The End Chapter 5 Rough Draft
Days Until Genocide: 340
BMO was waiting for Finn and Jake in the castle's lobby. For the third night in a row, the brothers return to castle was delayed by the weather. Throughout the Candy Kingdom and grasslands, puddles and tiny rivers of run-off. For the first two nights, BMO was lucky enough to get here via remote-controlled toy car. There was one obstacle that BMO remembered well. The border separating the normal soil of grasslands with that of the kingdom faced an epidemic of run-off rivers. The dirt of the Candy Kingdom was made of chocolate, making some people wish to keep it clean for consumption. Since one part of the larger cleaning plan was to separate the kingdom's ground from the dirty world, the shovel markings from the fruitless labor were abundant and deep. That night, with its rampant and aggressive flooding, allowed the toy to be carried away by the current. If Red hadn't visited the robot on that night, BMO wasn't sure what it would've done.
Red had intended to visit the robot on accounts of the promise he made. Despite visiting Finn and Jake's house a second time in a row, he had yet to meet the actual owners of the property. The very mentioning of the Candy Kingdom was enough to make Red eager to tag along with BMO. If the robot recalled, Red may or may not have mentioned never visiting there before. Regardless, judging by the smile and jittery eager eagerness of the young man, one could see that his anticipation rivaled that of child heading to a theme park. Once BMO was left without a ride, he volunteered give it a ride. He insisted to carry BMO bridal-style. The robot was okay with this, despite the intimate nature of the hold. BMO only found things to be a little weird when Red touched most of BMO's body, getting a good feel of the plastic and glass textures. BMO remained silent about this, and made light chat about the scenery of the kingdom.
Red left, explaining that he had something to do. BMO had no issue with this, since Jake was large enough to carry everyone home. The main reason why BMO was needed in the first place was to make sure neither Finn nor Jake fall asleep on the way back. Red vanished into the darkness shortly after BMO sat down in the castle lobby. It sat there, watching the rain hit the windows at it fell from the greenish-gray sky. The lights did little in illuminating the area, making the robot feel more isolated than it already was. Minutes passed, but no one appeared, so BMO went to the door in hope of finding any sign of life. Seeing several buildings outside the palace with their lights on lessened the looming isolation, even though the rain prevented it from reaching other people. BMO went to search for others in the adjacent rooms. Luck was clearly messing with the little system at this point, because the halls were even more dimly lit than the main entrance. The fact that no one was maintaining the castle at this hour intrigued BMO. As far as the robot knew, the guards were supposed to be patrolling at this hour.
The door was busted open. Coming inside were a crowd of soldiers. BMO jumped at the sight, afraid that this was an invading army. However, after seeing the angry princess who was leading the soldiers, BMO's shock had subsided. Seeing the bright pink being stomp with such ferocity was a sight to behold, especially so due it being followed by her sounding an emergency alarm. She was unconcerned about state of her tired troops as she saw this castle's guards scramble to pour out of the hallway. Bright light soon filled the room, making everyone that was adjusted to the darkness flinch. BMO couldn't enjoy this knew illumination, because what followed was the monarch's voice yelling. Although BMO couldn't figure out the words she was saying, the bulky soldiers practically knelled to voice of their slender commander. Without question, her presence and willpower dominated the room.
All the soldiers then scattered across the room. Some troops went to the infirmary, others went on patrol, some went to some sort of meeting room, and others just went home. The meetings regarding military strategy were unimportant for BMO. It can only remember one time where someone caused it to erupt in violence, so the idea of setting foot on a battlefield was unthinkable. Going past BMO was a seven-foot tall metal soldier, lumbering his body around and stumbling occasionally. BMO didn't realize this, but that was the same soldier who dominated Finn a few days back. After taking a few steps forward, he succumbed to his fatigue and fell asleep on the castle floor. Of course, he was merely the first to show vulnerability. A few more soldiers then fell to the ground.
After pondering the impossibility of itself being able to handle the same level of these soldiers, BMO jumped out of its seat to search for its friends. It wondered the halls, seeing that the change in lighting had given new life to this place. Most of what BMO saw was either in the color of pink or yellow. It felt as if that previous state of the palace had never even existed. BMO was about to check in the infirmary, but the princess's abrupt exit from there interrupted the robot via kick. For a moment, the princess forgot all the frustrations of her current situation to check for any damages on BMO. Thankfully, it was just a mere screen crack, so she took BMO up to her quarters for repair.
