Author's note: Thank you kindly for the reviews and stuff! I'll try to make my updates a week apart at the most. As much as I'd love to give you a new chapter every other day, each one takes me several hours and I have some cri-zazy obligations. Chapter 5 is already under way, though!
Jake opened his eyes to see the top of a white, sugar frosted ceiling. His vision was kind of fuzzy, and he was pretty sure he'd been drugged. It took a lot of effort to sit up without getting crazy dizzy. He looked around and saw nothing but white padded walls and a pink bed. On the ceiling was a very obvious camera pointing towards him, and by the door was a pile of bones.
Jake looked at the camera with obvious distain and said, "Bones? Really? Come on, give me some real food!"
There was a long pause and Jake let out a little growl. Suddenly a hasty, shaky voice spoke over the intercom, "We are sorry, Mr. Dog! Just tell us what you like! We read that dogs like bones."
"Well, why don't you just ask one?"
"Ummm," said the squeaky voice unsurely, "What kind of food would you like?"
"I dunno. Got any ribs? Bacon? Burritos? I'm not picky- I just want something more than scraps. I gotta keep my gut nice and curvy. You can't deny a rockin' gut." Jake looked down and swelled his tummy to the size of a watermelon, jiggling it hypnotically.
Minutes later, a platter of assorted gourmet meats were piled before Jake by the small marshmallow nurse. Her little hands shook nervously and jumped away from the platter as soon as she set it down as if she had been bitten.
Jake's mouth fell open and his bottom lip quivered while he moaned, "MEEEEAAAATTTTSSS." The platter was gone in seconds.
As Jake sat back, he erupted a large belch that seemed to clear his head. Bolting up, he yelled "Oh glob, where's Fionna?!"
The nurse stopped as she was about to sneak out the door. She turned slowly and said, "The human baby has been placed with a safe family who will raise her as their own, Mr. Dog."
"Oh," shrugged Jake, "well that's cool. Let me see her before I go look for my buddy."
The nurse whimpered a little bit, "I-I'm afraid I can't let you leave, Mr. Dog. You have not been determined safe for discharge yet."
Jake looked around passively. "Oh, so I'm, like, in a psych ward or some junk?"
The nurse just nodded.
Jake pondered, recalling his fuzzy memories with dude-Tree-Trunks. He had some flashes of himself growing to the size of the house, screaming, and smashing trees- an understandable reaction for someone who finds out all their loved ones and memories suddenly never existed. Then he remembered Tree Trunks calling for help, being surrounded by Candy Police, and suddenly feeling pretty sleepy.
All Jake wanted to do was find Finn and a way to open the portal again, but first he had to make sure this lady was telling the truth about Fionna. He had this strange protectiveness over her. She was the only other human he'd ever met besides his little bro. He felt like if she was safe, there had to be a way for him to be safe, too.
Jake walked very slowly towards the lady with his hands held up cautiously. "Tell me where Fionna is living just so I can check on her. I promise I'll never flip out on-"
"ASSISTANCE! ASSISTANCE! ASSISTANCE!" screeched the woman at the first step Jake took.
In less than one glarble, Jake was surrounded by muscled looking male nurses, the largest one wielding a sedative needle.
Jake stretched one of his jowls across the room and knocked the needle out of the nurses' hand. In the same moment, he stretched his ear to engulf the entire medical team in the air.
"Alright, look candy peeps, I'm not going to hurt you! I've just gots some questions! Questions for your little sucrose brains!" Jake said sternly.
They all nodded, a few making high pitched, frightened whimpers.
"How many years since the Mushroom War happened?"
"1000 years, Mr. Dog." said a nurse timidly.
Jake swallowed, confirming his fears. "Ok, now where am I?"
"The Candy Kingdom on the island of Aaa." piped up a chocolate-covered strawberry.
Jake raised an eyebrow. "Aaa? Isn't there a place called Ooo anywhere up in this craziness?"
The people all looked at each other and shrugged, some shaking their heads unsurely.
Jake sighed. He was getting too old for this. If he wasn't so worried about Finn and whether or not his pregnant girlfriend still existed, he would just kick back and go with the flow of this new realm.
Hesitantly, he asked "Do you know where I'm from?"
They all shook their heads firmly, but he could tell from their faces that they wanted him to go back to where ever it was. A little dark chocolate bar in a lab coat said, "Sir, don't you know this is the first dog any one has seen in this dimension in decades?"
Jake snorted with disbelief, "What, do the other dogs here live in the crystal dimension or something?"
The few people who weren't absolutely petrified with fear nodded.
Jake shrugged. For whatever reason, the dogs actually won the war with the ranicorns in this dimension.
"Alright, so you don't know where I'm from. Well, I'm from a place that never even existed. I'm not even sure why I exist. I don't know exactly why I got sent here like I was from Ooo, instead of being sent as that freaky version of me that turned into-" Jake stopped himself. He realized he was ranting and if he scared these candy peeps anymore they would wet themselves.
Remembering the Lich version of himself again also made him remember Finn with the crown on. He didn't like it, but he knew if he was going to find Finn anywhere it would most likely be in the Ice Kingdom. Before that, though, he said sternly "Tell me where Fionna and I'll let you go. I just want to be sure she's safe."
