Chapter 8 Kings of Mars
A deer walked through a forest, looking for nothing in particular, just walking. It walked and walked like all deer do. When the deer had reached a long forgotten railroad, it was oblivious to the being wrapped in a blanket the same color as the dirt, his yellow hat sticking out like a sore thumb. The person in the blanket saw the deer and whistled to get its attention.
"Hey friend." He said in a gravelly voice. " Don't be afraid my friend, I'm a gypsy child like you, running wild and crazy." He laughed at what he thought was funny. And then he saw something falling from the sky. He stood up so he could get a better look. "Wow, a falling star." Then something hit the man. 'Wait, you can't see falling stars during the day, and they aren't red either. I could tell what it is.' "But it's too far though." The man threw off his blanket to reveal his bright green skin and torn yellow cloths, Magic Man was his name and his game was to be a thorn in just about everyone's side. He turned around quickly as he transformed the deer into a telescope. "You're welcome." Magic Man said in a now peppier voice.
As Magic Man focused in on the falling star, he realized it was something he did not want to see, something that he hadn't seen in two hundred years. "Oh Glob." He whispered to himself. What he saw were the four super beings that are worshipped here in Ooo, Glob, Grod, Grob, and Gob. The diamond-like head with held their faces on four sides of the diamond hung above their body in a tight magnetic grip. Their crimson colored body had the shape of space shuttle that had been stripped of its wings and hollowed out.
"He is here somewhere my brothers, I can feel him. Glob can you see Magic Man on the sensor?"
"Yes Glob, our little brother is close." Glob said looking at Magic Man as a red blip on a round screen
"Hey, flip me." Gob said and his brothers did so. "I'm gonna activate the thingy that drains his magic juice." Gob said as he pushed a button on the sensor. Magic Man dropped the deer telescope as he suddenly felt drained. He raised his hand so that he could see what the four had done to him.
"My juice, not flowing right." He knew what was about to happen, the four G's were coming to get him to bring him in for his trial and he was sure an execution would follow. "Dream on honey, you can't catch this." Magic Man ran down the railway and tried to teleport away, but failed as he tasted the topsoil only several feet from where he teleported. The Magic Man immediately got back up and continued to run.
"I think I see him."
"Yes I see him as well."
Finn, Jake, and Michal walked the line of the rail road, carrying severed robotic limbs. Jake stopped the two humans behind him and shushed them as well.
"I wasn't…"
"You here that?" Jake said, interrupting Finn. Everyone listened and heard nothing, no birds chirping, no insects making any kind of noise, nothing but complete and utter silence. "It was like totally silent for a whole second." Jake said. Finn and Michal agreed and continued to enjoy the silence. "Sometimes we get so wrapped up battling stuff, we forget the…" Jake was cut short as the Magic Man collided in with him, Finn and Michal. Jake was knocked unconscious while Michal somehow landed on top of Finn. Magic Man saw Jake lying on the ground and took advantage of the golden opportunity he was given. Michal raised his head just in time to see the Magic Man turn Jake into a copy of himself and vise versa.
"What the?" Michal said, thinking he was hallucinating. Magic Man brought his finger to his lips as he picked up a rock and chucked it at Michal's head, knocking him out. Magic Man quickly ran beside the two humans and pretended to be dead to the world. Glob, Grod, Grob and Gob appeared in a very bright pinkish white light.
"Arise!" the three said in unison as they raised a hand and Jake, making him come too. "Magic Man, you've caused us nothing but turmoil and chaos for us on Mars. We thought banishing you to this world would make you see the light of our utopian super society. Now tell us, what have you learned in these past two hundred years." Jake was confused, he looked around and asked the four one simple question.
"Are you guys, talking to me?"
"You know you made life on Mars a nightmare." Michal opened his eyes and looked up at Jake and the god-like being. "Now we must return you to Mars, where vengeance awaits thee." Michal didn't know how to respond, but he did know that was Jake.
"Wait that's not…!" he stopped in midsentence when he was blinded by the pinkish white light and the three flew up and out of sight. Michal stood up and watched as if what he was watching a space shuttle take off. He turned around when he heard a gasp of air. Finn was holding his chest, taking long slow breaths. With Michal on top of him it had made it a little difficult to breath.
