Chapter 9:
Back in the Turtle Kingdom, Toast Princess emerged from the bedroom wearing the clothes she'd worn yesterday–a habit she'd mostly left behind with the parties and fucking around. She was a little startled to find not just Finn but the Huntress waiting on she and her sister. Toast had stayed late the night before, and she'd ended up crashing in Breakfast's space. It had been kind of like old times, when they'd taken over their parents' bedroom. She'd slept like a log. That had changed when Breakfast discovered boys and started trying to get laid. Hurt at first, Toast had actually ended up glad to be in her own room when she went through the change and discovered the joy of sex too.
"Hey, guys," Finn announced. He had breakfast laid out, including a lot of Toast's favorites. The little woman was a little irritated and at the same time a little embarrassed. He was being nice to her. He was being exactly what he'd always been. A good friend. In spite of all the times she'd tried to bang him, and all the trouble her family had caused with his. And it wasn't as if Emeraude was trying to interfere in something. She'd just gotten there first.
"You're looking well," Finn opined. Toast flushed, remembering the way he'd greeted her yesterday. As soon as her butt touched the chair, Finn lay out breakfast. She vaguely remembered learning a long while ago that Finn was actually a pretty stellar cook. She knew he'd cooked for Bonnie and Breakfast multiple times. Simone had confided in various family friends that he'd taught both his first wife and his second how to cook. As Toast contemplated breakfast–and Finn bantered with the Huntress, the eldest of the breakfast cuties exited the bath carrying her son. Finn hustled to take the boy. Then, as he juggled little Pomfrit, he dished up food for Breakfast as well. Only when all the ladies were eating did he sit down himself.
The talk of the day was about visiting rock quarries. Toast listened in fascination as Finn bantered with her sister about what a little heartbreaker Pomfrit would be and chatted with Emeraude about buying stone off the turtles. Breakfast was clearly doing what she could to hold up her end of the conversation when her heart wasn't quite up to things. Nor was she alone. Toast felt stirrings of a familiar sensation. She was jealous of Emeraude. Dare she admit it, she was even jealous of Breakfast. If Strudel was adapting to the new status-quo, her sisters were having a whole lot of trouble.
At the same time, Toast knew there were far bigger matters afoot than taking a ride on Finn's pecker. She'd come here to meet him to talk about the rumors out of the wastes and the things she'd seen. Clearing her throat, the little woman interrupted Finn as he was explaining some of his plans–dreams really. When Finn was looking at her, the fallen princess announced, "I need to talk to you about what's going on in the badlands." Startled, Finn warily replied, "sure..." Toast made it clear this was going to be a private conversation by rising and heading for the balcony. With a helpless shrug, Finn rose and followed.
Finn found his Minister for Sustenance standing on the balcony, staring out at the town,. Shutting the door behind them, the King of Ooo opened with, "ok. I don't like that you go out there..." It was his 'straight-talk' pose. "Hmph," Toast retorted. "It's not like they would ever let me walk into something..." Finn flushed at that hard-edged retort. He'd feared the dynamic between them would become different. It had, but a part of him found this refreshing. Moving on, Toast declared, "somebody's controlling the people from the wastes, Finn." Finn nodded. He'd suspected that. It wasn't normal for them to move the way they had. "It's big," she said. "Someone's forging an army." The big man flinched. More death. He feared he'd never stop the bleeding and dieing.
As he listened, the little princess laid out all that she'd seen in her travels. She'd spent more time outside the barrier than inside. That made him queasy, but at the same time it was more useful than Breakfast and her traveling around to sample fun foods. He'd wanted to go out into the wilds himself to see what had gone on there. The Lich and later the Dipped had free rein out there to do whatever they wanted to do. Finn had been focused on saving the civilized kingdoms because that gave the world the best chance to go on. He'd buried his fears and regrets over what might or might not be happening in the wild lands simply because he could do nothing about it. The news that Toast brought him–about the bloodshed and the endless, empty burned miles that the Dipped had left–had him feeling cold and impotent.
