Chapter 26:
"Clean," announced the doctor. Finn wasted not a moment on angst or excess conversation. The word had barely left Drew's mouth before the big man wrapped those long, ape-like arms around his doctor and pulled her to him, locking his lips to hers as if he never got sex. Drew grabbed his left hand and put it on her ass. This earthy, lusty man was the man she'd fallen in love with. "Get a room," Orzsebet muttered, as she pushed by. Finn stared at the skinny spy-girl's retreating back, his mind conjuring up images of torture. Who'd tortured his spymaster? Why? And, most importantly, when?
Laying her head on his shoulder, Drew said, "you need to get into that..." "She's not my type," Finn retorted. Drew sputtered, her face going red hot, making him laugh. Stroking his rough, battered face, the doctor said, "you'd probably need a condom to keep it from falling off." There had been a video circulating around of Orzsebet in a strip-club letting men jerk off on her. It was every kind of nasty. Finn blushed and glanced away, shocked that his doctor had heard of that. "I'll check into things," he said. "Right now she's doing good work for me, but I'm not sure I trust her."
Sarah brushed by, announcing, "I'll do some digging. Maybe I can find out what's going on with her..." It was more of the same. "She's hiding something," Finn rumbled. "She's suffering some kind of emotional breakdown, Finn," Drew sighed. Everybody had noticed. "Bonnie's being very tight-lipped about what's going on there," said the doctor. "I've been pleading with her to do something." It was far outside of Drew's swimlane. She had every kind of test imaginable for a humanoid going through an emotional crisis and an array of pills to get them through the bumps. She had no idea what to do for a woman who was almost entirely artificial. "I'll press the issue," Finn promised. Stroking his chest with her long, delicate fingers, the lovely doctor murmured, "don't work too late. I'll see you tonight..." "Promise," he agreed. The King's bodyguard latched onto him the minute he was out of the isolation room. There had been one good piece of things the last few days. He'd had peace. No bodyguards in sight, and, if his food-taster was still on the job, Finn hadn't had to watch the loon eat half his dinner. Now he was back to his unpleasant grind, dealing with the fallout of a life that was no longer his to control.
As the pair strode up to the limo in the basement, the big man's mind was already on the things that had to get done today between the happy now and the happy tonight when he would see Drew. First item on the agenda: Check up on Blargetha. He'd left the slime-princess to her own devices for quite a while now, trusting Sarah to keep tabs on her. Then he'd taken the android-woman with him to Rebirth Island to prevent a disaster of epic proportions, and that had landed them in this miserable place after the fact. Blargetha had been running open-loop, and it was time to get her reined in.
The King of Ooo rolled into the garage under Bonnie's place as the sun was climbing the sky towards noon. For once, Bonnie wasn't immediately hunting him, and that gave the big man hope that he could get some stuff done before she pig-piled on him. He knew Billy was holding down the fort, but he couldn't help an honest fear of all that wasn't getting done while he was trapped in that glass bubble. The big man found himself all but slinking through the halls of the palace, doing his best to avoid people who might be looking for him.
The genius was, per usual, down in the laboratory. Honestly, he didn't keep much of a guard on her. The paranoid piece of him worried at that–at what she might be doing when she wasn't actively being watched. He had trust in Maja's word. Maja had sworn herself to him. As long as he kept his word to her, he had no fear of what the witch might or might not be doing. Blargetha was another story entirely. She'd said it. She would always be trying to free herself. At the same time, he had a bit of an ace, didn't he. He could kill her with only a thought.
The laboratory was cleaner than the last time he'd been down here. The circuit-boards were stacked in boxes, and it looked like she'd been burning the midnight oil. It calmed his worries some, though he really would have wanted to have Sarah check up on things anyway. As he stepped through the door, a chime went off, and the evil princess glanced up from the soldering station. "Oh," she burbled. "It's you." Striding over, the big man asked, "what's that for?" He almost asked who gave her permission.