"What happened?" Finn asked. And it took Michal several more seconds to take all of it in.
"Uh, okay a guy, with green skin, wearing nothing but torn yellow cloths, knocked us all out and turned himself into Jake and Jake, into, well." Michal looked back up to the sky. Finn knew exactly what the Captain was talking about when he saw Jake laying next to him.
"Magic Man, get up!" Finn said beating the Magic Man twice. He only opened one eye.
"Did it work? Is he gone?"
"Where's Jake?!"
"I think they took him to, Mars." Michal said.
"Well you're going to take me there so I can save him." Finn said getting up close and personal with the Magic Man.
"Oh I'm sorry, but I can't. You see, the transfer drained me of almost all of my magic. I can probably barely float, so I just have to wait till they kill your friend. See ya." Magic Man said as he skipped away laughing. Finn stopped him by jumping on his back, wrapping both his arms and legs around him.
"What do you mean, kill?"
"There're gonna put him on trial for my crimes, ain't nobody gonna pardon these crimes on my head. Not even the King of Mars. And once he's dead my magic juice will return to my body, flowing through me like moonlight on the ghost dance." Finn squeezed the Magic Man very hard out of anger, hard enough to push out some of his remaining juice. "I wish I could help, except I don't."
"You suck."
"Come on let's go to my house, come on let's go to my house." The Magic Man said almost singing. He struggled to lift himself and Finn into the air. He only went about fifteen feet up, so it was easy for Michal to follow.
Magic Man carried Finn deep into the forest. He fell to the ground with a grunt as he stopped near a very old house. Multiple vehicles surround the house, two cars, a school bus, a trailer, and a speed boat. Michal came through the brush to see Finn and Magic Man walk into the house and he quickly followed. The house was old on the outside but it looked even older on the inside. Dirt was piled high with garbage and plants scattered in it. Near the center of the room a tree had actually taken root and sprouted through the first and second floor.
"Well, I bet there's something here that can help me save Jake."
"There is…" Magic Man said as he collapsed on to a pile of dirt. "…but you'll never make it work."
"What, where is it?!"
"I don't know, have you seen my trash palace?" Magic Man said, pulling the purple wallpaper off of the wall.
"Yeah what's the deal with that? This place is wrecked." Finn took one step where he shouldn't have, he made a sound of disgust. "What am I stepping in?"
"That's where I blow my nose all day."
"That is just sick, man." Michal said, watching Finn remove his foot from the big pile of snot.
"Yes, welcome to my tower of light. Everyone is welcome to share this magic kingdom…" Magic Man pointed out all of the things in his 'magic kingdom'. "…squirrels…" Really a dead rat that had attracted several flies. "…black mold, worms, poison ivy, and tiny manticore." Finn and Michal looked down at a tiny manticore, a lion with bat wings and a scorpion tail that had been trapped in a bottle. "Help me you cowards." It said through the glass.
Finn started to argue with the Magic Man for the location of his special object, while Michal was drawn to a picture frame on the wall. The picture was of the Magic Man embracing a woman that had the same color skin as the Magic Man, but she had long brown curls. When Michal saw the expression on Magic Man's face, he realized that he had seen the same look some where before. Michal retrieved the wallet from his pocket, opened it, and sure enough Michal's face bared the same expression as he held his now dead wife.
"Seriously Magic Man, what is you deal?" Finn asked.
"You tell me." Finn was about to talk but Michal started to speak his own mind before Finn got a single word out.
"You were once a happy man with a woman who loved you the same way you loved her. But one day you lost that woman and now your nothing but a shell of the man you used to be." Finn and Magic Man stared at Michal with raised eyebrows. Neither one of them had expected him to say anything like that. Finn stood in silence, just to hear what would happen next.
"How would you know that?" Michal walked toward the Magic Man, wallet in hand.
"Because I have felt the same pain you have." Michal said as he handed the wallet to Magic Man and stared at the picture, the memory of a girl drifted back into his head.