"The badlands are getting better," Toast announced. "I think there was a hole in Suadela's plan. The lands she torched are still pretty barren, but stuff's creeping in. It's... I think maybe she didn't have time to be thorough." "She had to wreck the kingdoms first," Finn murmured. It would have taken too long to burn the world even with the troops she had. With all the people gone, the undead would have had all the time needed. Nodding, Toast said, "you should start working on colonizing those lands. You need cropland, and this could even help the Elbownians." Thanking her, he leaned down and kissed her cheek. Smiling back, she said, "if you need a princess to run things, I know one who's available..." Smiling at her, he declared, "deal."
Moving on, he asked, "how long you here? We can hang out." It sounded weird coming from the King of the world, but at the same time it was so like him, suggesting that he was the same man. Of course she had no place pressing to be. Seeing friends and family sounded like it would do wonders for her soul. "Well," she said, "I was going to look at some books..." "Ok," Finn said. "We'll join you. E and Beeps like books..." It was nothing like she'd been thinking. At the same time, well, why not? Of course, he had to go looking at rock quarries first.
Back in the Candy Kingdom, Drew walked into the stuffy closet where Maja was spending her days to find the witch staring at a strange, glittering stone pillar with a pensive expression on her face. The mood was thick on her. She was a far different creature than the child-like person the doctor had been treating. At the same time, she was shockingly disciplined for a magic-user. Only Simone and Betty had the sort of icy control that this woman seemed to possess. And that cold demeanor did little to make these encounters easier.
Drew had been dropping in to check up on the witch almost since Finn had let her know that Maja was awake. She'd come down here and find the arch-sorceress working on the mysterious project that Finn had asked of her, with Chiang sitting in his high-chair absorbed in various puzzles and games. The little guy's mind was growing at a shocking rate. It sometimes seemed like Maja was cramming things in there–when she wasn't absorbed in this.
On her side, Maja glanced back in irritation. The good doctor had been dropping in to stare at her for the last week solid, and it was starting to annoy the witch. She was striking out. Finn was asking rather a lot. What he'd asked of her was edging up on the limits of what she could do, and she'd been hitting roadblocks left and right. At the same time, she owed him rather a lot. She felt that way, though he never questioned or pushed. If anything, Finn showed an irritating capacity to tolerate the endless delays, making her want to slap him. He was emperor of all the world, and she felt like he was blowing it by being too soft.
"I'm feeling fine," the witch muttered. "I don't really have time for your examination right now. Come back later." Drew had been using the excuse to come by hoping to broach a topic that was a little dangerous. Given everything that was going on in their household at the moment, it was very dangerous to ask the questions that she was angling to ask. She had two beings in the palace who'd been irrevocably altered by this woman's magic with tens of thousands more out there 'in the wild'. Her scientific mind saw it as impossible, but the evidence was right there before her eyes. Now, with so much going on, the physician felt like she was running out of time. Ingrid was due to lead an army of slime-people against the would-be Peanut-Prince in just days.
"I wanted to ask about the spell... or whatever you used on the slime-people," Drew burbled. The witch frowned at the paper in her hands. "What are you, twelve," she asked? Drew goggled at her. "You make it sound like I carry a magic wand and mumble hocus-pocus," Maja growled. She was angry. She was angry about something. The witch was a very prickly individual on most days, and Drew scarcely understood what Finn saw in her. The child-like persona had been very sweet and charming, but 'adult' Maja was cold, calculating, and hostile. Adding anger to the mix ratcheted up the risk.
"Alright," said the doctor, "since I don't want to waste your time, I'll cut to the chase." She launched into the sort of technical diatribe that had, on more than one occasion, left Finn staring at her as if she'd gone mad. She wasn't quite as bad as Bonnibel. She prided herself on not spouting incomprehensible drivel that a layman had no hope of understanding. At the same time, she hoped this woman, with her far-sharper mind, would understand.