For Princess Bubblegum, such a repair only took five minutes. The room was quaint and separated from the chaos. This comfort was compounded with the comfy looking bed. The only thing out of place was the science equipment in the shelves and drawers. BMO, curious as to what happened to her and the army, asked about what happened.
Princess Bubblegum sighed. "Whoever this guy is, he just won't let us catch him." She plopped herself on her bed, not even taking the time to put on her pajamas. "What a coward."
"Where's Finn and Jake?" said BMO
"They're getting patched up in the infirmary." Bubblegum yawned. "I think they broke their legs or arms, maybe both." She then saw the terror in BMO's eyes. "Don't worry, they're just fine." * Trailing after sentence was some incoherent mumbling. Thanks to having one last flicker of mental willpower, her jumbled speech shortly regained its comprehensibility as BMO attempted to leave the room. "Wait," she said, "you should just stay here for the night. Finn and Jake are tired too."
If there was one perk to being a machine, it was the fact that it's incredibly easy to go to sleep. This came in handy, as BMO found no convenient sleeping areas for a normal small creature. All it needed was a stable surface and anything the size of a tissue, functioning as a makeshift blanket. The latter item was technically useless, but still proved make BMO ease the sense of vulnerability, like a knight feeling stronger with their armor on. There wasn't much for BMO to do at the castle, so it climbed to the table adjacent to the bed and activated sleep mode by the lamp spread.
Sleeping wouldn't be a good word to describe the state that the robot was in. Rather, it was more akin to being knocked out, minus the risk of brain damage and memory loss. BMO was completely incapable of dreaming. As with every other handicap BMO experiences, the experience of such sensations is incomprehensible to the machine. How could one define taste without ever tasting? How could one define smell without ever smelling? Why must one's imagination be strained to times when one is conscious? BMO never thought of these as existential crises, and simply vented them out during solitude, where one could easily live out their unattainable fantasies. In BMO's case, these fantasies included everything the robot knew about people, such as the need to brush teeth and urinate.
A few hours past, with all the castle reaching a state of slumber, save for the guards on patrol. Neither BMO nor Bubblegum could hear a ladder hitting the edge of one of the room's windows. Two beings climbed up the ladder, with one trying to be as stealthy as possible, and the other not caring about how loud he was. The loud one opened the window via sword, since he found opening it the traditional way to be boring. Thankfully, this didn't backfire, since everyone was in too deep of a sleep and none of the glass hit the princess.
"There she is, Skully. The final target in our quest," said the one who broke the window. The quietness of his voice wasn't consistent with his method of breaking and entering.
"We could easily just kill her now, you know?" Skully pointed to the neck of the princess. "One slice there, and she'll be gone for good."
With a height advantage assisting his authoritative position, the other person looked down at Skully. "I thought I told you before, that would be the coward's way out." He looked again at the opening. "But, I do have to admit, it is rather tempting." He stroked Bubblegum's soft, silky hair. "It's a shame," he said, "she's so beautiful."
"May we get back to business?" Skully asked.
"Yes," said the other, almost forgetting what they came here for.
Skully unscrewed the back of BMO and connected a chip to a specific area of its motherboard. Meanwhile, the tall figure was looking through princess's possessions, hoping to take something she held close to heart hostage. He was surprised to see that she had nothing resembling a stuffed animal from childhood, as that can be any human's most sentimental possession. He assumed that the princess lacked even sentimentality as, immediately after not seeing anything from childhood, he found a box labeled: "Rings from Rejected Suitors." *
The box appeared to have little sentimental value, considering it was a shoebox containing rather expensive rings that technically didn't belong to the princess. As he went through, pocketing any ring containing either precious metals or gems, he noticed one lone mood ring. Just by looking at it, one could tell that the gold outline of the ring was fake. The thieves tested it, but only found that its mood reading function was disabled. They checked the labeling engraved inside the ring.
"From Finn," they read to themselves. The craftsmanship of the engraving was sloppy. It was as if a twelve-year-old wrote it with whatever small object he found lying around. The two put the ring back, figuring that it neither had enough monetary or sentimental value to be useful.
Skully scanned Bubblegum's closet, almost hoping to find skeletons. Luckily for him he didn't have to dig deep into her belongings, as there was shirt neatly folded on most reachable shelf. What made this shirt stand out was the note attached to it, rather than its design.