"Well if you won't help us, we're just gonna keep digging through this stuff until I find what you're talking about." Finn said as he and Michal began to dig through the dirt, while Magic Man continued to stare at the picture. A painful memory of his only love's death
"It's down stairs." He said abruptly. Finn and Michal turned to the strange man
"What?"
"My special thing." Magic Man walked passed in between the two humans as he returned Michal's wallet to him and then to the wall and jammed his hand through a gap in the wood. He brought pain to himself as he adjusted the hidden lever that he had placed in the wall and opened an entrance into the basement of the house. He acted as if nothing had happened to his hand when he said in a very cheerful mood. "Tada, come on. Follow me." He jumped through the doorway and dove into the loose dirt. The two humans following gazed around the room.
"That's the thing." Magic Man said as he popped up out of the dirt and pointed to an object that was half buried and looked similar to an eighteen sided die. The only real difference was the flat top with two handles that reached up to about four feet. "My special thing. A Martian transporter."
"You mean this thing can take someone to Mars." Michal said touching the side of the transporter.
"Yeah, my 'brothers' gave it to me when they banished me to Earth. They thought I'd learn love and use it to go back home." Finn stepped onto the transporter.
"How do I do it?" "You put your hands on those thingies and think stuff about people." Finn grabbed the handles and tried to think. "But it's broken, hasn't worked in two hundred years." Magic Man said looking down in depression at the dirt. "But, it has to work. For Jake." Finn said, bowing his head. The Martian transporter began to glow red and rise out of the dirt. It shocked everyone in the room, especially Magic Man. "Finn get off of there!" Michal yelled as he put his hand on Finn's ankle. And the second he did, the red light turned purple and shot the two through the ceiling, the roof, and the planet's atmosphere. Finn looked behind him and saw Michal still holding onto his ankle, and the pink energy that surrounded and protected both of them from the harsh element of space. But most importantly was the planet they had just left. Finn could easily see the enormous crater that was formed during the Mushroom War, which covered almost a third of the planet. As the two were forced past space debris, they could see a red dot that was the planet of Mars grew bigger and bigger. Eventually two large domes came into view and as the two continued moving they landed on a transporter that looked like a prototype transporter. Finn and Michal glanced across the giant city around them, with oddly shaped buildings. The two ignored the stone arch and the engraved in it above their heads. The language the markings were unknown to then but it translated to 'Here is where our king left and here is where we shall wait for his return' Finn and Michal jumped off the transporter and ran a path way that led to a coliseum that had been converted into a courtroom for the occasion of a trial.
Glob began the trial by addressing Martian citizens and their King, Abraham Lincoln. If he was standing he would have been almost twelve feet tall. He raised his hand to signal the official start of the trial he raised his hand as he was swearing in on a bible. "Today, the second most notorious criminal in all of Martian history stands before us. Magic Man." Glob said.
Finn and Michal reached the gate of the coliseum to find it locked. Through the gaps in the gate Finn could see Jake. "Stop!" He screamed as loud as he could, but no one had heard him. With no alternative entrance Finn began to scale the wall so he could get in, but again he was stopped this time by a force field. "Oh man." Finn beat the barrier three times. "Force field." Several seconds of gazing downward into the arena, Michal climbed up next to Finn. "What now, hero?" Michal asked. Finn looked down at the three people in the arena and with no other idea, he started to climb the force field and Michal followed.
