Rigby sneaked out of the house with the book. It was very late, but Rigby did not mind. Something was calling him and he felt the need to answer. He rushed with the book out into one of the deepest corners of the park, shielded by trees from the outside world.
Spread around him outside were some long sticks pointed into the ground. A plastic garbage bag was stabbed into the other end. They were nowhere near impressive, but Rigby could only do so much in such a short amount of time and with his lack of crafting skills.
He re-opened the Enchiridion as he did the night before. He was not sure what triggered his spark the last time. He lifted his arm and flicked his wrist downward. To his disappointment, nothing emerged. "Come on, work with me here," he frustratingly pleaded with the inanimate book. He kept swinging his arm downwards and was growing more and more impatient. Worthless. Rigby continued to Goddamn Mistake try clearing his mind but thoughts "You can't do anything right!" reluctantly poured in.
" Rigby… "
In an explosion of rage, Rigby screamed as his eyes clenched tightly. His face was beat red. He opened his eyes to a cool, soft green. Fire. It rested neatly in the palm of his hand. He did not feel the fireball at first. It was different this time. Its light was very dim and Rigby barely felt any warmth. He was calmer this time and kept it contained.
He wound his arm back, stepped forward, and threw his arm downward. The fireball sailed the first target and ignited it into a pillar of green fire which slowly changed to orange and red. Rigby was now laughing with satisfaction. "That was awesome!" he rejoiced with the biggest grin on his face.
Again, he followed through the steps as he set fire to another of the targets. Rigby beamed with pride at his new work.
He could feel it. He could feel something working its way into him with each motion. For those few fleeting moments, he could feel his timidness, his arrogance, his mistakes, his unspoken shame melt away. He never felt this way before. He was in complete control. This all went by unnoticed. Rigby was too focused on how cool he seemed to reflect on anything he was feeling. He started comparing himself to movie characters and superheros and how powerful he was compared to everyone else in the park. In one night, Rigby went from the weakest to the strongest in the park.
This was exactly what the Enchiridion was planning on.
He quickly relented a hail of fireballs, decimating the remaining targets. Many missed and trailed off into the clearing, but those that did hit disintegrating the bag in a bright blast. In his excitement and rage, he turned to the last statue, planted his feet in the ground, and sent a jet of green flames streaming from his hands. The makeshift target was absorbed in the gust and burnt away. "Holy crap!" Rigby exclaimed, "This is amazing! I didn't know I could do that! I was all like pchuu pch-pchu!" he said, mimicking his earlier actions.
Rigby went back over to the book. There had to be other spells that would make him more advanced. He scrolled through the tantalizing artwork and tempting depictions of figures weaving and controlling various forms of magic. Rigby wanted to try them all. Yet he decided to fixate himself on the basics. The earlier flames left him exhausted and, strangely, in pain. The incomprehensible symbols somehow became legible. He could not tell what they were or how they would sound, but he knew what they meant. It was as though the words just projected themselves into his thoughts.
One such spell depicted a figured creating a strangely curved wall in front of him. With a little practice, a thin, greenishly transparent shield came to form in front of his hands. This bubble could scale up to five feet in height. However, he felt a strain on his muscles and contorting pain the larger he made them. Following the dark book, he tried next to pass his shield onto something else. With some failed attempts at first, Rigby formed a greenish bubble and touched his hand to a small rock no larger than a baseball and transferred it. The bubble was not much larger than the object supporting it. After a few minutes, the shield faded away. He then tried forming an enormous shield spanning five feet in diameter and tried to transfer it to the rock. It exploded into a thousand pieces, which Rigby kept in mind.
The final trick for the night was a little more mysterious. It was a blackish matter held like rock. It was sharp and thin, then flimsy and soft. It changed and molded to Rigby's whims. He used this plasma to glue two rocks together. Then Rigby quickly sliced them apart with a newly formed blade in his hand. "Yeah, science!" Rigby said to himself.
It had been several hours that he was out there. By then he had been able to pull off his new moves with ease. Except now he was starting to ache. His arms, particularly his chest was cramping and, what felt like, burning. He looked down to see faint steam coming from his arm. "I think that's enough for now…" Rigby said now more exhausted than ever.
Despite his satisfaction, there were dim feelings of frustration and anger lurking. He felt a calm rage. He could not explain why he felt it or where it came from. But he wanted to see something explode. He wanted to slice a tree in half and crash a plane out of the sky down to the park below. It worried him.
Nevertheless, the hours of constant concentration and physical strain took its toll. Rigby felt ready to collapse there in the grass. It was time to finally go inside and sleep.
"Ah Dangit!" Rigby screamed in frustration. The sun was already starting to come up. He had stayed awake the entire night.
Great, just great.
On the bright side, however, he achieved a lot. Both of them thought so…
It was still the dead of night as Finn continued his search for answers. There was one person left to turn to. One person who already opened up to him before about such things.
