Chapter 5:
Jake the Dog turned at the sound of knocking at his front door. Leaving his girlfriend sitting at their kitchen table, the stretchy-dog stretched his neck and arms out to reach the front door. Throwing the bolt and unlocking the door, he found himself looking out at his little brother. "Hey," Finn greeted him. Finn the Human was dressed down today, wearing familiar blue-denim shorts and a raggedy tee-shirt, eerily reminding the older brother of the lives they used to lead. "Hey, man," Jake greeted him.
Stepping forward, Finn embraced his bro. "What brings you," Jake asked? Nodding at a truck that sat outside in Jake's yard, Finn said, "heard about what happened to Sam." There was a shit-ton of lumber on the back of the truck, and Jake goggled at him. "You helped me fix up the treehouse for Simone," Finn reminded him. "It's my turn."
Stepping into the house, Finn was again reminded of just how much Jake was turning into their dad. Jake the Dog was becoming Jake the Packrat, with a hoard of junk clogging every shelf and corner in the space. The difference was that he didn't have Joshua's habit of collecting stupidly dangerous shit. Jake wasn't going to bequeath a sentence in hell managing his collection to his sons and daughters. It was something Finn was starting to think about himself. What was he leaving to his kids? He wasn't sure he liked the answer.
Following Jake's head back through the halls of the house, Finn the Human strolled into the kitchen to find Samantha sitting in a chair by the window, with her injured foot up on a stool, wrapped in an ice pack. "Hey," he greeted her. "Finn," Sam responded. The big man gave her a smile and said, "stopped by to see how you were and to help Jake fix your deck."
Jake wasn't sure what to say. He'd been kind of a butt the last time Finn was here. Now, Finn had turned around to help him anyway. The part of him that resented Finn's newfound affluence wanted to chase the younger dude away. At the same time, he knew that was profoundly stupid, when the man could have just stayed home and ignored his problems. Pointing at the fridge, Jake said, "got beer and got tools in back." "Let's do it," Finn said.
The pair went out onto the rickety back deck with cans of beer in hand and toolbelts firmly cinched into place. The truck was edging around Samantha's garden to deposit the load of lumber on the patio. Jake eagerly walked down off the deck to get to work, using his stretchy powers to unload the truck in record time. A reminder of happier times, it made Finn laugh.
Elsewhere in the town, Jake's daughter glanced out the window of the car she was riding in. She'd intended to spend thise time on her daughters. Who knew when Finn might be headed back out of town to deal with some crisis or other? Here she was, looking for trouble on the wrong side of the tracks in Candy Town. The mook in the driver's seat was a kid, and he reminded her of her ex-husband in a lot of ways. He was on loan, and Jake Jr was trying to return him alive.
How many times had she been in the mean streets of Candy Town? She couldn't have said. She'd done a number of dirty deals here. She'd committed her first murder here, agonizing over what it meant and how far off the wagon she'd fallen. Her father, with as many laws as he'd broken, had never killed anybody. She'd butchered a mook out of the Notorious Pup gang, turning his insides into his outsides over a shady card game in an underground casino.
It had become easier after that. Much easier.
The address had come to them from the hands of a woman who'd been high up in the Assassin's Guild–before Penny had emptied the Assassin's Guild by sending all its membership after Fionna. Me-Mow might well be the only member left, and she'd been a nobody. Could use me some Fionna, right now, thought Jake as the car rolled up to the run-down flop-house on the corner.
The town was recovered from Wildberry's attempt to turn every citizen in the place into a meathead. Peeps were out and about, doing their thing as Jake slipped out of the car. Slipping her arm out of the sling she'd been told to wear, the shapechanger tossed the thing into the backseat. She'd be doing some bluffing... a lot of bluffing. She wasn't a hundred percent at the moment, and Me-Mow was a dangerous customer with a habit of using the ground to her advantage.
Jake Jr scanned the walls as she walked into the darkened atrium of the flophouse. The man behind the counter looked her up and down as she approached. He paid his street-tax, like most of the men and women who ran such establishments in Candy Town. In exchange, Cherry's dudes made sure that the Banana Guard never snooped too closely. Unless somebody turns up dead, thought Jake. She'd spent a while cleaning up the mess when a half-crazy nymph, hopped up on psychedelic chocolate offed a john in one of the flophouses they ran.
The shapechanger put a token on the counter. It was a tattered business card for Burdette Real Estate. Everybody in the Candy Kingdom's underworld knew what that card meant. The attendant suddenly remembered that he had to go fix some pipes in the basement. Jake walked on. Passing the counter, she went up the stairs on the left, headed for the fourth floor.