With a shrug, the fallen princess replied, "Hurletta comes down when you're not here." The King of Ooo frowned at her. "We're not exactly friends, Finn," Blargetha remarked, as she went back to what she was doing. He wanted to refute that. Hurletta understood his wishes. She's hurting, Finn, he thought. Could Hurletta have a relapse? It was all too possible. It was even likely. He didn't want 'Letta to murder Blargetha, as much for her own good as for Finn's need to keep the evil genius around. More to the point, he feared Blargetha murdering Hurletta, even in self defense.
"I'll speak to your sister," Finn rumbled. Blargetha chuckled as if he'd told a funny one. "What does that mean," he muttered? "She's pretty now," Blargetha replied, as if that explained everything. It took a moment. The King snatched the nasty bitch out of her chair, growling, "be careful what you say..." She gave him an insolent look, almost daring him to carry through on his threat. "We've had this conversation before, King of Ooo," Blargetha whispered. He was vulnerable. He was a vulnerable man who had trouble not loving women he was close to. He had trouble not trying to satisfy their whims, and there were moments when he offered up things to them to soothe their battered psyches. Even when those things were just as wretched as whatever those women had just experienced.
Finn let go, stepping back out of her space. Blargetha didn't let him get far. Stepping back into his space, the plush princess said, "I trust the King's word. I'm keeping mine. We have a deal. I'm sticking to it..." Trouble was, what was he doing to honor his piece of the bargain. Stepping back, she turned and said, "I've got most of the control boards made. Sarah ran tests on the design already, so I'm confident they'll work. I need materials for a prototype unit. Who do I talk to...?" Shaking off the strange feeling he had, the big man rumbled, "Lollipop. She's handling... things..." Nodding, as she sat herself back at the soldering station, the plump woman said, "it will take me six more weeks to build out the supply of robot-ships after we've had the first test... assuming nothing goes badly wrong..."
Finn rumbled, "wrong?" "Nobody's done this in a thousand years, Finn," Blargetha replied. "Certainly not on this scale. Bonnie's done her robot-soldiers, but nobody's built flying machines like this in a thousand years. Even Nadia's people had to rebuild the old wrecks that were left over from before the Mushroom War." Turning to face him, she said, "it's kind of refreshing... It's funny, in a way. All I ever really wanted was to tinker, but that's not what a princess is allowed to do."
Finn flushed and glanced away. He didn't like this human Blargetha. He didn't like to think of her as a person because people had reasons for the ugly things they sometimes did, and he didn't want to discover the reasons Blargetha might have handed her sister over for Wildberry's goons to abuse. "See Lollipop for money to get the materials you need," the big man muttered, as he turned to go. Standing at the door, the big man announced, "I will have a guard posted when I'm not present in the castle so that you are not disturbed, Princess Blargetha." "Good day, Your Majesty," Blargetha replied, as she turned back to her work.
Elsewhere in the palace, another unpleasant conversation was just getting started as Sarah rushed into her quarters to gather on some clean clothing prior to rushing back down to the lab. Slime-bitch was running open-loop, and Finn had been counting on her to keep the bitch in check. She had to get downstairs to make sure Blargetha was doing what she was supposed to be doing. After that, she had business of her own to finish. The project to restore the ruined soil in the wasteland was going resolutely nowhere, and she really needed to get back to it. Lives were depending on her.
Striding into the cubby she'd been keeping for quarters, she found the place empty of the few possessions she'd accumulated in the last year or so. Puzzled, the android-hottie stood there, staring a moment. Peps, she thought? They weren't on the best of terms right now, and she knew threatening him had been a pretty dumb idea. "I moved your things," Bonnie announced. Sarah's face whipped around. "This isn't healthy," said the candy-monarch. "I moved your things to a proper space." Sarah sighed. It appeared they were about to have that conversation she'd been ducking for months.