Maja listened in clear impatience as the tall woman wrapped up her babbling. Shaking her head in disgust, the witch declared, "you don't know what you're talking about." Coldly, the sorceress said, "there is no possible way to change a hundred-thousand people in one night by altering their biochemical structure at the molecular level as you just suggested. It would have killed me to do that to just one slime person. I used the latent humanoid DNA left over from their ancestors and initiated a cascading evolutionary sequence, using a simple local acceleration of the time-stream to speed the process up."
Drew goggled at the sorceress. She didn't know what was more shocking–that explanation, or the cold way the witch gave it. The witch's expression was almost smug, as she regarded the physician. "You have your answer," said she. Of course that answer brought more questions. "It's unbelievably risky to play with genetic material that way," the doctor protested! "There could be a thousand deadly side-effects..."
Rolling her eyes in irritation, the witch growled, "Drew, do you imagine I wanted my army to drop dead two weeks after I created it?" The terrified doctor shut up. Severely, Maja told her, "I'm busy. I don't have time for pointless questions. There's nothing wrong with the slime-people. You're wasting time better spent on the children." Swallowing hard, Drew turned to go. As her hand touched the door, the evil woman said, "I'm a diagnosed obsessive-compulsive, Drew. I'm no more capable of half-ass doing something than you are. Does that make you feel better?" Nodding, Drew replied, "a little. I'm sorry for bothering you." "It's alright," Maja replied. "Just don't let it happen again."
In the Turtle Kingdom, the King of Ooo was climbing into a limousine for the long ride out to the rock quarries. He was toting his wife of long years, alongside one of his newest. His sister-in-law and long-time friend was along for the ride. And he had E's annoying advisors squished into the car too. Fortunately, this wasn't the good old days with his two wives and three kids squished into his beat-up old truck. One of the small blessings of his new life was that he had this beautiful car to conduct business, letting him manage this.
The King Of Ooo got pride of place, of course. His bodyguard saw to that. Once he'd sat himself in the car, Emeraude climbed in and settled herself on his right, while Breakfast sat herself on his left with their son in her arms. Toast occupied one of the jump seats on the driver's side, with Holly, Prunella, Clarice, and Gemma filling in on either side of the car. When everyone was inside, the King's bodyguard slid the door shut and went and climbed into the passenger seat at the front.
The car lurched into motion, and the drive wove his way in and out around the early-morning traffic in the town square. The conversation from earlier continued, with the King chatting back and forth with his wives. He was a little surprised that the family had kept the whole 'Emeraude is Pregnant' thing so quiet. "I asked Simone not to say anything," the Matriarch murmured. "I wanted to be the one to tell you." Teasing, he said, "catching up..." That made her laugh. Toast chimed in, asking her sister, "are you going to catch up? You're sort of behind with only one." The older sister flushed to her pale white hair. "Maybe," she mumbled.
As the limousine made the highway, headed out of town, their adversary sat behind a writing desk staring out at the six men gathered there. These were the best she had left. Fedir had hand-picked them for the job. Her best men had died down in the tunnels in Emerald Kingdom, leaving her with nothing but the dregs of her organization. The man on the left had a licorice habit. The one on the right drank too much. The remainder were mere boys. But this was what she had. Vengeance was becoming a whole lot of work.
"The books are showing tonight at eight," she said. "We're going to do it just like we planned it." Just like Fedir had planned it. She was coming to trust him a little too much, but she had so little material to work with these days. She'd had no idea just how bad things were until she got down to the business of running this job. Peihong was right. They needed to move this thing along. He only got stronger as they got weaker. "Do you understand," she asked? One breath. Two. The men nodded. They knew the consequences of failure. It was time to get down to business.
The King of Ooo returned to the town as the sun was setting, having had a productive day at the quarries. Most everyone was in a good mood, having eaten well on the trip. Finn had bargained the master of the quarries down to a cut-rate price for his stone, and he'd sprung for a delicious meal at a home near the quarries, leaving not even Gemma with anything to complain of. As the limousine pulled onto the square before the hotel, the gathering was in fine fettle. The pack of women were chattering away in excited and amiable tones, and, for once, the Notorious Huntress Wizard didn't feel like slagging any of them, Breakfast included.
