Introduction: Submitted for your approval is my second attempt at an Adventure Time fanfic. In spite of the fact my first attempt, Attack of the Rattle Bots failed to get much of a response, I found I still wanted to go ahead with this story because I wanted to work with these characters a little longer. So right around the time I was putting the finishing touches on Attack of the Rattle Bots I started writing the first draft of this story in this nice leather-bound notebook I happened to find at my local Walgreens. I had never tried writing a multi-chapter story by hand before, so working on this story has been an interesting experience. The rough draft is now finished, and while I'm certain I'm going to have to make some revisions to the thing as I go, I've decided to go ahead and start posting the chapters of this story online.
So without further delay, I present you all with a tale continuing on from about where Attack of the Rattle Bots left off.
Disclaimer: I do not own Adventure Time.
Chapter 1: Catch A Falling Star
It was midday as Marceline Abadeer checked her appearance in the mirror. Her black hair was tied in a ponytail, and she had on a sleeveless red shirt with a vest and pair of shorts in a camouflage pattern, along with a pair of black boots. At the moment, Marceline was getting ready to go on a camping trip with her girlfriend, Princess Bonnibel Bubblegum. The two of them felt like they needed this little trip to get away from everything for a few days. Currently Marceline found herself in a creative slump with her music and thought a trip back to nature might give her a little inspiration.
Meanwhile Bonnie felt like she needed to get away and reflect more on her actions as the Candy Kingdom's ruler. Recently there was an incident that caused Bonnie to question a lot of the decisions she had made over the past few centuries. About a month ago, Bonnie had attempted to upgrade her kingdom with a highly advanced computer she had named Candice. Unfortunately Candice's flawed programming caused her to view Bonnie as a threat and impediment to the Candy Kingdom, and as a result she tried to eliminate Bonnie and all of her fiends. Of course this unfortunate incident also happened because a demon after Marceline's hand in marriage had shown up and tinkered with Candice for the sake of eliminating his main competition, but the whole fiasco had caused Bonnie to take a long hard look at herself.
It was Marceline who had eventually suggested to Bonnie they take this camping trip to recharge their batteries. Currently Marceline was finishing her preparations. The vampire queen made one final check to make sure everything she needed was in her bag. She had plenty of red objects to feed on, and in the event Marceline lost all of her supplies, the shirt she was wearing could serve as emergency rations. It would be a bad thing for everyone involved if Marceline were to become stranded out in the wilderness without anything red to feed upon. Satisfied that everything in her pack was in order, Marceline went over to check and see if her girlfriend's preparations were complete.
At the moment Bonnie was on her knees wearing a tan short-sleeved shirt with a red bandanna tied around her neck (also meant to serve as emergency rations for Marceline), tan shorts, and a pair of brown boots. Bonnie's pink hair was tied in a ponytail, and on the floor next to her was a tan pith helmet. The candy princess's pack was also on the floor next to her pith helmet, and laid out before her were several objects on a long white cloth. Currently Bonnie had a clipboard in her hand.
"You about ready to go P.B.?" Marceline asked as she put her own pack on.
"Just about," Bonnie answered. "I just need to finish one more check and make sure I have all my supplies. Let's see…compass, water purifier, snakebite kit, night vision goggles, geiger counter, sample containers, portable microscope, portable electron microscope, and of course the tent."
This last object, which Bonnie picked up from the cloth, was in the form of a small pink sphere no bigger than a baseball. There was a large purple button on top of the ball.
Marceline raised an eyebrow. "That thing's the tent?"
"Made it myself," Bonnie answered with a smug expression as she started packing her bag. "You'll see how good it is once we get to the site."
Marceline smiled and shrugged her shoulders. "Whatever. Anyway, I've really been looking forward to this trip."
"Me too. It seems like we hardly do anything like this together anymore."
"Seriously? Huh…now that you mention it, I guess we have gotten stuck in kind of a rut. Maybe that's why I've been so blocked lately."
"Well, all the more reason for us to get out and do stuff," Bonnie declared as she stood up and put on her pack. She then put her pith helmet on and gave the top one good pat. "Now let's roll!"
Marceline nodded as she floated over to the front door. As Bonnie came over to join her, the vampire queen grabbed her ax bass and an extra large umbrella to keep away the rays of the sun. Once the two of them were ready, they left the house and headed for the mouth of the cave in which their dwelling was located. When they got to the cave's mouth, Marceline unfolded her umbrella while Bonnie cupped her hands to her mouth and let out an odd bird call. On cue, the giant hawk Bonnie used as her personal transport, the Morrow immediately descended from the sky.
The couple boarded the Morrow's back, and at Bonnie's direction it zoomed back into the sky. Neither Marceline nor Bonnie even suspected their camping trip would turn into a far greater adventure than either of them expected.
