-Thieves on the Rise-
Finn woke up with a sore back, having regrettably slept in the awkward position of hanging halfway off his bed. Once the young hero finished popping some joints into place, he proceeded to climb down to the kitchen and enjoy a breakfast prepared by his talented brother.
Sizzling was in the air as Jake hummed along to the cooking eggs in front of him. The dog periodically toggled his sight between the eye-like yolks, a pan of bacon, and the hot chocolate that was brewing nearby. As Finn made his way to the table, a yawn from the boy attracted his roomie's attention.
"Morning, dude. You alright?"
Jake had a look of concern as he studied the human's unusual movement. The boy just chuckled.
"Heh. Yeah, I'm fine, just slept in a bad way."
The hero's bro understood now and returned to his cooking.
"So, anything else bothering you? Cuz I heard you all groaning and moving around in your bed last night. You have a bad dream, bro?"
Finn frowned as he casually messed with his fork on the tabletop.
"Yeah, actually. It was really nuts."
The magical dog looked worried.
"Don't tell me, Cosmic Owl…"
Finn shook his head.
"No, man, nothing like that. But, I've never had one like this before."
Jake had finished the breakfast assortment and used his stretched out hands as platters to deliver the food to the table, sitting down next to his best friend.
"How so?"
Finn propped his head up on his arms and sighed.
"It was like, I was flying through space, then I was about to crash into earth and I saw this huge explosion. The whole planet was on fire and everything was wiped out. It was freaky."
The human took up his fork and poked at his eggs.
"I've been having that same dream ever since those meteors or whatever came down. Every night."
Jake was shocked by this.
"Dude, that was like two weeks ago! Why didn't you mention it sooner?"
The young hero sighed.
"Well, you're not exactly the best person to talk to about dreams, no offense."
Jake slowly nodded with a frown.
"Yeah, that's true."
As the brothers quietly began their breakfast, the conversation was forgotten. However, before they could finish the peaceful meal, there was a ring on Finn's phone. The human reached into his backpack, took out the device, and turned on the connection.
"Hello? Oh hey, s'up Prubs?"
Jake, who had been ignoring the conversation for the first few seconds, now placed his attention on the phone. Finn was intently listening to what the princess was telling him. Soon, he hung up and stuck his fork in the wooden table.
"Come on, dude. She needs us."
The magical dog groaned but managed to stuff his remaining bacon into a stretchy pouch before following his bro out the door.
Much of the candy populous was gathered by the fringes of the castle, murmuring worriedly as they witnessed banana guards patrolling all sides of the building's perimeter. Suddenly, a slight shaking came from nearby. All heads turned to see a giant Jake making his way through the crowd, careful not to squish anyone.
The citizens gladly parted a path for the dog and his human passenger, allowing them to freely make it to the entrance of the castle and into the main hall. The guards pointed them to where PB was, which happened to be the top floor of her amazing home. It was quite exhausting, to climb all the stairs necessary to reach the landing, but the determined heroes knew there was an urgent matter and sucked it up.
Upon setting foot on the highest level of the sugary structure, the two adventurers were rather confused as to what they were there for in the first place.
Princess Bubblegum was simply standing there, the center of her astronomy room, gazing around at the various scrolls and equipment used to chart the stars and planets. She heard the pair enter and turned to face them.
"Oh, good, you're here."
Finn and Jake walked up to the monarch, brows furrowed.
"Uh, PB, why'd you send for us? And what's with the guards outside?"
Jake took his last bite of bacon.
"Yeah. There's nothing going on. And no crime scene or whatever."
Peebles shook her head.
"Maybe not to anyone else, but I know my own documents."
She reached over and pointed to an empty slot on her scroll rack.
"This one parchment has disappeared. I had not touched it for a long time and no one else has access to this room."
The duo was skeptical.
"Come on, really? You could've easily misplaced it. Or maybe it never existed. You can't go all nuts just because of one missing scroll."
Bubblegum scowled.
"I'm telling you this one last time, Jake. I know my documents. There has been thievery in my kingdom and I want the two of you to find out why they wanted my stuff."
Finn shrugged.
"Well, you're the smartest person around. Maybe they wanted to steal some technology junk or something."
Peebles thought hard.
