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- 2 -

Two Tickets to Paradise

Verse 3

Finn and Susan made their way out of the Candy Kingdom to the old site of taffy tree stumps, where Finn and Jake found the hatch to the Hyooman settlement. Along the way, they were telling each other of random adventures, random jokes, how things were after the return to Beautopia, and eating random snacks, such as, candy corn...kettle corn...mini corndogs...kettle shaped candy corn...mini candy corndogs inside of edible kettles...and kale, for fiber.

At the hatch, Finn brought a temporary hold to their journey. "Hold up." he said, just as Susan was planting her feet upon the ladder and wading into the darkness.

"What's up, Finn?" Susan queried, puzzled.

Finn put his pack down upon the outer drum of the sealed shaft (which he slid off his arm, because he'd gotten too big for it to fit over his body) and began rummaging through it. "...Aha!" he said, as his hands plucked something from within and brought it into the light.

Susan put a hand to her mouth, when she saw what it was. "But, I brought a flashlight..."

Finn went ahead and lit the lantern up anyway and presented it before her with a wide, playful smile. "...Magic...of red flower?" he said, using his own voice but Susan's old-style, broken cadence.

Susan chuckled in reply.

Moments later, they were trekking through the ruins of the Hyoomans' old emergency settlement, with Susan and Finn giggling, as she gave her "Long ago...Hyoomans lived in Beautopia..." speech. It was damn near impossible for the speech to finish, with Susan telling Finn, intermittently, to "Gshh...shut up! Let me finish!". It wasn't too long, however, until she finished up her little story and they finally got to the water's edge, where the settlement's livable real estate became scarce and fell off into the 'sea' of darkness. This was also the castoff point where Susan originally found out that Finn didn't have gills.

"...Heyyyou're not gonna try to drown me again, are you?" Finn asked, half-serious, half jokingly. But, when Susan erupted with laughter, Finn was dragged along with her into the fit of howling hilarity.

"Just shut up and put down the freaking boat, will ya?" Susan demanded, through a harsh, unstoppable flow of giggles.

"Heheh, arright, Suuse." Finn replied.

Finn then put down the lantern and his...shoulder bag, to begin rustling through its contents, yet again. He retrieved the object that Princess Bubblegum had given them, before they left. It was a small wooden box...crafted from white and bittersweet chocolate tree bark, that had the simple, goldish caption "Inflatable Raft" written upon its lid. Finn broke off the lid and began to eat it, while he surveyed what was inside. Within was a large, marshmallow pillow, upon which was settled what looked to be a pink and white medicine pill. The ominous thing had a slight glow of its own, quite visible in the darkness, even with the lantern's light shining upon it. Along with the pill was a printed card, made of rice foam, which Finn picked up and read.

'Drop into water.' was all it said.

"...mmOkay. Seems clear enough..." Finn replied, somewhat doubtful but still trusting in Bonnibel's ingenuity.

Finn stuffed the lightly sweetened rice foam cracker into his mouth, which dissolved as it broke up upon his teeth and tongue. After ripping apart another part of the box, along with part of the giant marshmallow pillow, he took the pill and dropped it into the water ahead of them. He then handed the portion of chocolate bark and marshmallow to Susan and said, "Let's see what happens, I guess."

"...'Kay." was all Susan could say. Well, that and "Mmm..." after she began chowing down on the nice, crunchy flank of creamy chocolate bark and the subtly flavored strawberry marshmallow.

The water before them began to bubble and fizz and a glow began pulsing brightly in the depths, as if a burning meteor had just speared itself into the liquid darkness. As Finn and Susan finished up the last of the 'wooden' box, a few sparks and streams of thin lightning shot out from the bubbling bulge of water, and then, after a mist slowly flew away from the area in question, a big, swan shaped boat presented itself. There was a large, paddle wheel where its tail was supposed to be, and, within its back was a sunken area, filled with silky, red cushioning, large enough to seat about five average sized people. It was well spacious enough to accommodate Finn and Susan.

"...Oooooohkay. That was...cool...I think." Finn replied, playing off his shock. The thing that threw him off the most was that the boat looked fairly luxurious, for an emergency craft. He placed a foot on the edge of the swan, gently dragged the massive object towards them as best he could, to close the gap between land and boat, and extended his hand to Susan. "Uh...ladies...first?"

"Heheheh, why thank you, Finn." Susan replied, taking his outstretched hand and carefully boarding the craft.

Susan began getting a look at the boat, while Finn gathered up his bag and the lantern. "What's it look like in there?" Finn asked. "Is it like a paddle duckie or something?"