Finn arrived at the cave of Marceline, the Vampire Queen. Inside was a bright, pinkish house with a square yard that clashed heavily against the rocky backdrop.
A deep, symphonic bass melody echoed through the caves. Yet, from the deeper abyss, he heard odd, vaguely faint noises.
He knocked on the door harmoniously bum bun-na nah nah. Bum bum. "Marceline? It's Finn!"
"Come on in," she spoke from inside.
Upon entering the living room, he saw Marceline wearing a striped red and black shirt and was floating a few feet off the ground, strumming her ax-bass guitar.
There was no use stalling, so Finn came right out with it, "Marceline, I need to ask you about the-"
"Not right now," she said in a relaxed state.
"But Marceline, it's important!"
"Questions later. Jam Session. Go."
On command, Finn furiously flipped over the couch towards the tambourine in the corner of the room. No one applauded him for his acrobatic stunts, which was rather disappointing.
He batted at the instrument intentionally off beat. His face was jetted forward, awaiting for the session to frustratingly end.
Marceline's eyes were closed in a state of pure bliss. Then her smile fades to that of concentration.
She picks heard, yet slowly. The chords sound across the house. This is taking too long. Finn's intensive star intensifies. He beat the tambourine even faster.
She heard this song once, and only once, but she'll never forget it.
She clears her throat and mutters the sweet words.
"Well I'm go-in' away, my baby…
I'm gonna leave you honey, now.
Well that train passed by when you lay sleeping,
I'm gonna write you a letter on a dusty boxcar wall…"
Marceline's vocals stopped after the lyric to take a breath.
She stopped.
She stopped singing!
Breaths count; evasive action!
Finn took his chance with the pause to spring to action. He immediately threw his tambourine away, causing something somewhere else in the house to break.
"Finn, what the heck?!" she demanded angrily, upset her totally rad music was halted by The Man -or, in this case, The Boy .
"Marcelineit'simportantandIneedtoaskyousomething!" he garbled all at once, cutting her off.
She floated down to the ground, one hand on her hip. "Hmm, sounds pretty serious. Alright, shoot."
Finn tensed up, nervous not only of how the vampire girl would react, but what the answer might be. "Marceline, I need you to tell me about the Mushroom War."
She shrugged. "I already told you and Jake most of what went on with me and Simon. What else is there?" she retorted as she tuned her bass.
"More than that, I mean. Marceline… I was wondering if you could tell me anything about what happened before that. How the war started, what you did, who you met; anything…"
She stopped. She turned to him, "Why do you need to know?"
Finn froze at this question. "It's, uh, it's just important."
"Why?"
"It just is. What's wrong with the last human figuring out where he came from?"
"Not much, except that you've never cared before," Marceline responded. Finn swallowed hard. Sweat was collecting on his forehead. "Does it have something to do with that flame chick?"
"What? Why would this have anything to do with breaking up with Flame Princess?"
She shrugged again, "Well if you don't know, how should I?" She knew his question was rhetorical, but it was still fun to mess with him.
"I-uh…"
He sighed heavily. "Alright Marcy, you got me. I don't know why I want to know or why I think it's important. I-, I just need to know."
Marceline floated towards her door. Finn accepting it as a sign to leave and followed suit.
"That's what I thought! You know, I learned that song I was just singing from someone before the Mushroom War. I might have told you about it if you hadn't interrupted me," she teased.
Finn frowned, embarrassed, as his cheeks blushed.
"Look, I don't like to talk about the Mushroom War much. It brings up a lot of bad mojo and I don't feel like getting worked up about it. If you come back with a real, honest reason for wanting to know, I'll spill the beans."
He smiled, "Thanks Marceline."
The heavy grunting sound came echoing back down the cave. Again, it maintained a constant beat. It sounded angry.
Finn looked towards its direction, befuddled. "What is that?"
"Huh? Oh, that's just the monster that lives in my cave."
"He sounds angry."
"Yup."
"Want me to…" Finn finished his sentence by punching his fist into his hand.
"Nah, he's cool."
"You sure? I could do some serious slaying. It would be all heroic and stuff."
She giggled in her usual fashion with mocking undertones, "You could try but I don't think he'd like it. Anyway, I'm off to terrorize candy villagers." She flew away, "Later Finn!"
"Yeah. See ya…" He waved passively. His fake smile reverted to a frown and his hand slowed. He thought for a second about going into the cave and slaying that monster thingy. It would make him feel somewhat more heroic. Then he remembered the shattered Demon Blood sword sheathed on his back.
Eventually, he trudged out of the cave. "Oh man, now what am I supposed to do?"
I apologize for how awkward this was. Previously, this chapter was just a large Author's note explaining Rigby's power. But it is extremely difficult to narrate a list like the one I had set up. I hope this was not too bad.