"Perhaps, but I'm not taking chances. There's sensitive information in this castle. If a thief can get to this, the most secluded area in the whole building, then there's no telling how easy it might be for them to strike another part."
The heroes nodded.
"Ok. I guess that's fair. What do you need us to do?"
Peebles reached into the pocket of her dress and produced a pink crystal, which she tossed to Finn. The boy caught it and hung it around his neck.
"See of you can find anything around the castle. The moment you do, call me up."
Finn saluted.
"You've got it Peebs."
The princess nodded and made her way over to the stairs. Once she was out of sight, the brothers turned their attention back to the room.
"Ok, buddy. Sniff us out some robbers."
Jake enthusiastically got on all fours.
"No problem. We'll have them in jail by lunchtime."
He began to inhale the scent of the floor, walking along in a zigzag-like pattern while Finn stayed close behind. The yellow dog went everywhere, from the tables, to the shelves, and even the ceiling with some help from his stretchy neck. Regardless of all that scanning, Jake failed to detect a single tread of smell from anything out of the ordinary. Even the spot where the missing scroll was had nothing to offer.
"Man, this is bunk. We're letting PB down."
Finn sat down in one of the chairs, saddened by their lack of progress. Jake let his bottom fall to the ground and began making various shapes with his powers, trying to not be bored. Luckily, a call came in on Finn's pendant within a few minutes. As Peebles' face showed up in the pink holographic square, her expression was an urgent one.
"Guys, did you find anything?"
Depressingly, they both nodded. The princess sighed.
"I was afraid of that. Whoever did this was a professional. No evidence whatsoever. Anyway, I found something else that was unusual."
Finn and Jake leaned into the image.
"What is it?"
PB momentarily exited the display to check on something. When she returned, there was a small data sheet in her hand.
"There have been strange readings coming up from the Ice Kingdom lately. I've had an array set up since the meteors to detect any potential remnants of signal from the objects, but instead I've been receiving energy patterns that are even too bizarre for me to understand."
The heroes knew this was a big deal if even the princess was stumped.
"What should we do?" Finn asked eagerly.
The candy monarch looked nervous.
"Well, could you two head over there? You'll probably have to deal with Ice King."
The duo thought about it for a moment then shrugged.
"Na, it's cool. We'll head out right away."
PB was fairly surprised but recomposed herself and cleared her throat.
"Oh. Ok. Call in when you find out more. Bye."
As Jake stomped through the deep piles of snow, he eyed Ice King's mountain in the distance. He and Finn honestly couldn't believe how often they were visiting the old guy now days. He'd surly be happy about it, but they were quite annoyed. Sure he was bearable at their place, way back when he crashed at the tree house, but in his domain they were forced to observe his full range of disturbing behaviors.
Once Jake stretched himself and his homie into the narrow opening atop the mountain, the two adventurers promptly began walking through the house, just like last time, in search of the ice wizard.
"Yo, Simon! You home?" Jake shouted.
There was no response. They continued further into the residence, walking down an icy hallway and towards a source of light that was just noticed. This illumination led to a spiral staircase, which the two carefully descended down. As they reached the bottom of the landing, they were astonished by what they saw.
Piles upon piles of books, all sizes. Most were stuffed with extra papers, as if the author was desperate to add in that one last piece of plot to make it enjoyable. However, these volumes were generally not seen by others, making their contents exclusive to the only weirdo who liked them, a.k.a. the ice wizard who wrote them.
Sitting on a stack of the books, Ice King hummed along as he held a pencil and blank sheet of paper, coming up with new fanficiton ideas. Occasionally, he would tap his crown with the writing utensil, trying to think of the right word or phrase to go with the rest of his sentence. As Finn and Jake walked over, he managed to spot them and put down his current project, smiling.
"Oh, good! You guys are just in time. I finished this totally awesome story earlier. Here."
He handed Finn one of the books, which happened to be as thick as a few bricks. The human couldn't hold it for long and so allowed the 'literature' to fall to the icy ground.
"Uh. No thanks. We'll get to it later. Right now we've got some important stuff to talk to you about."
IK was intrigued.
"Ooo! Really? Is there a princess who has a crush on me? I bet it's Bubblegum. It is isn't it?"
Jake pinched his eyes together and groaned while his bro just blankly stared at the daydreaming king.