Holding his wives' hands, the big man went up the stairs to the hotel with his mad little entourage in tow. Men on the square and in the hotel lobby all stopped and stared at the pack of beautiful women following the tall stranger as he headed for the elevator, some in envy, while others shook their heads in disgust or amusement at his foolishness. Upstairs, the Matriarch of the Grey Forest sent her coven of annoying councilors to their quarters, suggesting they find things to occupy them for the night. She went upstairs with her husband. It was date night, for the first time in forever.
To Toast's ever-lasting shock, Finn took both his wives and dragged them into the master bedroom, leaving her alone in the parlor with her nephew. The King hauled a somewhat embarrassed Breakfast into the showers, where he had a grand time soaping up his wives' hot bodies. Not that there was any real time for anything more than that. Showered and dressed once more, they came out to find Pomfrit napping in his crib and Toast snoozing in a chair in the corner. "Where we eating," Finn asked? Immediately, Emeraude responded, "there's a nice place you can take us down the street, donk." It was at once a glaring reminder of what they'd lost and a suggestion that, somehow, things hadn't really changed. With Toast in tow, the quartet headed out, leaving Pomfrit with the maid.
The restaurant Emeraude picked had such savory smells that the foursome were all but drooling when they finally got through the door. Finn's stomach rumbled noisily in spite of the fact that he'd eaten heartily at the quarry, and Breakfast teased him about getting fat. Diplomatically, the King of Ooo decided not to tease her back for the baby-weight she still had from Pomfrit–a fact that Toast couldn't help but notice. He took the ribbing of both Breakfast and Emeraude like a man, never hitting back, when he so clearly could have, and the little woman couldn't help thinking that her sister was very fortunate. Indeed, as dinner wrapped up, the King of Ooo bought a trio of roses off the establishment, offering one to each of his companions before settling the bill. Out on the street, Toast found herself glancing back and forth from the rose in her hands to the man who'd given it to her, as the Matriarch asked, "where to now, donk?" With his customary grin, Finn replied, "surprise."
Back in the limo, the King gave orders to the driver to take them to the last stop of the night, which turned out to be the largest auction-house in the town. Toast had only been to this place twice, and one of those was with her parents. Standing on the street, both of the King's wives gave him identical uneasy looks. "I... can't afford to go," murmured Emeraude. "The Matriarch can't afford to go," said Finn, "but Finn's wife can do as she pleases." Taking their hands, he half dragged them up the stairs to the door, leaving his bodyguard with the car. Tonight was date-night, after all. Toast giggled as she rushed after them.
Inside, they found the cream of Ooo society strolling around in the auction hall's grand atrium. With his wives at his side, the big man waded right in, wallet ready to hand. In short order, Emeraude came up with a wizarding tome that looked to have been penned four centuries in the past. When Finn paid for it without batting an eye, Toast eagerly started scoping out something for herself. Resting a hand on Breakfast's shoulder, the King said, "your mistakes aren't reason for you to be punished for the rest of your life." Twining his fingers in hers, the big man stepped off, headed for the trashy book section. Breakfast, he knew, had an addiction to ancient romance books, the trashier the better.
As the King walked his wife through the rows of steamy old books filled with pages of buff men loving vulnerable women, hostile eyes watched from the periphery of the crowd. It was almost time. The thugs had slipped into the gathering singly and in pairs to avoid attracting notice. Some had come early and spent hours here. Others had joined the growing lines at the door. The primary action was in the back, where people with more money than sense were going to pay top dollar to buy forgotten books that might better have been left buried.