"Turn on the dark." Glob said and the coliseum went partly dark and a projector was turned on. "Okay, so we don't have footage of these crimes, but Grod is a pretty good drawer, so… Plague of shadows." Grod drew an image of the crimes that had been committed as Glob spoke. "Magic Man brought our shadows to life. They attacked us and ravaged Mars." Glob shot a quick glance at the drawing his brother created and complimented him. "Very impressive Grod." "Thanks brother." Grod said as he washed the projector screen. "To the plague of the oneness, as we gather to hold hands and sing our community song. Magic Man cast an evil spell that made our arms grow together, much suffering ensued. And what about that one time when he turned all the water into air and we all got so thirsty, we drank it. And when we drank it, we went bald. Many of us did not recover and to this day, hide our loss behind groovy head gear. Dark off, please." The coliseum was lit up like normal, as ordered by Glob. The King of Mars had heard the crimes, and he had already decided the verdict of the accused, guilty. And now he had to give the Magic Man a choice of punishment. "Magic Man, it pains me to see you like this. I remember when you were really cool, before you spent that night on Olympus Mons with Margles. What happened, Magic? What made you go crazy? If you could have just learned to care about living things again, you could have come back whenever you wanted." Jake stood at the feet of the King, still confused as hell. "Well you guys are missing some important details. I'm not Magic Man, I'm Jake the dog! Listen!" Jake got down on all fours and barked like a dog. If he had his regular body it would look normal, but since he looked like the Magic Man to a 'T', it just looked weird. "You sad, sad Magic Man. Instead you bummed around Ooo. Acting like a jerk for two hundred years." "Yeah that's true, except I'm not Magic Man!" Lincoln stood up and spoke very loudly. "Now! Ready the wand of dispersement." Glob raised a gold wand with what looked like a butterfly on the end. On the butterfly were two triangles, the infinity symbol, and a pair of reptile eyes with blue pupils. "Ready." All four G's said in unison. "Space dome, open." Lincoln said, opening the force field above, like Moses parting the Red Sea. Finn and Michal didn't expect this and fell through to the arena below. "Magic Man, I give you two chooses. One, is total annihilation. The wand will touch you and your soul will meet with Death. The second, is that we use the power of the wand to convert your body into living stardust. Where your consciousness will be jettisoned into the infinite cosmos, and an epic journey filled with wonder and discovery." Jake had never had to make a choice of how he would die. But if he had to pick, then so be it. "Whoa, I mean that second one sounds pretty cool, I mean like yeah I'm way into that. Except, I would really miss my best friend. His name is Finn. And I think it would really mess him up, if I wasn't around." Lincoln was surprised at Jake's comment. "Wait. Did you say that you would miss someone, and that someone would miss you?" "Yeah that's me you dishrags!" Finn yelled as he hurled a chair he had stolen from an onlooker. The chair hit Glob, causing the wand to fly from Glob's hand and hit Jake on the head. Purple rings of energy surrounded and rippled outward as Jake turned back into his normal self and fell to the ground, dead.
"Jake, no." Finn said as he knelt next to the cadaver of his brother and held it tight. Michal walked up behind and placed a hand on Finn's shoulder, and as he did so he saw a reflection of himself in Finn. Finn closed his eyes and wept softly for several seconds. Then he suddenly stood up with his face expressionless, his eyes still shut. When they opened, Finn's eyes glowed yellow. He gazed around the coliseum with a smile on his face. Finn let out a small laugh. "Memories." Finn said with two voices in his throat, one was his own and the other was Soturi's. "Finn, are you felling alright?" Michal asked, taking one step back. Finn looked at the Captain and said. "Finn's not here at the moment, please leave a message after the beep." He then turned to Lincoln and Glob, Gob, Grob, and Grod, still smiling. "I have never seen anyone mourn that quickly." Lincoln said. "Well, I don't know the dog…" Finn stepped over Jake as he continued to talk. "…but I do know you five." Finn said, pointing at Lincoln and the four G's. "Do you really?" Lincoln said with one eyebrow raised. "Well of course, you're Abraham Lincoln, you were born in Hodgenville Kentucky, you were the sixteenth president of the United States and won a civil war, and if I recall I was sitting right next to you when Booth shoot you in the back of the head." Lincoln leaned forward in the chair in surprise. "Soturi." The entire coliseum was silent so that they could hear every word that was spoken. However when they heard the name of their true King, they cheered like the soccer fans of a winning team. They silenced themselves as Finn's hand rose. Glob ran and scooped up his long lost friend for a bear hug. "Soturi, we'd thought you had perished on Earth." "Technically Glo, Gr, Go, Gro… ugh, I really should have given you four different faces when I made you. But technically, I'm still in the astral plain. I will reclaim the throne when Veli is no longer in existence." "Well I wish you could take back the throne now. Because after a thousand years of governing these people, I'm just about sick of it Lincoln said, smiling at his old friend. "Then you will be happy to hear that I'm training this boy, to prepare him for what we all know is coming."