"No, not that. We were just wondering, has anything…weird, been going on around your place?"
The old man stopped his imagining and scratched his head.
"Hm. Not that I know of. I've been home pretty much all week, and that's without showers too. So there's no way I missed anything."
The heroes nearly puked, but instead took a step back from the wizard.
"Ok, well," Finn began, looking quite disgusted.
"Is it cool if we look around?"
IK motioned to the corridors nearby.
"What's mine is yours, bro-ham. Except the princesses, of course."
Ignoring the last part, Finn and Jake thanked the looney, who returned to his writing, and made their way to the endless ice tunnels branching throughout the king's house. Finn was forced to pull on his yellow long-sleeve after his shivering became disruptive. It was well over an hour until the two completed their search of the premise, finding nothing of interest, not that they wanted to look through the ice wizard's junk in the first place.
"Man, this is hopeless. I think PB's just gone crazy."
The human frowned at his companion.
"Well, I guess there are times where she gets…nuts."
Jake scoffed.
"Understatement, bro. Remember Tree Trunks' wedding?"
Finn looked uneasily to the side, recalling the freaky event, where the pink princess had gone over the edge due to her grudge against the 'King of Ooo'.
"Let's call her and say we've got nothing."
The boy nodded to Jake's suggestion and reached into his collar to bring out the pendant. Suddenly though, the dog stopped him.
"Whoa! Hang on!"
Finn looked around.
"What? What is it?"
The yellow canine pointed to a far room, enclosed by a lightning shaped door.
"It's just IK's lightning storage room. Don't tell me that junk about dogs being scared of lightning is true."
Jake pouted.
"That's thunder, dude. And no, I'm not afraid of it."
A loud noise rang from the closed off area, causing Jake to yelp and jump into his bro's arms, shaking. Finn smiled amusedly. The dog noticed this and crossed his arms.
"Aw, shut up."
The human chuckled and set his friend back down. Ice King must have not heard the bang, as he didn't come running to see if a princess had come to visit.
"Let's check it out," Finn suggested.
Jake nodded, but remained safely behind the boy as they approached the lightning door. Finn reached for the handle, decided against it, then stood back and gave it a hard kick, instantly busting it open. Immediately, the duo saw a penguin standing by the hazardous electrical bolts. In fact, it was holding one.
"Wenk."
The adventurers had spent enough time around the Ice Kingdom to distinguish the various bird's voices.
"Gunter? What are you doing with your daddy's lightning?" Jake inquired, beginning to approach the little creature.
However, as soon as the dog was about to reach out and pat the girl on the head, she smacked his hand away.
"Wenk!"
Jake recoiled, which gave Gunter the chance to quickly escape. And that was the astonishing part: she really, quickly escaped. The penguin's tiny legs didn't seem to warrant that level of speed as she rushed around Finn, dodging his grab and vanishing down the hall.
"What the- no way!"
Jake jumped onto his belly and grabbed Finn, placing him on his back as he stretched into a snowboard. The human balanced himself as the dog picked up some speed and followed Gunter down the corridor.
Once the two had gained sufficient acceleration, the penguin came back into view, still making a mad dash for the stairs.
"She's trying to get out of the castle!"
Finn quickly shifted his weight, causing board-Jake to slide onto the slippery walls. The human completed the loop, driving the two of them faster and faster as they corkscrewed over the ceiling and floor.
Suddenly, Ice King emerged from his collection room, still reading.
"Simon! Stop Gunter!"
"Huh? What?"
The penguin whizzed by before the wizard was able to register the comment Jake shouted. He was also too late to avoid colliding with the duo as he got in their way. As the three tumbled across the floor, their bodies smacked into the tower holding the spiral staircase, where Gunter was currently running up.
"We've got to catch her. Jake, stretch us up."
The dog grabbed both his bro and Ice King, lifting them up with his stretchy legs and gaining fast on the fleeing penguin. When the trio reached the top floor, their quarry was already heading into the living room.
"She's gonna try to jump out of the window!"
IK was shocked.
"What! What are you talking about?"
Finn shouted over his shoulder as he and Jake ran ahead.
"Gunter stole one of your lightning things and now she's running away."
The wizard dropped his book, then grew an angry face.