Following Bonnie's swaying backside down to the elevator, the android-girl kept on searching for a way out. It was illogical in the extreme, and she knew it. Part of her would have cursed her emotions for getting her into this mess. It was easier to be a machine. Nothing came to mind, though, as the two stepped off the elevator at the garden level. Sarah found herself following Bonnie into one of the dining nooks in the garden, where Peppermint Butler had tea already laid out. With a heavy sigh, Sarah sat down, digging in for a confrontation.
Bonnie did nothing of the sort–at least at first. She sat herself, smoothing her skirts as she did so. "Surprised you're still wearing pants," she murmured, as she poured the tea. Sarah flushed. Then, "I like it." She liked that men saw her as beautiful. Bonnie sighed. Somewhere along the way, she'd lost that. Maybe she'd gotten traumatized or something. She got uncomfortable when men looked at her. The only person who didn't creep her out was Finn.
"How did it go," asked the Candy-Monarch? "We got there just in time," Sarah replied. "It's... It's not quite what you thought." Resting her elbows on the table, the android-girl explained, "it took Finn's eyes to connect the dots. The virus was a military weapon. Baba-Yaga confirmed it for us." Bonnie leaned forward. Nodding, Sarah said, "it got away from her. Rose was probably its creator. She may have accidentally infected herself." "Wow," Bonnie murmured. She'd known the Skeleton Princess for centuries. "She's dieing, Bonnie," Sarah murmured. "She's in the final stages, I think."
"Were there samples," the Candy-Monarch asked? "No," Sarah replied. "Rose is Patient Zero." "It's inside her," Bonnie agreed. "Her leg, maybe?" "Yeah," Sarah replied. "Finn figured it out." Finn had told Bonnie the story of taking the leg back to Rose when Ice-King stole it. He'd had nightmares of that place. "We had no idea how close we came to hell on earth," Bonnie sighed. Finn and Jake had carried the Skeleton Princess's leg in a simple sack. They could have caught the virus and become horrific monsters. She'd have lost one of the defining pieces of her life. "Finn put her out of reach," said Sarah. "He and Talia used the Curse to create a forest of demonic grass and trees to wall off the lab."
"I'm glad you all came back safe," Bonnie murmured. "I haven't been good with saying this, Sarah, but you have value to me." The younger woman flushed and glanced away. "I'm here for you," Bonnie declared. "I... haven't been good with that. I'm kind of a jerk sometimes, I know, but I want to help. I know... you're going through some stuff." "You've talked to Marcie," Sarah muttered.
Setting down her teacup, Bonnie looked her precocious creation in the eye and said, "you're going through the exact same thing I had to go through..." Sarah glanced up sharply. In gentle tones, Bonnie told her sort-of child, "I had to go through this for the first time when I was eighty-five. That was when my friends started dieing. It was the first time I realized something was different about me." Sarah's expression went bleak as her creator talked about what it was like to stand at those gravesides and cry. "As you're doubtless aware, Marceline was and is absolutely no help," said Bonnie. Sarah knew. Marceline had raised herself in the aftermath of doomsday. She'd had no-one to teach her about basic humanity.
"I had to learn to cope, Sarah," said Bonnie. "You work," Sarah murmured. Bonnie fenced off her heart and threw herself into work. "I-I can't," Sarah said, as the tears started to fall. "You don't have a choice," Bonnie replied. "Entropy dictates that everything returns to dust, babe. We both know that." "I barely know how to love, and you want me to give it up," Sarah sobbed?! "I'm telling you how to protect yourself," Bonnie retorted! Shooting to her feet, the android girl shouted, "why did you make me?!" She was running just like that. Bonnie sighed heavily as she stared at where the other woman had sat. It had gone about as well as expected which was to say, not well at all.