"Toootally not." Susan called back with a mouth full of shock and awe. Finn soon saw why.

In the front, housed in the breast of the giant, mechanical beast, was a full, electronic navigational system, with several monitors, a bat-shaped steering wheel, a throttle, and even a stick with a few triggers and buttons sprouting from it. "This...is no ordinary swan, that's for sure." was all Finn could say, soon noting that one or two of the monitors was displaying infrared or heat vision and also had an open set of crosshairs on it.

"Please state your destination..." a female, computerized voice...suspiciously resembling Marceline, calmly asked them.

"Oh...uh...Beau...topia?" Susan and Finn replied, doubtfully.

"Suure thing." the computer answered in an almost seductive voice, much the like of Marceline's usual, playful way. "Sit back and enjoahy the riiiideh. Please keep your hands and feet inside the vehicle until it has come to a complete stop."

The boat slowly accelerated into an easy pace down the familiar canal, much to Susan and Finn's surprise, and, it even began displaying maps, indicating where they were on a pre-plotted course. It was surprisingly accurate and even displayed their ETA, which was several hours, at current speed. Without much else to do, Finn and Susan simply settled in for the voyage and began treating it more like a pleasure cruise.

Bubblegum was settled into a big, comfy, swiveling lazygirl chair. Or, actually, she was somewhat nervously gulping down boxes of either full candy or ice cream bon bons, while she attentively leaned forward and rested on her elbow, her eyes glued to the panel of closed circuit televisions before her. Each screen held a different angle of Finn and Susan, taken from hidden cameras inside the paddleboat. A select monitor or two even had its viewing preferences tuned to see through Finn's eyes, through use of the nanomachines that were now swimming in his blood, thanks to the improvement serum he took.

Having waited a few grueling hours for them to finally activate the swan and get in, the Princess was downright jittery, maybe even a little insane, with anticipation.

"Finally! Nyeheh...heheheh...nomnomnom..." she grumbled, stuffing another bon bon into her mouth. At last, an external view of her now more sculpted and even larger boy hero was at her grasp, and, she took it all in with youthful abandon. A slip of drool escaped her lips and she began moaning like a zombie, as her eyes virtually caressed the large hunks of meat that composed his thighs, his skin's tight complexion, his wild weave of long, shimmering hair, his seemingly unbreakable smile, and his sparkling, innocent eyes, filled with the spark of childlike wonder. "Ohh, Finn...my flawless, flawless hero...at last, you've grown into the perfect morsel of manliness, a meal fit for a goddess...like me, heheheh!" Bubblegum giggled. She suddenly pressed her fingers to her lips, soon after that remark, and playfully wagged her eyes left and right, as if to check if anyone else was in the room...which she knew there wasn't. She was glad that no one was really around to hear her make her rather self absorbed sounding joke, especially since she didn't really mean it. She was particularly glad Finn couldn't hear her either.

"This is weird, huh?" Finn then commented, which Bubblegum could now hear from the boat's generic yet surprisingly receptive microphones. He pushed his pack aside and settled himself down into the unusually comfortable interior of the boat. Susan did the same, nestling herself against the low walled rim of the swan's outer edge and hugged her knees against her body, like she usually did.

"Yeah, really." Susan agreed. "This big, dumb...yet still cool swan boat thing makes it kinda feel like we're going down..."

"...A tunnel of love?" Finn completed Susan's sentence and they immediately began bursting with laughter, Princess Bubblegum included. After that, however, they blushed and awkwardly looked away from each other for a moment, especially due to the fact that what they just jokingly said was undeniably true. The thing about it was, somewhere inside, in places they didn't want to admit...they felt okay with that...maybe even welcomed it.

"Ohhhh! This is gettn' goood!" Bubblegum quietly cheered, as if she was watching a soap opera. She watched on, quite attentively, as she sipped her mug of sweet, creamy cocoa. She could see then, from the heads up displays on the monitors tuned to Finn's body that his heart rate was up and he was feeling a bit nervous, even a bit tickled inside, after that exchange. "Hehehe..." Bubblegum giggled. It was like being inside his head...maybe even on his lap.

A fairly awkward silence followed, with both Finn and Susan regretting their 'tunnel of love' mention. After a while, Finn went ahead and broke the silence, especially after once again noticing Susan's now more sensual, curvy figure. "Sooo...yeahhhyou're looking good, yeah? You tryin' a new diet or something?" he asked...not quite sure if it all came out right.

Susan smiled and looked away at Finn's comment. Her eyes widened and her cheeks went bright red. "Y-yeah? You think so?"