As she climbed the stairs, she glanced out the window, finding that there was a building right behind the flophouse with just an alley separating the two. Escape route, she thought. It would make a good escape if things went south. Approaching the fourth floor, she was delighted to see that the other building was just three floors high. Perfect. That would let her stretch herself down to the street easily from the roof.
This was the dangerous spot. The shapechanger stepped carefully off the stairs and onto the landing, heedful of making a noise. There were other people here. She could hear and 'see' them through the walls. Me-Mow would be able to hear them too. Every place in Glob's universe had a rhythm. If you were attuned to it, you could catch threats before they slipped up on you.
As she approached room 415, the slender shapechanger slipped a special lens from her pocket. Carefully, she put the lens to the peephole, as she called out, "house-keeping!" The killer-cat strode into view on the other side of the door, her expression one of suspicion. Jake watched her, as Me-Mow pondered what she was going to do. It was now or never.
Gathering herself, the slim shapechanger thinned her body out down to nothing before sliding under the door like a slip from the front desk. She wasn't nearly as good with this as her father, and the skill had come hard-won through painful trial and error. Now, with an injured arm, and a killer on the far side, it took everything she had to get under the door and pull herself back together before her foe could react.
"Long time," Jake Jr greeted Me-Mow. "Not long enough," the killer-cat retorted. Almost immediately, the former assassin was in motion. It was what she did. Move. Get off the X. Keep the other dude off balance. Jake Jr was a little different. She tended to stand still–laying for her opponent. Then, it was explosive action, using her alien reflexes and speed. At least that was the theory. She wasn't sure just how fast she was going to be with a crippled arm.
"What're you doing here in town," Jake asked? "What's it to you," Me-Mow retorted? "You here to collect?" She meant the tax on her activities. "Boss wants to know if you're doing something unsanctioned," Jake replied. The bitch was twitchy. Which way was she going to jump? "I don't know what you mean," Me-Mow replied. She was playing the nut-role. She knew perfectly well that there were people who were untouchable in Ooo. "How did you find me," asked the killer cat? "We have eyes everywhere," Jake retorted.
It began just like that, with the cat darting for the window. Jake was a beat late, and she found herself dodging knife-thrusts, as she tried to keep Me-Mow from exiting the room for the balcony. "You can't be me, kid," growled the cat! "I kicked your daddy's ass before you were a gleam in his eye!" "I'm not my dad," Jake growled, fear causing her to give way to the monster for a moment. She raked her claws down the cat's left arm. It would have shredded the bitch if Jake wasn't half crippled.
Me-Mow spun around, and in one fluid motion, darted through the door to the little bedroom. Jake was hot on her heels. Too hot. It was a trap. She knew it was a trap, when she was halfway through the door. The arm with the knife came whirling around, driven by a heavy-duty spring from a junkyard. Even with her stretchy-powers she almost bought it, as the thing drove straight through her chest. She could feel it graze her heart. As the shapechanger tried to sort herself out, Me-Mow threw herself out the window. Arms flailing, she hurled herself across the alley to the roof of the neighboring building. As Jake Jr was pulling herself off the knife, Me-Mow was hustling for the fire-escape on the far side.
The injured shapechanger rushed to the window, but her foe was already gone. Turning back to the room, Jake Jr found herself staring at a shocking scene. There were pictures and notes tacked up all around the room, and in the middle lay the evil kitty's lying bed. It was almost as though she'd immersed herself in her foe, literally eating, breathing, and sleeping the person she was targeting. It was a terrifying insight into Me-Mow's mind. Of course, that wasn't the shocking part. What surprised Jake was the fact that none of the pictures in that room were of Finn. Instead of her uneasiness lessening, it only grew, as she began to gather up those scraps of paper.
Miles away, in the abandoned prison that had once housed the alien invaders, Bonnibel Mertens scanned the hallway before her. It was like a very twisted game of hide-and-seek. She'd played hide-and-seek with Jay once-upon-a-time, but the stakes had never been high as this. A tiny bit of sound made her ears prick up, and she spun towards her rear. Nothing. When she turned to face forward again, she found herself almost nose-to-nose with her sister. Fionna's grey eyes were inscrutable, and Bonnie? She was fucking terrified.