Finn, meanwhile, had headed upstairs, managing to slip into his office while Breakfast was out looking after their kids or something. Talia's words to him at Rose's place had struck a nerve. There was a lot he didn't know about the world right now. There were ugly things buried in hidden places all over Ooo. The Royals were in control of a lot of it, but even there, his knowledge of just what they had in their hands was limited. Rags guarded something, but Finn had no idea what it was. Vague things Princess Beautiful let slip suggested that the very thing she'd been meant to guard had been the thing that ended her life on Ooo. What was it? He didn't know, but the thought terrified him.
First the Lich and now the Bandit Princess had launched wars aimed at gathering in those forgotten weapons, so the obvious question was, what else was there? How much did Bandit Princess know? What was his risk level? Talia's secret could shatter the world, but he thought most of the other secrets were relatively small scale. Still, when there were deadly secrets like the Zombie Plague floating around, he felt like he had little time to lose.
Picking up his phone, he dialed up Nadia. He needed a ride. He needed to get out to the one person on Ooo who might have the knowledge he sought. There's two, Finn, he reminded himself. Talia's mysterious friend also dated back to the time before the bombs, and she was possibly guarding something that the Bandit Princess wanted. He needed the answer to that question too. He needed to know what it was that Katsumi had in her possession that met the scale of destruction that Bandit Princess seemed to desire. "C'mon, Nadia," the big man rumbled, as the phone rang and rang.
He hung up and paused, wondering if he ought to call again. She could be in some kind of big meeting of her people. Of course, at the same time, this wasn't just a booty-call. He needed her help to solve a world-shaking problem. As he was reaching for the phone to dial again, there came a knocking at the door. Fuck, he thought! He'd hoped to get this trip put together before Bonnie or somebody else came knocking with something that needed his attention right-freakin'-now.
"Come in," he muttered. "You don't sound very welcoming," Strudel declared, as she stepped through his door. "Oh, Strudel," he burbled, face gone hot. "Didn't realize it was you, babe. Listen... I'm sorry... I'm..." The little breakfast cutie came strolling towards him, wearing a coat as if she'd been outside, which was a little odd. "This is important too," she said, as she stopped in front of his desk. "Ok," he said. "I'm sorry if I haven't been giving you attention..." And he was genuinely sorry. He'd been intending to 'work on that'. That was key to shutting the baby-thing down for good. If everybody had one...
Walking around the desk, Strudel put on a pouty face, saying, "you didn't put a baby in me." Finn flushed to his hair. "I'm your wife too," pouted Strudel, "and I need an heir." As she said that, she shrugged off the coat she'd been wearing, revealing she was naked underneath, the cool air on her hot little body, making her firm little tits erect. Finn's jaw dropped. At the same time, his pecker lurched in his pants. There were people who said it was a little nasty that he was banging Breakfast and Strudel both. Moments like this, it was hard to give a fuck!
As Strudel moved in on her husband, Nieve the Muscle-Princess returned from a long walk around the palace gardens to the suite she'd been given. Her quarters here were considerably smaller than she was accustomed to. It was another of those things that she was infuriated by. She felt trapped in this place, and her own family was forcing her to stay on. The only consolation was her maid. Marisol was almost a member of the family. Her mother had served Nieve's mother until her retirement.
Marisol had meal-prep done and waiting. Moving into her bedroom, the young princess began climbing out of her clothes to take a shower. Marisol had already laid out a fresh track suit and a clean hoodie for her to wear. Moving into her bathroom, the tall beauty stopped stock-still as she caught sight of the message written in her own lipstick on the mirror. Her scream brought Marisol running. "Miss," Marisol shouted?! "What ails ye?!"
Nieve pointed. The young maid frowned. "W-where were you," Nieve demanded? "Who did you let in?" "Was down the hall at the linen closet," Marisol replied. "Locked the door, jist like ye said. 'Course don't know that others ain't got a key... Like that weird peppermint feller..." A profoundly disturbed Nieve wandered out to her bedroom and all but fell onto the bed. The maid wiped the mirror clean and disposed of the ruined lipstick before exiting the bath to find her boss.