Finn looked away, himself. "Oh...well, yeah! I mean...um...that didn't come out right..." he half spoke to himself. "I mean, you...Iunno...look more...womanly, I suppose...I don't know how to put it..."

Susan then looked towards Finn, giggling with a hand to her mouth, amused at his attempt to tiptoe around the subject. "It's okay, Finn. I get where you're coming from." she said, calmly. "I guess you should know, since it seems obvious, 'n, it's only fair, since you told me all about your crazy change...'n stuff. Ahem. I had Doctor Minerva get some work done on me. A little less chunky...a little more girl...y, heheh, I guess. An overall mass reduction."

"Ohhhh...I see." Finn replied, fully understanding it now. He looked her over, a bit, comparing from memory the changes and differences from whence she came. It was true. There was a good deal less muscular bulk from before and her skin seemed smoother...tighter...curvier. Of course, the more he looked her over, the more he noticed that her body still had it all where it counted as a woman, maybe even more so. Her hips were wide and shapely, her breasts were nice and round, very large now, in comparison to her frame, and, her rather shapely bottom was smooth and, for lack of a better term...delicious. Finn averted his eyes, then. He felt he'd been staring at the sun for too long and was afraid to suffer her scorn. "So, well, I mean, not that what you've got goin' on there ain't good or anything, but, you sure you shoulda done that? 'Cause, I wouldn't've changed any...thing about...you...y...ya know?" Finn flubbed his sentence. He wasn't intending to go all romantic on her.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you looked at it, it was still quite a warming spiel, making both Susan and Bubblegum go all warm and grinney. "Oh, that's so sweet, Finn." Susan replied.

"Yeah...that really was." Bubblegum echoed.

Soon after, however, Susan's jovial look degraded into a more somber tone. "Yeah though...I just didn't wanna..." she began, her serious notes grabbing Finn's attention. "...It was all getting to be a kind of disgusting reminder of the past, ya know? All the business with Doctor Gross and the human plus stuff, and the seeker bull...it made me feel really gross inside...especially when I looked in the mirror."

Finn was silent. Both he and Bubblegum could only nod in reply.

"It all just kinda...ugh...I dunno. I just didn't want to have anything to do with all that crap, know what I mean?"

Finn closed his eyes and nodded deeply in understanding. "...But you do realize it wasn't your fault..."

"Yeah, yeah...I KNOW that, but...that just wasn't enough to make me feel any better." Susan ran over Finn's sentence, giving the hint that he wasn't the first one to say that to her. "I just wanted it to be all cut off from me. Just trying to feel better about it, on the inside alone, wasn't working. I HAD to do it...believe me..."

Finn watched then, seeing Susan trail off into a rather dark place in her mind, and it worried him, deeply. "Yeah...I getcha." he said then, agreeing mostly, but, also in an attempt to bring her back from the chasm her mind was swimming in. For the most part, he understood, with part of him agreeing that it was alright, especially for the sake of her mental health. Another part of him, however, had to say something else...

"Just so you know, though...you know...the way you were before? It still had some good in it. And, I can definitely appreciate that." Finn said, not quite towards Susan, but, more mulling over the memory of their adventures, before everything changed.

Susan and Bubblegum smiled at this. They were both warmed and deeply touched at his honest words, in particular because he appeared to be saying it with no such agenda attached.

"...Oh, darn you, Finn..." Bubblegum said, praising him with great adoration. Even a tiny tear and a sniffle escaped her smiling face, as she wiped herself up a bit.

"I appreciate that." Susan said with a smile and gathered his attention. They solidly shared a moment then, looking fondly towards each other. Susan, however, feeling that this wasn't quite what they came down here for, then added, "...But that's such a thing to say...coming from the guy who's morphing into a gigantic hunk muffin, for the betterment of 'Ooomanity'." She teased and the three of them howled with laughter.

The moment passed and then Finn, out of a fair spirit of concern, took a nervous hand and scratched the back of his head. He was about to ask something he wasn't sure he ought to, but, for Susan's sake...

"Um...speaking of hunk muffins...not that I've been staring and all, but...uh...did you know you're not wearing any...undies?" Finn asked, finally, looking away as he did so.

Susan was a little shocked. Her eyes shot open then and she whipped a fairly vulnerable gaze at Finn. "W-well...of course I do...I didn't before..." she began, attempting to explain that it was part of her original, traditional clothing...and then she, staring back and surveying Finn's body as well, noticed that his rather large, meaty hunk of manhood wasn't exactly hiding itself, from the 'air vents' of the loincloth he was wearing. Susan smirked then, saying "...Haven't been staring huh?" especially after she noticed that his sizable pole wasn't at rest but a little ready for play. "How long 'haven't' you been staring?" Susan asked as she began playfully, teasingly, and slowly wagging her legs open and closed to give hot, gentle peeks at her rather large, hotdog engulfing pair of buns that were her soft and smooth labia. A devious smile curled up upon the corners of her mouth, as she soon spied a positive reaction in the climbing stiffness of Finn's tasty looking cock.