"GUNTER! YOU'RE IN BIG TROUBLE, MISSY!"
He flew at high speed after Finn and Jake, surpassing them actually. The two heroes were in awe as the wizard made it to the living room and instantly zeroed in on Gunter.
"Zap!"
He fired a bolt of ice powers at her, but she avoided it easily. The ice wizard continued trying to hit the bird, but her incredible speed was too much for his old guy aim.
"Dang it, Gunter! Hold still and take your punishment!"
As the heroes entered the room, they observed the failed attempts to freeze the little penguin. Suddenly, Finn had an idea.
"Hey, Simon! Give the floor an extra coat!"
It took a few seconds, but the looney old man grinned and charged up one big bolt, striking the floor and encasing it in an incredibly slick sheet of ice.
As Finn had predicted, Gunter lost her balance and skidded uncontrollably right into the wall, where she hit with a nasty thud. The three who had been in pursuit quickly converged on her, intending to get some answers. However, what came next paralyzed them.
Gunter's form seemed to flicker, distort even. It was as if she were static from the TV. Eventually though, this shape dissipated completely, reforming as something much more humanoid, about Finn's size. As the witnesses watched with wide eyes, the image rematerialized as a girl, who had short brown hair and wore a white jacket that was halfway unzipped. She groaned, rubbing her head as she stood up. Ice King and Jake were unable to move, but Finn took a hollow step forward, his mouth hanging open.
"Who…who are you?"
The girl readjusted her focus and glared at the boy. During the moment where she wasn't moving, Finn could make out a symbol on her shirt beneath the jacket. It was contained within a circle, seeming to be a large letter 'V'. However, something was off about it. The imposter narrowed her eyes further. Finn refused to let down his stare.
"Are you…human?"
The one in front of him briefly flashed an expression of disbelief, but quickly shook it off and made a break for it, lightning still in hand.
"Wait! Stop! Please!"
Finn ran after her, as the others were still frozen. The hero chased his target all the way over to the window overlooking the Ice Kingdom. She still had her extreme speed, which made it difficult for the already tired boy to keep up. The girl immediately dived through the triangle opening. Finn heedlessly followed.
As the two of them began sliding down the side of the mountain at insane speeds, Finn did his best to catch up to the female, who was a few yards ahead of him. His struggle was desperate by this point. He wouldn't give up the chase for anything.
Unfortunately, the chased saw him from the corner of her eye, glaring at him again. Instead of caring though, Finn just frowned and kept edging closer.
"I'm begging you, tell me!"
The girl bared her teeth, apparently annoyed. It was at this point that Finn could tell she was slightly younger than him, based on build and facial structure. Even more desperate when she refused to answer again, the hero did the mad and threw himself at her. She wasn't expecting this, forcing her to take on the tackle, which caused the both of them to tumble down the side at dangerous velocity.
"I don't know any other humans. Just tell me if you're one of them!"
His voice was breaking fast by now. Interestingly enough, his quarry's expression died down, now shown as one of shock and slight pity. This swiftly returned to her hardened demeanor however, and she followed it up with a blazing fast punch to Finn's face, knocking him off of her. The human was thrown back a few feet as the girl reestablished her footing on the mountain's icy side.
When the boy stabilized his own stance, he looked back to the female. She was gazing at him, not exactly with a glare, but at the very least a warning look.
"Yes, I am a human."
Finn's heart skipped a few beats. His mind raced instantly. He could feel sweat beginning to form on his temple regardless of the low temperature blasting in his face. He kept his sight firmly planted on the girl below him. She slowly closed her eyes, softening her scowl.
"My name is Fifth Arc. That's all I'm saying. You're not alone."
With that, the young gal pushed off from the mountain, where the downward momentum was just right for her to catch onto a nearby hill and begin sliding down its much less inclined slope. Finn was unable to follow, too stunned by what he heard. Unfortunately, this also made him oblivious to the cold hard mound of snow at the base of IK's castle.
Right before losing consciousness from a likely concussion, the hero was utterly frozen by the revelation he had just encountered.
A/N: Ok, so didn't manage to find the time for an extra update, but I'll try my best to pull it off. Thank you for all the support so far. Feedback is always appreciated so that I know if I'm holding your attention.