Nobody answered. Jake sighed and brought the ear full of people to his gaping mouth hole. Several of them started screaming, but he heard the answer come from one of them, "A little house in the forest on the south outskirts of the kingdom! A family of cats lives there!"
"K, thanks dudes!" Jake dropped them all on the floor, grew until he broke through the roof, and lumbered off. "Haha," he muttered to himself, "I wonder if they thought I was gonna eat them. I was just gonna threaten them with my dog breath."
Jake walked south of the kingdom, scanning the trees for a house. He had so many thoughts crowding his head that he thought his overloaded brain might start leaking out of his nostrils. Finn's wish did not prevent the Lich from never existing in the future, only in the past. The Ice King stopping the bomb prevented him from being created in the past, but then Ice King Fin caused it to go off, creating the Lich in the present. The apocalypse was also not prevented by Finns wish, but was delayed 1000 years. That delay seemed to create the world Jake was currently in, which was eerily similar to Ooo.
In a few minutes he came across a large cottage in a thicket of woods and tall grasses. It was so well hidden, that if cats didn't smell so strongly Jake would have passed it up. He shrunk down and knocked a few times on the door. There was no answer, but he could definitely tell the cats were nearby.
He walked around to the back of the house to see a cat kneeling by a frozen pond, clawing at a big fish just out of her reach.
"Hey, lady!" yelled Jake, "You need some help with pick-axe foot?"
The lady turned and gave him an amused look, "Pick-axe foot?"
"PICK-AXE FOOOT!" screeched Jake, shaping his right foot to a sharp point and slamming it into the glass with a crack.
The cat jumped back and picked up the fish graciously. "Why, thank you, Jake. I've been expecting you."
Jake backed up and cocked an eyebrow at her, "Really? You're not going to sedate me or act like I'm going to kill you?"
"Oh, goodness, no! Who do you think was the one who defrosted you with that campfire in the cave? When the fire died down, I went to get some more wood, but got delayed slaying some evil on my way back. By the time I got back you were gone."
"Huh," shrugged Jake, "well thanks for defrosting my bod, I guess. So, what, do lakes just randomly freeze over in the summer here?"
The woman scoffed, "No! That obnoxious Ice Prince did this!"
"Ice Prince?" asked Jake, perking his ears up with piqued interest.
"Hmm, it looks like Peppermint Maid's suspicions were right. You're not from here, are you?"
"Umm, no?"
"I know it must be disorienting. Come inside so you can see Fionna and you can tell me about it."
Before they walked up to the house, Jake felt someone cold and bony tackle him from behind.
"A DOG!" shouted the boy, laughing wildly. "A real, live dog! Hey, you're not made out of snow, are you?" The boy then proceeded to poke Jake all over.
"Ouch, hey cut it out, man!" Jake stretched away, but was hit in the face by a wall of snow.
"No, no, naughty puppy!" taunted the boy. Jake looked up and saw the lanky, blue skinned kid. Snow white hair flew in tendrils around him, and that cursed crown sat on his head. In his eyes, though, there was something very faintly familiar.
"Finn?" asked Jake quietly.
"Fins are for fishes!" shouted the crazed boy, "Hey, that fish has some tasty looking fins! Give it here, cat-lady!"
Finn flew over to the cat, who flipped to the roof of the cottage with the fish.
"Jake, run! I can take him!" shouted the lady.
Jake moaned, looking between the two, unsure of what side to take. The cat leapt off the roof towards Finn, about to slap him in the face with the gigantic fish. Finn, in turn, grew a charging ball of ice, laughing manically.
Jake, in pure denial about what Finn had become, ran in between the two.
"Finn, stop! You got hero blood, bro! Heroes don't steal fish!"
Unfortunately, the feline and the ice boy were already mid-attack when Jake intervened. Jake got smacked hard in the back with the fish, and just as he tumbled to the ground the shards of ice rained down on the cat.
Jake struggled to get up before cold, thin arms lifted him and froze shackles around his limbs. Finn's breathing was creepy and irregular, and shook with unsteady giggles.
"Hey, dog, let's go fight stuff and live in a tree house. You can make me food, and we'll play video games, and then we can be best friends!" He soared up with Jake, zooming towards the Ice Kingdom.
Jake struggled, fixing to yell at Finn for acting so crazy, when a stunning thought hit him.
"Finn-"
"-ARE FOR FISHES!"
Jake sighed, "Whatever your name is- didn't you grow up on a farm in this reality?"
Finn stopped short in the air, cradling Jake in his arms. He looked into the distance, speaking in a surreal moment of apparent lucidity "I grew from the power of the ice and snow. From the white, lonely purity that no one appreciates but those who know it. No one likes the power I must have, but chaos is needed in many forms in this world."
Jake just grunted softly in response and Finn resumed flying.
If the Finn here grew up on a farm, and Ooo never existed, then why was the Ice-Prince-Finn daydreaming about living in a tree house and going on adventures with a dog…
Like it was more of a memory than what was supposedly reality?