"That's what you're up against," rumbled a second voice. Star. Star was here too. Instinctively, Bonnie reached for her power, but Fionna jammed her knee into Bonnie's stomach, dropping her on the ground. As Bonnie tried to recover her wits, the bitch blinked away. "Faster, Bonnie," Fionna rumbled. "You have to be faster." "When I get my hands on you," growled Bonnie, as she climbed to her feet once more.
The curvy pillow set off down the hall. Rounding a corner, she found herself facing a terrifying monster. The plush girl shrieked in terror, as the thing rushed forward. Instinctively, she reached inside herself and conjured a bubble, walling the monster out. Before she could celebrate, a stun-bolt slammed into her back, sending her ass-over-elbows into the wall. "Faster, Bonnie," Star growled. "Life comes at you fast."
Bonnie clambered to her feet just in time to see a dagger wink past her face, clipping a lock of her hair as it embedded itself into the wall. What were they doing?! That was too close! These were her sisters. They wouldn't hurt her. Would they? The monster was still clawing its way forward. Terrified, Bonnie shifted the creature sideways, embedding it into a wall in a horrifying show of just what she could do with her power. This wasn't right. She didn't like hurting things. The curvy girl turned to go, only to find that the hall had been closed off by a massive steel gate. Spinning around, she found Fionna standing at the other end of the hall. "It's not as simple as walking away, Bonnibel Mertens," she murmured, just before winking out of sight once more.
Meanwhile, Finn the Human rushed back to his brother's deck with a board, slapping the board into place before nailing it down as fast as he was able without using the curse. It was just like old times–the two brothers competing against each other, egging each other on. "Jeez, man," puffed Jake. "I quit! You win, Finn!" "Aww," muttered Finn! He'd been really starting to enjoy the contest. "I ain't young anymore," the stretchy dog reminded him.
They'd gotten a fair bit of the deck done. Finn was delighted that they'd been able to save the supports, and all they'd really needed to do was replace the crossbeams and lay out the surface. Now, Finn grabbed his brother a beer, and headed over to the firepit, where Jake was trying to get his breath. "Think that's the first I ever really got the better of you," Finn chuckled, as he handed Jake a beer.
Jake cracked open the can and chugged it. Even in the chill of winter, building a deck was thirsty work. Finn was a bit slower–a lot slower. He could see Charlie was right. His bro was getting fat and out of shape. The settled life he was living was slowly killing him. A part of him went back to those long ago days where Jake had wanted to be his assistant in command of the Banana Guard. Finn had turned him down, and now he wished he hadn't.
Rolling his own can back and forth in his hands, his face taking on that dangerous soul-searching look that Jake was all too familiar with, the big man rumbled, "need to talk to you about something..." Jake gave him a worried frown. Things had been going pretty well today. He was hoping Finn wasn't going to say something crazy. As he prepared himself to hear that Jr was preggers or something, Finn announced, "I... I'd like you to go talk to TV."
The tone of his voice told Jake something was wrong. "Ok," said the stretchy dog, "what happened?" Blowing out a breath, Finn said, "I was at Bronwyn's place when Lady called... TV came to her house... He... was kind of a jerk..." Jake's hackles went up, and he found himself a little afraid of what his little brother was going to say. "I... I got it straightened out," Finn said. "I don't think he's gonna do it again..." Finn turned to his bro and said, "he's killing himself, Jake. You gotta' talk to him before he drinks himself to death."
Far from being the hard-core dude who'd beat you have to death without breaking a sweat or batting an eye, Finn looked like those words were killing him. Jake glanced away, feeling two inches tall. It sometimes felt like Finn loved his kids more than Jake did. Staring at his feet, Jake rumbled, "I'm not you, Finn... I'm not good with that stuff..." Smothering his anger, Finn said, "I'm not asking you to be me, Jake. I'm asking you to be you... I'm asking you to be TV's dad... To give him the love he needs because he's not loving himself right now." Resting a hand on Jake's shoulder, Finn said, "promise me you'll go talk to him. He's... he's staying in a flophouse right now." With a sigh, Jake nodded. Putting aside the beer, Finn got up. There was a deck to finish.
As the day drew to a close, Fionna Mertens-Petrikov emerged from the bowels of the old prison with her sister inelegantly draped over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Her younger sister was on her heels, looking irritated. And Bonnie? She was humiliated. At least she would have been humiliated if not for the thumping she'd gotten. Her sister had thumped her. Wearing a dress. Like she was going to a social.
