AN: Hello all, this episode we dive back into the action with burning gusto! I've done a little editing to make older chapters fit the new in formatting. To boot, I've also begun a new fic, a Star Wars number in the legends continuity called Tales of the Hasty Lady. If that sounds up your alley, feel free to check it out. Anywho, enjoy!

Chapter 18: Hero Biz Calls

"How's the pulse caster work?" High in the sky, Finn and Marcie prepared to go to war. Well, Finn did. Marcie had gotten ready for war that morning, and merely watched Finn prepare while sitting on the bed doing horse gallops on her axe. The last human was busy shadow fencing, testing the harmony of his blades. He was also grilling Thoros on any subject that came to his mind. The intelligence responded through the command watch.

"Through the same mechanism as all Old Earth plasma weapons. First developed for use in the Third War, magnetic forces contain superheated plasma into a rough sphere and expell it towards the target, imparting tremendous impact and heat. The technology used in this weapon is extremely refined, and you will find it just as powerful and a great deal more efficient than anything Princess Bubblegum has been able to reverse engineer."

"At this point, we'd be sharing it with her anyways. Doesn't really make sense not to." Finn armed the plasma caster with a flick of his thumb, testing the movement till he could do it with fluidity and quickness.

"Indeed. The thumb switch is also a power selector; the first click arms the switch, and each successive click increases the yield of the plasma pulse. The weapon is fired by pressing the switch into the grip."

"Does it ever run out?" Finn questioned further, as he disarmed the weapon. He was beginning to realize the the AI's nonconfrontational nature nature was genuine; wouldn't really make sense to have an AI helper take things personally.

"No, like all Ruling Blades it is equipped with a crystalline singularly reactor. It will run for sixty thousand years, before the singularity radiates into nothingness."

Finn gave a "Huh." The pommels of his swords were plain metal, of the same type as the rest of its construction, with no signs of any hidden devices. "There are others?"

"Indeed. They were ceremonial, originally. One was constructed by each great power at the conclusion of the Third War, the most sophisticated mechanisms of destruction cast into an archaic form, as symbols of office and personal defensive weapons to the lords and ladies of the arcologies. You bear the North American and Central European blades, based respectively upon the American Old Wristbreaker saber and the Swiss katzbalger. Though obviously, they have been moved from their proper homes. I was given the saber Everstroke by Lady Sarah when I was charged with your keeping and eventual release, a hallmark of your father's upbringing. She stored Dragonfang here, deciding that it'd be prudent to make the more destructive of the two further from reach."

"Then what does Everstroke do?" Finn sheathed Dragonfang, hefting Everstroke, laying its flat across his open palm. It was a marvelous blade; Finn doubted his root swords could have harmed the metal bodies of Old Earth combat drones.

"Everstroke is equipped with a tensor field generator. While the alloy the Ruling Blades are composed of is far superior to traditional swordsmithing materials, the addition of the tensor field increases the edge strength exponentially. As a result, Everstroke is supremely sharp and its edge is essentially unbluntable."

Marceline whistled. "Neato." Finn sheathed his weapons. Green fatigues, brown boots, and the classic blue and white bear hat hoodie were the getup. The blazing fire in his deep blues was familiar to Marcie; his battle lust was running high. "You seem supercharged," she said, floating up to him. She motioned for a kiss, but when he moved in she drifted back, putting her hands up to her chin and bopping him with a forceless jab. Finn stepped back, a stunned, goofy grin on his face.

"Well you know me, I get excited for a scrap," he said, taking one step to the left, then another. Marceline circled away, still wearing her hand on her collarbones.

"I know," she said, tucking her chin. "Sometimes I wonder if you could ever like me more than fighting." Finn slipped into a coiled stance, knees bent, his front hand low at his leg, his rear hand chambered at his ribcage.

Marceline jabbed again twice, and Finn slapped one wide with the inside of his forearm, and slipped his head to the side of the other. Marcie had been waiting for the slip, and fired her rear hand uppercut. it was a solid fundamental combo, but Marcie wasn't surprised that Finn saw it coming and leaned backward out of the punch's arc. Marcie followed up with a rear leg side kick, swinging her hip over to chamber her leg before lashing out with her bootheel at Finn's ribcage. Finn circled his lead arm and knocked the kick aside with the inside of his forearm. The last human shuffled in close, driving his knee in behind Marcie's leg to buckle it. Planting the tip of his elbow against his new sparring partner's sternum, he straightened his body, pushing her shoulders out of line with her hips and legs. Before Marcie could recover, Finn grabbed the legs of her pants and pulled her feet out from under her. The vampiress fell on her back, laughing as Finn backstepped. With a shout, Marceline rolled backwards to her feet and leapt forward. She launched a vicious jab-cross-hook; Finn held his hands high, catching the jab and cross with his palms before ducking the hook and shooting in to grab Marcie's legs. She sprawled her legs back, throwing them out behind her to protect them while she dropped her weight on Finn's head and back. Marcie tried to contain his upper body as well, but Finn managed to get a same-side wrist grab. Hooking his other arm under her armpit, he pulled all her weight to one leg, giving the swordsman the chance to turn his back and kick his leg through, flipping her back to the floor.