Breakfast was just reaching for a book–one she'd searched for over years–when gunshots rang out in the next room. Almost immediately, the auction house's hired-guards sprang into action, rushing towards the auction room. That was when four mercenaries who'd been hidden in the crowd opened fire, laying them out as they rushed to the sounds of the guns. A voice in Finn's head argued with him about rushing into this. This wasn't really his fight, was it? The men in the auction hall ran out to the sounds of screams, and still the big man argued with himself. His wives were here.
In the midst of the chaos, the thieves fought their way to the door, carrying sacks of books slung over their shoulders. One of the men clubbed a turtle who failed to clear out of the way fast enough, smashing the butt of his rifle into the side of the female's head. In the blink of an eye, Finn was standing before the man, slicing through his arm with the grass-sword, just before driving his blade up into the man's heart. The mercs, who'd been completely unaware of him until that moment, turned to face the new threat, and Finn squared up to meet them. And that was when Sybil chose to abandon him.
Just as it had at the crystal prison, the grass-sword tore free of his arm. Only this time, he wasn't trying to grapple with a floating platform. The sword had consciously chosen to leave him. The pain of that left him in shock, and he found himself falling. "I warned you," the creature shrieked! "I warned you!" The strange being that was the grass-sword shoved its way through the crowd, leaving him there on the ground. The startled thugs stared a moment. Angered by the loss of their comrade, one of the men leveled his rifle at the King of Ooo. As his finger fell on the trigger, Breakfast threw herself in his way. "You wanna' die, bitch," growled the thug?! But the fallen princess refused to move. She stood there shielding her husband with her body. "We gotta' go," shouted another mercenary. Shouting curses, the angry man shouldered his rifle, as the thugs tore out of there.
Moments later, Emeraude reached Finn's side, finding the two sisters kneeling over him, with an inconsolable Breakfast sobbing in pain and anguish. Toast had to hold her sister back, as Emeraude reached for Finn's throat. "Got a pulse," she muttered. "We need to get him out of here." Finn's phone, which had been buzzing ineffectually in his pocket, grabbed the wizard's attention. Fumbling in his pocket, the Matriarch came up with the phone, toggling it on, as she shouted, "go!" It was the King's bodyguard. In anxious tones, he asked them what was going on? "Finn's down," said Emeraude. "Need you here fast. We're in the main hall... Out on the main aisle."
It took twenty precious minutes for the bodyguard to reach their side. Breakfast shouted at him and cursed him. Finn had insisted on being alone with his ladies, but that hardly seemed to matter at the moment. Being much calmer from her years as Huntress Wizard, the Matriarch took charge, ordering the bodyguard to pick her husband up and carry him. It was a little incongruous for the pregnant woman to take point, but none of the women were going to be strong enough to carry the King to safety.
The vile recriminations began almost immediately as word reached the rest of the family in the Candy Kingdom. An airship got immediately dispatched to the Turtle Kingdom to retrieve the King, while the Cabinet went into emergency-mode to figure out what they were going to do both that night and in the morning when the rest of the Princess Privy Council found out what had happened to the King of Ooo. In the Grey Forest, Billy awoke between Rags and Abeiuwa to find his phone ringing off the hook. They'd turned in early for a little fun between the sheets after having a pleasant evening together as a family. Fighting his way clear of the sheets, the young hero climbed out from between the pair and rushed to where he'd left the phone on its charger. "Go," he answered. As Abeiuwa yawned and stretched, Ragnhild focused on their husband–or, more precisely, the worried tone in his voice.
"I see," he said. "I understand..." There was a pause. "The last two miles of barrier remain unfinished, "he said. "Fi's in post-natal..." Shaking his head, he told the caller, "Apolline's in charge. Gemma went with the Matriarch." The young man began to pace. "No, I think she's trustworthy. Voletta will be angling to go grab the Matriarch, but she'll get shutdown..." There was another pause. "Olesia's with Ingrid," Billy replied. Nodding, as if in response to the person who'd called, he said, "I understand. Grab Fi and get on a plane for home." He hung up.
And the Grass Sword takes a powder, leaving Finn in the lurch. And now Peihong and Chelsea have their Doomsday Books. Wonder what's inside?