The bad bunny poured the older sister into the back of the limo that had brought them. Her expression was... disappointed. Those misty grey eyes were accusing, and Bonnie could almost hear her thoughts. She needed to step up. Fionna needed to know that she could carry the load when Fionna got on the airship to go south. And Bonnie was failing. "Let's go have some pie," Star burbled. It had been a while since they had some good apple pie. You almost couldn't get good pies anymore now that Gramma Tree Trunks Pie Shop was shut down. Brightening, Fionna announced, "I'll buy."
On the far side of the ocean, Hurletta Mertens picked up the frisby and hurled it down the beach to her sister. The warmth of the sun on her new body made her feel good in a way she hadn't felt before. Neither of them had ever had a vacation before. For Hurletta, work had been in the way since their parents died in the wilderness on the way back from the annual Princess Privy Council meeting. For Blargetha, there had been the little matter of her sister holding all the funds.
The older sister wasn't proud of that. How much of her sister's evil was the way Hurletta treated her? You didn't understand her anymore than momma did, she thought, as Blargetha raced after the frisby. A corner of Hurletta's mind had become fixated on the image she'd seen when they got up this morning. Blargetha had been hovering over a stack of drawings and pictures of the grand Temple of the Sky she was building for people who didn't seem to understand the significance of what she was doing. She'd been up for hours before Hurletta had rolled out of bed. When Hurletta looked on that face, she didn't see evil, she saw genius so profound, she wasn't sure anybody on Ooo would ever understand. I should have gotten her help, thought the older sister. Instead of sticking her finger in her sister's eye, she should have gotten her into Bonnie's science academy.
Retrieving the frisby, Blargetha came up the beach again, wearing a smile a mile wide, and her mind was clearly not on work and certainly not the suspended death-sentence she lived under. Hurling the frisby, she put a little english on it, causing it to curve away from her sister at the last moment, making Hurletta go chasing it. The wench. Physics. It was probably something to do with physics.
Of course, Hurletta didn't need physics to play the game. Retrieving the frisby from the bushes beside the beach, she hurled the frisby hard, sending it flying long. Much to her horror, the thing curved at the last moment, flying out over the surf. "Damn," muttered the older sister. "I'll get it," Blargetha shouted! And she would have gone right out into the crashing waves of the ocean. Hurletta gave vent to a screech of terror that rooted the younger woman to the spot.
The two stared at each other a moment. Then, Blargetha broke the impasse by bursting out laughing. Her eyes said it. The water couldn't hurt them anymore. Hurletta mouthed, 'not today'. Nodding at her bodyguard, she sent the hapless giant out into the waves to retrieve their toy. Much as she had learned to live with the Sky Witch's magic, she wasn't ready to trust her sister's life to it.
As her bodyguard waded back up onto the beach, Hurletta walked towards her sister, having decided that the frisby should get put away for a bit. "What now," asked Blargetha? She'd taken the day off, and there wasn't really anywhere to go around these parts. "Let's just enjoy the sun," Hurletta replied. "We can have lunch." The younger sister thought about that for a minute. She was a little hungry, and breakfast had been hours ago.
The pair laid out the blankets they'd brought and made themselves comfortable on the sand, while Hurletta's bodyguard headed off up the beach to get something for them to eat. The feel of the ocean breeze and the sun was euphoric, even if a corner of the slime-princess's mind kept wanting to conjure up the image of the water somehow rising to sweep them away. She understood Finn's primal fear of the water, strangely enough.
Laying on her belly, staring out to sea, Blargetha turned to her sister and asked, "do you ever think of the future?" It was a strange question. Honestly, it was far more philosophical than Hurletta would have expected from her sibling. Blargetha had been the practical sister. She didn't want to go hang out in clubs late at night or go dancing until all hours.
"I don't really have the time...," 'Letta chuckled. She'd agreed to help Finn with the finances of his empire, but she'd had no idea really what that was going to mean. There were days she really wanted to run away. Love kept her tethered in place. She was in love with the man he'd been and more so with the man he'd become. "And you," asked Hurletta?
Blargetha lay there a moment, her face curled in a pensive frown. "I feel like I ought to be thinking about tomorrow," the younger sister admitted, "but I don't know how..." Hurletta sat up and stared at her. "My head's crowded," said the younger sister. I'll bet, Hurletta thought. "There's so much in there, and I sometimes fear I'll never get any of it out...," Blargetha muttered. Hurletta rested a comforting hand on her back. "We have time, Blargetha," said the older sister. "We have plenty of time now. We have time and money both." Drawing back her hand, the plump woman rose, announcing, "I think in the future we should pick a spot with a bathroom nearby or drink less Super Porp." Rising, the curvy woman headed off into the nearby jungle to relieve herself.