"It's a different kind of like," he insisted, dropping his weight over her chest in a scarf hold. She struggled to keep him from tightening his arms around her neck, but managed to hook a leg over his head and prise him off of her. She went for his arm, trying to pull it straight between her legs and threaten the joint, but he clasped his palms together to buy him time till he could get his head out from under her leg and scramble till the lock was lost. "Fighting is fun and all, but you can't really have a relationship with it. Trust me, I kinda tried."

They circled again, gauging each other, testing responses. The immortal lashed out with a quick front leg roundhouse aimed at Finn's knee, but he stopped it with his shin. Finn responded with a lighting fast backfist that Marcie barely parried. She fired her jab high, faked her cross, and then thumped Finn in the ribs with her left hook. That earned a grunt from him. She threw the right uppercut but Finn was already past it, and when Marceline spun through with a left backfist, Finn was already there on the outside of her guard, stopping it with his forearm. Finn returned the favor, dropping a rear hand hookhook under her extended arm and into the side of her belly. Finn moved the punch past it's target, coming back up to Marcie's wrist so his lead forearm could come up against her humerus to threaten the joint; Marceline stumbled forward away from the attack on her elbow, and when she did, Finn cleared her arm up and then out wide with his lead hand, shot his rear hand to her throat, stepped close, and kicked his leg into her leg, calf to calf, in a great outer reap that took the vampire queen once again to the ground.

Marcie laughed, then coughed, and then laughed again, and Finn sat back on his butt, laughing with her. "We've gotta do this again," she said when her breath was back. "Because I'm gonna beat you. Just you wait."

"I'm looking forward to it." Marceline let her lover claim the kiss she'd offered before their little sparring match, yelping in surprise when he crossed his arms behind her back and pulled her close.

"Be careful out there," she ordered, resting her arms on his shoulders and capturing him with her dark red stare. "Okay hero boy? No needless displays of bravery?"

"You know I can't promise that," he said with a wistful smile. "Hero biz calls when hero biz calls." She nodded, not smiling, not frowning, but the look on her face was one of understanding.

"Fair enough," she sighed. "Let's get going bright eyes, they're probably waiting for us."

They rode the Fuller down to the hanger level. There, they met up with the assault team; PB, dressed to kill in fatigues and a futuristic breastplate, toting a wicked-looking plasma rifle and backed by gumball guards that were practically covered in munitions. Flame Princess and Guy were chatting with Jake and Lady Rainicorn; Guy was armored and had his spear in his lap. FP was wearing a similarly surplus garb to Finn, Marcie, and Peebs. "Look at us," she joked to Finn and Marcie. "All decked out like real deal G-men, eh?"

"You know it," Finn threw back. "Lady Rain, yo yo!"

"Geez, where've you been?" Marceline questioned. "We haven't seen you since before we left of Peeb's ship."

"I've been exploring the surrounding area for Princess Bubblegum," the rainicorn said through what Finn assumed was an appropriated Old Earth translator around her neck. "I helped keep the ship safe on the way over, and when we got here, Thoros wasn't forthcoming with assistance, so I helped the Princess maintain a good local strategic picture until Thoros let us tap into the defense grid."

"Noice noice," Finn said. "Where's Ice King?"

"Out of rotation," Bonnibel inserted, coming over to greet her former retainer and her best friend with fist bumps. "He's a bit too unhinged for an operation like this. No offense Marceline."

"No, no," the vampiress said with a wave of her hands. "It's for the best. Powerful as Simon is a whole fleet of warships sounds like something that could do him in. I'd honestly prefer he stay back."

"Right, because we're totally not in just as much danger," Pheobe jested.

"That's where these guys come in," PB explained, leading them away from the fuller and into the hanger-level proper. It was a sprawling setup, with aircraft of all types being serviced by humanoid maintenance drones. Bubblegum lead them over to an angular craft with a full belly, two engines four engines rear and a pair of powerful VTOL jets in its wings. It's nose was covered in low profile gun turrets, and the body was as much weapons bays as it was crew space. "This is our method of insertion. These stealth gunships are designed to absorb radar. It's fussilage also has a coolant system to help it hide from IR sensors, and it's got plenty of jammers and countermeasures. We work that fleet over, come in on the gunship, and board that big boy."

"Why bother boarding?" Guy questioned. "Surely such a formidable foe deserves total destruction."

"There's too much information available there that we need," PB explained. "If that ship is receiving command signals from Martin, then we could use that connection to gather invaluable intel. That's too juicy to pass up."

"Indeed," said Thoros, materializing before them in a brief wash of silver glow. "Good luck on your mission, my lord. I will monitor your progress from here."

"Thanks crystal bro," Finn responded, waving back as they boarded the gunship. "Hold the fort down."

They rode hard, the gunship at the back of a huge detatchment of fighters and bombers, spread out across the line of engagement to target each and every enemy ship. Marcie had a walkman blasting Judas Priest's One Shot at Glory into her ears, helping to fight the boredom and anticipation as the flight seemed to grind on forever. "You are approaching weapons range, Lord Finn," Thoros finally called through the command watch. Finn fixed his eyes on the far out horizon. At first there was nothing, but then Finn spotted just the barest glimmers of objects rising into line of sight.

"Is that...?" An alarm sounded in the cockpit.

"Missile launch detected," called their automated pilot; it sounded much like Thoros, but noticeably less fluid in speech. PB hollered for evasive action, but the pilot responded, "They're not targeting us, ma'am." Every heart in the gunship sank, as long range cruise missiles rose over the horizon, headed for the Candy Kingdom.