Part 4: Turnabout
Finn flicked Jake on the ear, snapping him back to consciousness.
"Aha! I knew the meditation would work!" said Jake.
"No, you lump, I called you into my head, said Finn.
Jake slumped over, sniffing for scents that weren't there. "…The house in your head is kind of loco, man. Creepy feelings all over me."
"Nah, it's just that cat's dumb stupid mojo that's loco. It's cool, we just gotta take my real inner world back."
"Why are you dressed up like Ice K—"
"I said, it's stupid mojo."
"Oh, right."
Quasipan curled up into a fetal ball in midair, claws extended. "Your best friend is your DOG!?"
"He's my SOUL BROTHER. In the flesh, sort of."
"Woof woof, baby."
"Yeah dawg~ Psycho-spirit body high five!"
"But I, I," Quasipan stammered. "Why, why? WHY? Why, why why why why why WHYYY? Just, die, human! You deserve it! You CRAVE it!" he accused wildly. "You're the last of your kind, the last miserable, mindless worm, alone on this forsaken rock, and yet you're so… HAPPY! It's not fair! DIE!"
"You can't kill me," Finn nodded matter-of-factly. "I'm NOT the last human!"
The dreamtide figment of Susan Strong appeared behind him, clasping his shoulders, lending him strength.
"And even if he were, that doesn't mean he's alone! I can tell you're lonely, and afraid of everything outside your know-how and understanding. But I bit my fears, chewed 'em up, and spat 'em out! Exhibit A!"
The figment of Marceline, laughing and in perfect health (as usual), appeared behind Jake with a punk rock guitar and a chip on her shoulder.
"Together we don't even need so much as a snap of the finger to defeat you! Though to be honest, I can think of a finger I'm keen to raise up at you right about now."
Marceline's mind-ink shade giggled at that. Susan just scratched her hood in confusion.
Ill comprehension dawned on the feline's face, and he teleported directly in front of the two. The rictus returned, slowly, and he pawed the sticky paint comprising Finn's bogus mind-house as though he were stamping out a cigarette. "Ah. I see, of course. The realm of the "heart" may not be an area of my exquisite expertise, but nevertheless, there can be no happiness without immense sacrifice. Magic spread across the planet once again only when the vermin known as humans were wiped out; and could magic not be said to be the planet's heart?"
"Get to the point, Lameness Princess…" Jake crossed his arms. "We don't gots all day to beat you up, you know."
"My point, is as follows: You are strong, Fred the Human Boy, because you have seen fit to shore up your impurity by earning magical allies, like the piteous hound-no doubt through various vainglorious acts of valor. However, were I to sever those ties of friendship, those ties to a 'right to live' you may mistakenly cradle in your shuddersomely empty MICROSINGULARITY of a mind! … You would, at once, realize your place in the grand scope of things, and take your own life."
"I don't know what's more pathetic," said shade-Marceline as she re-tuned her shade-guitar. "That you think Finn's that weak, or that you think WE'RE that weak!"
"You said it, Jake's idea of how Marceline would respond!"
Shade-Susan grunted in agreement, for this is how Finn believed Susan would have responded.
"Your confidence is cute, but I have exhibited nowhere close to the full extent of my psychic powers. If this is to be a battle of wills, then it has been decided from the moment we met!"
"Couldn't agree more," said Jake.
Quasipan raised an eyebrow. "So you admit defeat?"
"No. I'm saying that if this is a battle of wills it won't even be a contest. You'll eat tar in a second, Puasiqan!"
"IT'S QUASIPAN!" the cat mewled heatedly.
Finn clutched his sides and wiped a tear from his eye. "I think this is the first time you've told a joke that's made me laugh more than it's made yourself laugh, Jake."
"Quasipan—we've got something a being of your nigh all-encompassing intellect,"—a pause for sarcastic effect—"can't begin to fathom."
"What, your hearts? Soon enough, those too will be within my grasp!"
"No, not heart—what kind of lame power is that, anyway? You lame-o," said Jake. "I'm talking about IMAGINATION! Your head's so full of sludge, you can't predict what intense bros like us will do."