"Dear Princess," Skully read to himself, "after pulling some strings, Marcy helped us get another one of these shirts for you. Hope you enjoy the replacement! Sincerely, Jake." The urge to laugh at this stroke of luck almost took over Skully. But remembering the importance of remaining silent, he decided to wait until him and his partner were in the clear. Skully showed his partner the shirt. Its main color was black coupled with the design of a yellow snake coiled around two staked heads. Such a shirt lost whatever creep factor on them due to the heads being that of candy people. Something like this would've been too out of nature for the princess to buy on her own. Clearly, this was a gift from someone opposite, but close. They agreed to take the shirt, and Skully went out the same way he came in. The other broke a different window to get out, just because he could.
The princess's restful sleep was a restful one, clocking in at around the usual eight hours. Unfortunately, a loose shard of broken glass made this a rather rude awakening. Having stepped on it, the princess went to get a bandage for her foot. Later, Finn, Jake, BMO, and Bubblegum were standing back at the main castle entrance. Although the sight of it lingered with a sense of a laborious future, there was still some invigoration present in this new day. Jake went outside accompanied by Finn; they were both trying to make sure the former still had his powers working properly. BMO and Bubblegum waited for the duo. The princess let out a sigh. BMO, curious about such an expression of exhaustion, spoke up.
"You seem to be working hard," said BMO, stating the obvious. "Why are you still tired? Didn't you get your proper eight hours of rest?"
The princess turned towards BMO. "I wouldn't consider a problem with sleep. Whoever this killer is, he won't just let me be at peace." She crossed her arms. "Of course, this has to happen when I told myself to take it easy on work."
"Why don't you let someone else take your place for a while?" said BMO.
The princess scoffed. "Have you seen the princesses of the other kingdoms? They don't know a thing about military leadership, * so I'm doing the heavy lifting." She took a few steps while speaking, and flinched at a jolt of pain. Her mind was had little focus on state of herself. "Meanwhile, some of those so called 'warrior' kingdoms that have been gaining in popularity are just filled with dumb muscle."
BMO didn't know what to make of what Bubblegum said. Truly, there were several hundred kingdoms across Ooo. Considering that just a search party was as large as an entire army, BMO was under the idea that most of the kingdoms already banded together for this cause. But then, the robot remembered who the army was composed of: Giants made of hard metal, blue bodybuilders, the useless banana guards, and the duo that was currently outside.
"Your army seems to lack diversity." BMO's eyes were trailing off to the extraneous elements of the castle, such as a patio that has the dust an object could only get from sitting in one place for years. "Hey," BMO said with a slight outburst of cheerfulness, "maybe you can brighten your morning with a bit of the fancy tea you have."
The princess scoffed once again. "Try doing that with the other princesses. I have hardly enough time as it is." The princess petted BMO.
Upon seeing the duo finally get Jake's powers under control, Bubblegum waved them goodbye for the day. BMO, riding along with Finn and Jake, thought about the situation that the princess was in. Was it right for a princess to work so hard? BMO thought that, if it was in a similar situation, treating oneself would happen more often. * BMO stopped pondering that ideal situation once Jake had grown to gigantic size and started carrying the other two back to home. Jake had gotten used to growing the size of a house to transport those close to him. Finn, while he also had grown used to riding his brother, still very much enjoyed the expansive view given from the height gain. Of course, for someone like BMO, who's had a bit less exposure and is less than one foot tall, sightseeing on Jake's back was nothing short of breathtaking. It was a good thing the robot had a camera function.
They trio arrived back home; the casts of their wounds were only a minor source of inconvenience. The three were making some idle chatter as they walked through the door. BMO was last to enter the house. And, with the curse of tiny feet, one could bet that BMO would be more likely to stub them on really tiny objects. BMO, after a short, quiet yelp, looked down at the object that caused its foot suffering. Surely enough, it was gold ring covered with extravagant Celtic artwork and styled rubies. BMO walked inside seeing Finn and Jake's current treasure trove/entrance room. The room had heaps of gold and other unusual artifacts. While the gold wasn't as abundant as it was months prior, the trio were still sitting under some nice wealth. BMO tossed the ring inside a gold goblet, thinking that such a ring was just another piece of their treasure.