"Excuse me, but would someone please explain what you all are talking about." Michal said. Glob let Finn down so he could walk over and talk to the Captain. "What we speak of is the prophecy that speaks of a single motion of the hand from a dark prince that will set into motion, the war of suns. The prince who set that motion will be punished not once, but three times in death. Brought to him twice by a hero, one of the four sole survivors. This hero shall have meet and been raised by a gold dog. Who will lead the Hero, the King, and the Solider to a flying mountain, where they will help decide the fate of two worlds." "By God t-that's, that's messed up." Soturi nodded. "You could probably figure that the Hero and the dog are Finn and Jake. But I would ask if you would forget you ever heard any of that." "Yeah, like I'm going to just forget something like that." "Oh, then let me help you with that." Soturi said as his placed Finn's palm on Michal's forehead and forced his eyelids to droop. "This memory will reveal itself when the time is right, but until then live life to the fullest, Marine."
Finn led Michal back to where both had been when Soturi possessed Finn and he knelt back down next to Jake's dead body, taking hold of him. "Abraham, you know what to do and I will see you in good time, old friend." Finn bowed his head back and the yellow glow in his eyes disappeared. Then his head then shot back up to face the King of Mars with a livid demeanor. "This wouldn't have globed if you had just listened to my bro. You screwed up King of Mars, the wisest, most honest super being of all time just put an innocent dog to death." "You're right, Finn the human. My judgment was less than the standard by which I judge my peers, of which I have only one. I will retrieve your friend from the 37th dead world." Lincoln sat in his chair and transported his consciousness into the 37th dead world.
Lincoln walked across a grey desert, riddled with random rocks that varied in sizes and the burnt bones of fallen angles. In his arms, was the curled up body of Jake. Lincoln ignored the bones that crunched under his feet as he saw Death just a few feet in front of him. "Death." "King of Mars, what's your business." "I need this one back." Lincoln said, holding Jake out for Death to see. "What will you give me for him?" Lincoln held up a dirty brown coin with his face on one side of it. Death laughed at his offer. "Not this time your majesty." "In that case I offer my immortality." "Deal." Death said as he shook his head for the even trade.
Jake's soul was returned to his body and his eyes opened slowly. "Hey, I'm alive!"Jake said, jumping up. "Yay! King of Mars saved you!" "Yes, but at what cost." Glob said. Finn, Michal and Jake looked at the King. Lincoln had been turned to stone. "Huh, the Lincoln Memorial." Michal said. "Should we go get Magic Man?" Finn asked. "No, I lost a friend today. I cannot lose a brother as well." As glob talked he didn't notice the three behind him making I run for it. "Hey where did they go?"
Finn, Jake, and Michal made their way back to the Martian transporter very quickly. Jake had his arms wrapped around Finn's shoulders and Michal had a tight grip on Finn's elbow. "Eat my skids!" Finn yelled, striking a superman pose. The transporter shined blue and shot the three into space and back to Ooo, more precisely being the Magic Man's rundown house. Magic Man was holding the picture Michal had been looking at earlier. "Oh Margles." He whispered just before Finn and his two friends smashed through the ceiling and hit Magic Man in the face. The three landed next to the unconscious body of the Magic Man and the tiny manticore. Finn quickly grabbed the bottle it was trapped in and slammed on the floor. "Go, get outta' here tiny manticore." Before the manticore flew off in to the distance, he told Finn he didn't need his pity help. "What?" Finn said, very confused. The manticore talked to himself as he flew. "I am the true coward. Hiding from sincere expressions like a vampire in the nude, how hides from the light. Thank you, brave hero. I was freed from bottle jail, but my new prison is shame. MY NEW PRISON IS SHAME!" Unbeknownst to the manticore, Jake had stretched his ear out to listen to him. "What's he saying?" Michal asked. Jake brought his ear back to its normal shape. "He said 'my new prison is shame."