She was known to all as the Huntress Wizard, though most of the few friends she had simply called her H.W. for short. She was a loan wolf, keeping the few who her closest to at arm's length. To H.W. being alone also meant being strong, and strength was an absolute necessity in the harsh world she lived in. H.W. had become a child of nature, and in nature you were either strong or you died. She had learned this lesson the hard way when she lost the lives of her parents to a strong and powerful predator.
H.W.'s parents had also been hunters who had originally come to Ooo from another land. Her parents hadn't told her much about her homeland other than it was peaceful. Once when she was young H.W. wanted to visit this homeland, but her parents had told her that land was not the place for them. They had come to Ooo to become exceptional beasts, because their homeland was a place where only the ordinary could live, and ordinary people didn't matter in the world. There was a saying H.W.'s father always told her, "Hard meat don't get eat." H.W. had taken this saying to heart, and after she had been orphaned she devoted herself to becoming the kind of exceptional beasts her parents had failed to become when she saw them get killed by a predator.
To this end H.W. devoted herself to the world of wizardry and made herself into the kind of exceptional beast her parents always wanted to be, yet there was still something holding her back. Some years ago H.W. had met another exceptional beast not unlike herself, a warrior known throughout the Land of Ooo as Finn the Human. Originally H.W. had sought Finn out to help her commune with the Spirit of the Forest. It was only after H.W. had succeeded in this goal though when she realized her attraction to Finn. In spite of this attraction however, H.W. knew she and Finn could not be together, because if exceptional beasts like them ever gained what they desired, they would become soft and thus cease to matter in the world.
Even so, H.W. repeatedly found herself being pulled back to Finn time and time again. Attracting forces came and went, it was one of the ways of the world. Yet for some reason the attracting force pulling her towards Finn never seemed to fade. In fact it had somehow only become stronger with time. Recently things had gotten to the point where H.W. was often traveling together with Finn on his various adventures though Ooo.
H.W. couldn't deny these times together with Finn were wonderful, yet she also feared she was becoming weaker. So about four days ago H.W. left Finn without a word and sought out an old seer she knew in Wizard City for answers on how to regain the strength she had lost. The seer told H.W. that in four days time, a great beast from the stars would fall to earth. H.W. was told that if she faced this beast, she would find the strength she felt she was missing. Thus she immediately went to the empty field where the seer told her the beast would arrive and had been waiting in the same spot for the last four days ever since.
Any other person would've gone mad with boredom waiting in a single spot in a vacant field for four days in a row, but H.W. had no problem at all with waiting. Patience was necessary for any predator. In order for a cat to catch a mouse, it has to wait for the right moment to pounce. In order for the spider to feed, it must first wait for something to fly into its web. H.W. had learned the art of patience from her parents right from the moment she could talk.
H.W.'s patience was finally rewarded when she saw what looked like a bright star other than the sun up in the sun up in the midday sky. The blue star was rapidly getting bigger and bigger by the second. This was the sign the seer had told H.W. to wait for. Her prey was about to arrive. With a flash of green light, H.W.'s bow materialized in her hand. She threaded a single arrow and waited.
At least a minute went by and then at last the star, or rather the meteor, struck the field and raised a massive cloud of dust and smoke. The earth shook with the meteor's impact and H.W. was knocked off her feet. It took a moment for her to regain her stance. H.W. aimed her arrow at the spot where the meteor impacted and waited for the dust to clear.
As the cloud finally thinned out, H.W. saw a strange object inside the crater. At first it seemed to be some sort of large seed pod, but then it began to grow and change shape, sprouting as if it really were a plant. H.W. thought the mass was going to grow into a giant tree because it had developed what looked like branches at the top, but in a matter of seconds the thing took the shape of a four-legged animal with tall slender legs. The top of the mass became a head with a fine snout, and the growths H.W. had at first taken to be branches had become a pair of antlers with fifteen points. The beast now standing before H.W. was a deer, a magnificent stag with a height of about thirteen feet from the hoof to the very top of its antlers.
As for the color of the beast, H.W. could not make it out. It seemed to change and shift with each passing second, and it wasn't really a single color at any one time. H.W. also could not make out any distinctive details about the beast. It was almost as though she were looking at a deer-shaped hole cut into the empty space before her. The creature truly was not a being of the earth. H.W. had no idea what the animal she was looking at was, but her instincts told her it did not belong on the planet.
H.W. pulled back the string of her bow and aimed the arrow's point right for the creature's head. Just as she was about to send the arrow flying, a pair of what looked like stars appeared on the stag's head. H.W. realized these strange lights had to be the beast's eyes. In a split second these star-like eyes turned from white to red, and the stag reared up on his hind legs and let out a sound that could only be described as a roar. At the same time a powerful invisible force emanated from the stag and knocked H.W. onto her back. By the time H.W. was able to sit up, the stag was galloping away with unbelievable speed.
"Well dang!" H.W. declared as she got to her feet and dusted herself off. "This is what I get for waiting right out in the open I guess. Oh well. Looks like the hunt is on."
Please review and let me know what you think.