"D'ja talk t'the mister," asked Marisol? "Tell him about what's been happening?" "That man hit me," Nieve retorted. "But he's your hubby," Marisol replied. "He's sworn to take care of you..." "I want nothing to do with that man," Nieve howled! "Never speak his name!" Marisol came over and sat beside the young woman. Offering her a hug, the maid said, "I put a little extra sugar in your tea. Come and eat."
Back downstairs, Toast Princess, the King's Minister for Sustenance, barged into his office as if she was at home, shutting the door behind herself. Her sister was absent and probably doing something typically pointless like getting her hair done while her husband was in an isolation ward. "Hey, Finn," Toast greeted her old friend. "Uh... hey... uh Toast," a startled Finn babbled, as he squirmed in his chair. Toast knew that look. It was the look of a man who'd gotten caught sneaking a piece of ass. She well knew it because she'd had more than a few guys in that position over the years. She'd sucked off her sister's husband behind his desk while Breakfast was just steps away.
Striding forward, she said, "wanted to talk to you about something." "Uh... yeah... Uh, I'll come out and...," Finn stammered. "No need to get up," Toast replied. "I don't mind if we talk while you get a blowjob." Finn's face went red-hot. As Toast came around the desk, her eyes took in the sight of her little sister there with her sweet little lips wrapped around Finn's fat knob. "Not bad, sis," said Toast. "Not bad at all. But you should play with his balls too."
Without a further word, she reached back, unzipped her dress, and let it fall, baring her hot little body to Finn's hungry eyes. Kneeling down, she slurped Finn's heavy ballsack into her mouth and began sucking on it. With a hiss of pleasure, Finn shot off in Strudel's mouth. When the two sisters pulled back, Finn was in a state of shock. "I want my baby," murmured Strudel. "I want you to fuck your baby into me..." With a nasty grin, Toast replied, "oh, I'll make sure you get a baby..."
Hundreds of miles to the east, a rag-tag band of fugitives shook themselves out for the afternoon's activities. They were cold, miserable, and hungry, having spent the night in the icy chill stirring terror in the remote villages of the Lizard Kingdom. Their distant master kept them here on threat of liquidating their families. They had to keep the King of Ooo's attention focused on this place. That meant mimicking the sights and signs on an army. They had to keep the illusion of an army here.
Between rounds of scaring up whatever wild food they could catch or trap, they chopped down wood to build bonfires. They would drag and carry and haul wood to remote locations around the Lizard Kingdom capitol in furtherance of the scheme. Those fires got moved every day and reset every night, creating the illusion of a rogue army marching around the Lizard Kingdom, threatening the Lizard Princess's subjects. It was brutal, back-breaking work, and the men were exhausted and close to their breaking point. Their leader sat on a rock, staring at their seed-fire, wondering how he and his people had gotten into this mess.
Unfortunately for him, his problems were about to get much worse.
The seed fire flared to sudden, shocking life, startling the exhausted men, many of whom were fighting sleep in a vain effort to avoid freezing to death. As the first of the startled men climbed to his feet with some vague idea of getting the fire back under control, a slim, yet curvy figure stepped out of the flames. One startled man found himself ogling a pretty teenager that reminded him of his wife's niece. Curvy and stacked, with mouth-watering knockers, the girl stood there, naked as a jaybird, wearing a sinister smile.
"Finally," growled Marysia Okonski, as she took in the sight of her quarry. She'd been chasing these fucking guys for days. Cunty Lina had been riding her for days to chase down the source of the mysterious bonfires. Masia didn't know if the bitchy cyborg suspected something, but now the young elemental saw that there was no army. It was just these jokers running around starting fires. Stepping out of the fire, conjuring suitably pretty clothes as she did so, the young girl almost put her foot immediately wrong, as a quick-thinking soldier grabbed the water cask and hurled it at her. With a shriek of terror, Masia dodged aside, as the heavy cask smashed into the ground, splashing water on her.