"Yeah, not even WE can predict what intense bros like us are up to!" Finn karate jabbed the air. "See? No idea I'd do that."
"Here goes nothing!" Jake began to stretch his arm into a colossal fist.
"Dude, I thought you couldn't stretch anymore!" said Finn.
"My body can't. My physical body is still inside the spirit realm hairball world, right now my astral projection is inside your brain, so I can."
"Oh yeah, like in the Enchiridion where it says that," Finn lied.
"Batter up!" The fist turned into a catcher's mitt, just because, and Jake shot it out towards Quasipan, but he dodged easily.
"By the same token," Quasipan sneered, "if you want to injure me, this is the wrong venue to do so."
"So there's only one way to stop you…" Jake reasoned.
"That's right, returning to the hairball—"
"No, invading YOUR mind! C'mon, Finn, we've gotta knock him square on the face at the same time!"
"Why?"
"Just trust my gut!"
"But he can teleport, Jake!"
"Finn… how big is your mind?"
He picked his ear. "Not very, I don't think."
"The more you don't think, the better!" Jake sucked in a deep torrential breath and STRETCHED until he was huge. "All right, I can hold this size for about five minutes; I've just reduced the amount of space that cat's got to wiggle around—and every time he teleports, it's got to be a substantial drain on his reserve of mental energy, since constant teleportation has got to be at least a little jarring. When you've got a sure hit on your hands, tell me so I can punch him in unison with you. In the meantime, I'll be imagining up scenes from MY memories to match the stolen memories he'll throw at you."
Finn coated his sword with mind ink and conjured a bigger blade. "What if he uses his own memories as ammunition?"
"I have a feeling he doesn't want us to see his past at all, since he's a nuclear grade lame-o," Jake explained. "Which is why we've got to shift the battle into his own head—the part of his head that isn't connected to the spirit world, the moldy old personal side of him he's seen fit to squirrel away into a dank corner. The part of his head he doesn't like."
"The human part! Jake, that's brilliant! A lamer can't have awesome memories to attack us with, that's why he had to steal mine!"
Floating above, just out of reach, Quasipan spoke: "Who needs memories when I am a GOD!?"
Finn braced himself, waiting for his chance to strike. This wasn't going to be easy.
"I may not be able to fool you with false memories anymore—tiny, imbecilic FOOL brain notwithstanding—but with even just a fraction of my IMMENSE CORNUCOPIA OF INTELLECT, I can kill you with even your most MUNDANE memories, cretins!"
Finn waited patiently for the cat to make the first move. If Quasipan took the offensive, that would give Finn a tactical advantage, since he and Jake were working in concert.
"Fred, you brushed your teeth this morning after hash browns and muffins, yes?" Quasipan asked rhetorically.
"Uh… yeah, actually."
"It was cupcakes, dingus," corrected Jake. "I remember because I stuffed like, ninety, of them into my Everything Burrito."
"You're not going to say anything about how he got my name wrong?"
"And then," Quasipan continued. "You flossed. Correct?"
"Uhhh…" Finn stopped to think. "Yeah, I flossed. Why?"
Mind-ink swelled in each of Quasipan's paws, forming a tiny shade of Finn brushing his teeth—a whooshy half-memory from five hours ago—in his right paw, while his left paw painted the same scene, only with floss.
"Were you aware, Fred, that if one extracts the specially treated Horixyminofletacine from that Dentisparkles toothpaste the elephant named "Tree Trunks" recommended to you, and proceeds to puncture that chemical film with a strand of floss sharpened to a point by a Level 2 incantation of the aboriginal Yreoka people, that that simple combination of two everyday ingredients can trigger a humongous explosion affecting all but the most prepared?"
Quasipan's fangs flared evilly. "I don't believe there's a dog, magical or otherwise, that can survive such a blast from this proximity."
"Jake, shrink down!" Finn warned, but unfortunately for them, the Yreoka tribe raised fierce warriors, and their Level 2 Sharpening Incantation was a short one:
"DIE!"
Quasipan clapped, and the world boomed a silent deafening boom.