"Wh...what'r you talking about? Ah...I haven't been..." Finn attempted to defend himself, which made Susan and Bubblegum quite giggly in their silence as they knew ABSOLUTELY that he was just plain lying. Just then, however, Finn noticed a rather loud...menacing, gurgling noise that was starting to fill the air.

Just as well, Susan noticed it, perhaps just in time to recall what it was. "Hey, isn't that..."

"Oh shnopzow!" Finn yelled. "The drain!"

Instinctively, Finn leapt towards Susan and covered her body with his, gripping onto the boat's wall behind her and then digging his feet into the cushioned interior of the boat, tightly pinning her body to the deck. They both began screaming as the swan swiftly plummeted through the gigantic drainage pipe and nearly freefell at an extremely steep angle. The funny thing was, in particular because Finn was too busy 'protecting' Susan to realize it, that Susan was gleefully laughing, enjoying the fall in fact, while Finn was holding on for dear life to be sure they didn't fall or fly out of the boat. After a few harrowing...or enjoyable seconds of rollercoaster style riding, the swan splashed into the much wider, ocean-like drainage area, and then all was calm again. When Finn was able to get his head together, he suddenly remembered...

"...Oops, heheh, oh yeah...it was you who brought us down here before. You knew that was coming." Finn spoke out of embarrassment.

"Yyyyeah." was all Susan said, in reply. They giggled, staring at each other for a moment.

That moment stretched into a minute or so, however, as they seemed to get lost in each other's adorable, beady eyes. It was strange to both of them, how they never really noticed the simple beauty in each other's warm, smiling faces much, until now. The trance between them was comfortable, settled, and unbreakable. They simply took the time and enjoyed the scorch of longing within each other's stares.

"...Finn?" Susan broke the silence, amidst the sound of water, echoing throughout the dark tunnel.

"Yeah?" Finn replied. They spoke to each other, yet, it did nothing to rupture the lock and bond that existed, invisibly, between them.

"...Kiss...Susan?" she spoke, in a hazy, hypnotized state. She said this in her trademark, Susan Strong way, dumb sounding yet warm and adorable.

"...Of course I will..." Finn said, in the same hazy way, as he was pulled forward by unseen forces. Little did he know, they were speaking in the same way they did, the day Finn agreed to liberate Beautopia from the Lub Glubs.

Their soft lips brushed upon each other and they could feel their fast, heated breaths waft across each other's skin. Susan felt Finn initiate sure pressure as he began gently pushing and suckling upon the event horizon between their mouths...and she closed her eyes. "Mmmmmph..." she moaned and began wrapping her arms and legs around his large, manly body, such the like as she had never experienced before in her life. Finn's eyes closed as well, as he enjoyed the feel of this large, soft, deliciously feminine body before him. He suckled upon her mouth as she did to his, and, he pressed his body into the engulfing warmth of hers. They stayed there for a good, long, passionate time, locked in a Gordian knot of wandering arms, legs, and barely clothed flesh.

Bubblegum...meanwhile, as she watched all this, had long since dropped her mug of now cold cocoa and was stroking the inseams of her legs with her hands, stuffing her fingers and palms into her inner thighs and teasing her hot, moistening womanhood. "...Oh glob, Finnhhh..." she moaned, misty eyed and desperate, as she watched the monitors before her. She had a front row seat with multiple uninhibited views of this hot hulk of a man consuming a sweetly vulnerable and passionate Susan, and she was enjoying every second of it.

...

...At least she was...

...Until she noticed some bright, flashing warning notices on the monitors viewing from Finn's nanites.

"Oh, what? What the cabbage?!" Bubblegum groaned, nearly yelling...and absolutely frustrated, since she couldn't continue to actually touch herself. She looked over the warning signs. "Program error. Insufficient data." they kept screaming, silently, and Bubblegum sat back a moment and wondered what in the world the problem could be. Her eyes popped wide open then, when she realized and remembered that she was working on the growth cocktail while half awake. The last thing she was supposed to work on, before she began to black out, was...

"...OH SHIPSMACK! I DIDN'T EVEN PROGRAM ACTUAL SEX TECHNIQUE INTO THE DARN DATABASE!"

...Sorry for the extreme lateness...

...To be continued, real soon...