The fight was on then. Clothes forgotten, the elemental hurled bolts of fire at her assailant. Six men decamped, tearing off into the wilderness. The elemental slew two of them before the men before her tried to kill her again. Ducking back through the seed-fire, as they hurled coffee and cold water at her, she bounced out through a torch, hurling flaming bolts at four more men. Two men ducked behind stones to save themselves, clutching waterskins.
Fuck, Masia thought. This was supposed to be a surprise. She'd intended to just jump them. The whole thing was already going off the rails. Some of them had gotten away. The others had taken up the few weapons they had that could hurt her. And now they were under cover. And, to top things off, she was fucking naked, and the creeps were peepin' her bod! Her first thought was to get back to the palace, but Lina was waiting there. Lina was waiting with her nasty insinuations that Olesia was the smarter, stronger sister.
"Surrender," growled the young princess. "You can't win. That water won't help you. I can..." What she could didn't quite get said. Six men jumped up at once and hurled blocks of ice at her. She was barely able to knock down five of them, and the sixth grazed her, causing her left arm to go dead. Screaming, the young woman hurled her spite at the six, killing four of them. The rest got away, ducking back behind boulders.
Back in the Candy Palace, Finn sat riveted to his chair, with Toast sitting in his lap, while his wife was sitting on the desk. Somehow, in spite of the fact that Strudel was supposed to be getting a baby, it was Toast who was riding his dick. She'd pulled a giant rubber dick out of her purse and proceeded to put on a very raunchy show in front of him. Then, claiming that he was so wound up, he might pop before he actually got his pecker in Strudel's snatch, she'd proceeded to climb into his lap and slide her hot snatch down over his dick.
Between the sight of Strudel running a giant rubber dick in and out of her snatch, and the feel of Toast's pussy squeezing his meat as she slowly rode him, the big man was going crazy. "T-t... babe," shouted Finn! He was about to blow! Softly, the middle sister moaned, "go ahead, Finn. That's what I stopped by for. So you could get me pregnant." That took the top of his head off! Finn grabbed her surging hips and slammed his pecker in deep once... twice... On the third stroke, he shot off, spraying her good. Toast eased off Finn's well-satisfied cock. Looking down on his now-flaccid pecker with an expression of mock dismay, she burbled, "that won't do. Kiss her, while I fluff this up..."
Back in the Lizard Kingdom, Lina sat working on the surveys for the soil under the beach. They'd surveyed the site for the northern wall out to a distance of two-hundred feet off the beach. They were already looking basically at deep water at that point, and there was always the possibility of sinking barges laden with stone to build a base to lay a concrete breakwater. Work on the south end wasn't going as fast. There was much more sand on that end of town, but they were still making progress.
*Lina,* announced Thedya. The stacked cyborg looked up to see the fire in the fireplace sputtering. Frowning, she stared at that in puzzlement for a moment. It took a moment. Quickly grabbing one of the gadgets from the table beside her, she scanned for the temporal disturbance that usually signified Olesia passing through a fire. "Throw some logs on the fire," she shouted, as she shot to her feet. There were a few puzzled glances, but Thedya was on the job. Rushing down the hall, snatching up an armload of firewood on the run, she dumped the wood on the fire.
Just in time. The fire flared just then, and Marysia staggered out. The young elemental stood there a moment, naked as the day she was born, her skin covered in ugly black and purple splotches like wounds. Then she was toppling, falling flat on her face at the skinny girl's feet. Lina rushed up and threw an asbestos blanket over her. Scooping Marysia up, the sexy cyborg carried the the young elemental out of the hall, trusting in the strange damping field her brother had left behind.
No dick for Drew. Looks like Finn will be too tired. Sarah melts down. Marysia gets frozen out. And Blargetha has a plan.