Blargetha lay herself back down and closed her eyes. The problem had been getting worse. Maybe it was this new shape. She had a lot more brain capacity than she'd had before. If often felt as though the ideas were coming so quickly, she couldn't get them on paper fast enough. She was filling volumes with ideas that she didn't even have the time to properly go back and examine, and it was getting in the way of finishing her work here.
As the plush pretty lay pondering her strange little problem, hostile eyes regarded her from further down the beach. She was here, just like Fathead had been told. The thuggish coca-person had been pretty wound up on coca-tea when the chief dropped in on him. He'd said some pretty outrageous things and talked himself into something that maybe wasn't too bright. Too late to back out, he thought. Chief Red Legs would send him into exile in the jungle if he returned without finishing this little job.
Striding up the beach with purpose, the big fellow sized up his chances. She wasn't small, but she was a female. He was a lot stronger than she was. Just have to get her in the water, he thought. She would dissolve in the water, and that would be that. He'd barely have to get his hands dirty.
Blargetha was dozing off, half-dreaming of being in space on the Ark, when a tremendous force snatched her up off the ground. The startled princess gave vent to an ear-piercing shriek. Fathead cussed a blue streak. He hadn't thought that through. What if there were people around? Get it done, he told himself. The thug rushed for the water, as Blargetha squealed and struggled. She got precious few moments though, as her assailant hurled her bodily into the ocean with a tremendous splash.
The feel of that was terrifying. First was the unfamiliar sensation of water on her body. Then came the shocking cold. She'd gone from the warmth of a summer afternoon in the tropics to the icy ocean in just a few heartbeats. Fathead stared down at her, exultant. At least he did for a few moments. Something was wrong.
The bitch was supposed to dissolve. Why wasn't she dissolving? Fathead felt his fear rising. He'd taken the job because he'd thought there would be no evidence. He didn't want to be standing on this beach with a fucking corpse! At the same time, having assaulted this woman–a princess–he was already in up to his hips. If she won't dissolve, drown the bitch, he thought. He could still drown her. He'd just drag the body into the jungle and hide it.
Unfortunately, for the hapless thug, the sounds of his victim screaming and struggling alerted the other person on the beach that something was wrong. Drawing up her bikini bottoms, Hurletta Mertens came rushing out of the jungle to a horrifying sight. There was a coca-person there in the crashing waves holding her sister's head under the water.
Time seemed to stand still, as she took in the enormity of what she was seeing. There was a man clearly trying to murder her sister. And what was she going to do about it? She wasn't a fighter. She'd dipped out every time one of Finn's kids suggested teaching her. In the end, Bill, Fionna, and Star had far too much to do to be chasing her to get her to learn self defense.
If that wasn't enough, she'd have to go into the water to save her sister's life. This wasn't the rain coming down, though that had been terrifying enough. Hurletta would have to step into the icy abyss of all that water, just as Finn had needed to do it. He's going to kill my sister, she thought. Heaviana would lose her mom. It was that last that decided the curvy princess.
Shouting to wake the damned, she rushed down the beach and leaped onto the thug's back. Immediately, she began punching him in the head and shoulders, hitting him as hard as she could. She might as well have been punching a wall, though. Even concentrating with all her might to make her hands as stiff and hard as she could, the plump slime-person made little impact.
He wouldn't let go, and Hurletta could see her sister's struggles growing ever more feeble. At the same time, she might as well have been giving the brute love-taps for all the good it did. Where was her fucking bodyguard when she needed him? You sent him for lunch dumbass, she thought. She knew what she was going to have to do now. Reaching deep inside herself, the curvy princess latched onto courage with all her will.
Fathead had been annoyed at the bitch pounding on the top of his head more than anything. It wasn't like she had the strength to stop him. More to the point, he'd been thinking that he'd have to go all in. He'd have to do this one too. As he was reaching back to throw her off of him, she slapped her hand over his face, covering his nose and mouth. Is that all you got, bitch, he thought? That was when the gooey flesh began to flow, filling his nose and filling his mouth, forcing its way in. Hurletta grunted with the effort as she push, push, pushed her hand into the thug's face, cutting off his air. It didn't take long, before he was toppling–falling forward on top of her sister. Thankfully, a shout announced her bodyguard coming back up the beach, tossing aside their lunch as he came.
Bonnie the Younger learns just how tough you have to be to run with the Finn Crew. Jake Jr. tangles with Me-Mow and comes up short, and Finn has a heart-to-heart with his brother. And the slime-sisters... are having lots of fun in paradise.