," Blargetha replied. She was bent over an array of dials and switches. Surface scratches that went down through layers of rust and old paint told Finn that Peihong and her peeps had worked on the machine to bring it back to life.
Coming up alongside her, the big man said, "he wasn't supposed to leave you." "There were just a few," Blargetha replied. "I didn't want to be in the way." It was a small risk. The halls had been empty until they got here. Just now, she was teasing at the dials, causing the machine to hum. That made him very nervous. "Ok," Finn said, "what have you got?"
Looking up from the cobbled-together terminal before her, Blargetha said, "it's bad news, Finn. Not only is there power flowing up to the feed-horns up there, but I think she may have been able to create a modulated signal..." "Common, B," Finn interrupted. "What does that mean in Common?" "She transmitted something, Finn," the evil genius replied. "I'm sure of it. The system's been on for a while. The transmitter's warm. They've been using it." "Where," he asked? "Any idea?" "Not clue the first, Blargetha replied. "She sent a signal out there somewhere. Maybe she was trying to reach something, or maybe she was testing it." Nodding, Finn said, "get with Thor. Get back to the ship..." "But...," she said. Shaking his head, Finn interrupted, "you're more valuable to me now than before. Get on the phone with Shoko and Sarah. I need those rockets, and I need the flying machines up and running. Yesterday." "Ok," she said, as she rose.
She didn't get far. Finn's phone rang. Picking up the phone, he found Thor was calling him. With a frown, the big man flicked the phone open. "Go," he rumbled. He was a little irritated with his son-in-law for leaving Blargetha by herself. While he wasn't really a fan, he'd made promises that she wouldn't be hurt if she played by his rules. More to the point, she was his life-line in a way. She was the one member of his court who was unbound by the Peace of Ooo and the history of pacifism amongst the crowns. She could make weapons of destruction for him, letting him keep his promises.
As Blargetha watched, Finn's face grew puzzled and then worried. Turning to Blargetha, the big man said, "I gotta' go see what he's found. Shut that thing down. Lock the door. I'll be back." Rushing back out the door, the King tore down the hallway at a dead run, leaving a puzzled/worried slime princess staring after him. Something was clearly wrong. After his earlier worry, something new and possibly even more dangerous had cropped up. She'd find out soon enough. Wrestling the door shut, best she could, the slime-princess returned to the console. He'd want to know as much as he could. Her knowledge of what the Bandit Princess had gotten done might be one more thing keeping her alive.
It took a fair bit of running about to find Thor's location. In the confused fight through the halls with the remnant of Bandit Princess's troops, the Captain of the Guard had lost his way. It helped not at all that the crumbling structure was a bit of a maze. Finn finally found his son-in-law standing in the entry to a cramped little room. At his feet was a dead man. From his look, he had been a Buffalo-Person shaman. The big man frowned. Chelsea had imported buffalo-dudes for her attack. He would have to look into that, maybe hit up Bambi and see what the Deer-Peeps knew. That was for another time. "Ok," he said. "What have you got?" Standing aside, Thor replied, "maybe you could tell me..."
And the Bandit Princess is no more. Wonder where that signal went. And just what is it in the room behind Thor?