Finn could still hear the sound of the crackling flames and feel the burning sensation on his skin as he and Jake headed away from the practically abandoned city, which had been set ablaze by an unknown force. In the human boy's bag was Stanely, a non-sentient watermelon along with a collection of other, equally non-sentient fruits and a single link of sausages, the latter of the three not to be mistaken with the sausages that live with Hot Dog Princess. How they got into such a harrowing situation is beyond him. But honestly it didn't quite matter. Any adventuring opportunity was one he'd take nevertheless.
In the midst of leaving such a bleak environment, the human boy began to sing "Oh baby, I know what you need. Your baby feet are getting cold, so you need your little baby socks." "Woah dude, since when did you get that autotune?" the dog asked, who had been following beside him. "Remember that time I swallowed a computer chip. Apparently I got a natural autotune ability from it." the boy paused singing, shrugging. What happened before was obviously not on purpose. The duo had been fighting a rogue AI, which had shattered into thousands of tiny pieces that were all moving randomly at a thousand miles an hour. In fact, Finn had almost choked himself on the chip, only being saved by Jake performing the heimlich maneuver on him. "Oh right, yeah." the magical dog responded casually.
As they came up to an old, ragged looking house, Finn slipped the non-sentient foods out of his backpack, carefully placing them in a circle formation. "How does Stanely and his family get into these situations? This is the fourth time this month.", Jake remarked. In a world like such, somehow the idea of inanimate objects constantly getting themselves in danger was one of the weirder ones. Since all had been said and done, the duo began making their way home. It was late in the afternoon, and the sun would start to set at any moment. It was better off if they avoided the chance of having to navigate their way in darkness.
As the duo strolled down the Grasslands close to their tree fort home, they had started whistling. There wasn't really a reason for it, but honestly, there didn't need to be. After witnessing the horrors of once was, Finn needed something to lighten the mood a bit, Jake going along with it because why not. Back when the human boy had first come up with the song "Baby", he'd shown the lyrics to the dog and Princess Bubblegum. Funnily enough, when the latter first heard the name she assumed he copied a song with the same name created by some Canadian guy named Justin Beiber who wrote music sometime before the Mushroom Wars. While he was long dead, his CD albums had been floating around Ooo, with that specific song being no exception.
Partway through the stroll, Jake found himself being knocked onto his back the way a bowling pin is knocked over by a bowling ball. "Woah man, what the junk was that?", he blurted out, partially winded by the impact of the fall. As Finn helped the dog to his feet, both took sight at the culprit. Standing in front of them was a small, navy black and pale blue creature with a spherical head and body, its arms and legs proportionally smaller than the rest of it. Despite its proportions, it seemed to be able to hold itself without any obvious issues. It contained four holes, three on the sides and top of its head, with a fourth being where its belly button would've been. It stared at the duo, before briefly mimicking their whistles. "Hey, that's kinda adorable. I think it likes music.", the human boy commented. After pausing to take a moment of consideration, Finn sang a short, mostly improved line "Baby, I love to see you smile. If I look too long, I might start crying...tears of joy…" Confirming his assumption, the spherical creature excitedly danced for a brief minute, a wide yet still wholesome smile stretching across its face as it did so. "Dude, this guy could be like, a new pal for life. I think he's called a Jiggler. Yeah, that sounds right." He had come up with the name from watching the newly named creature playfully smack Jake's asscheeks like a drum only a couple seconds previously. "Sure, dude. We could have rave parties all night, the three of us."
Chapter 2: Activate Rave"Welcome to your new home, little buddy. Feast your eyes on, well, everything."
Inside their tree fort's living room, Finn watched as the Jiggler hopped off of his back, whistling faintly as it wandered aimlessly. It stepped up to the bathroom door, jumping up to reach the doorknob. While its fingertips brushed against it, the whistler seemed too short to fully reach the doorknob. "Oh shoot, forgot I left that closed. Let me help you with that bud.", the human boy commented, walking up to the whistling creature and opening the door. Heading into the bathroom, it looked up to observe its own reflection with pure curiosity. Then, something hit him- the Jiggler would probably need its own toothbrush. Considering the adoption was relatively abrupt, he hadn't prepared hygienics for the whistler beforehand. With quick improvisation, he walked up to a plastic cup resting on the bathroom sink, and split his own toothbrush vertically in half. It wasn't a clean cut, but well enough to be passable. The whistling creature watched as he put down the two halves, before turning and strolling off in another direction.
Meanwhile back in the tree fort's living room, Jake was getting the rave party locked and loaded. A phonograph, which while generally primitive was the only music player from pre-war Ooo the duo could get their hands on, worked just fine, sat on the table. Beside it was a cardboard box filled with vinyl records. "Alright, let's get this show on the road." Blindly taking a record, he inserted it into the phonograph and began the track. Soon, songs from Nirvana began to emit all across him and the tree home. "Come as you are, as you were…" the lyrics were perfectly audible in the room. Not long afterwards, Finn and the whistling creature entered the living room, and thus, the rave commenced.
The party was never meant to be anything flashy. It was just the three of them, breakdancing on the wooden floor. No, it wasn't the most comfortable ever. At some point, the Jiggler ended up stuck on its own back like a lopsided turtle, but other than that it seemed to have had the time of its life. As time passed, the records were continually switched out. It varied heavily, from more grunge like Pearl Jam, to rap such as 2Pac, and even obscure heavy metal. Hours felt like minutes, minutes felt like seconds, etc. Heck, the trio even had a minor karaoke moment as a break from the intense dance, sweat caking their bodies. "Woo!", Jake exclaimed, as he flipped a chair over. "Man, this feels like it could never end!", Finn added between heavy breaths.
But of course, the human boy was wrong. Events like such could never last forever. This was made clear once the sun had set hours ago, the moon glowing from above. The group had started having to repeat vinyls, the energy growing unhealthily low. "Man, I dunno if I can do this any longer." Jake collapsed onto the floor, completely and utterly passing out. "You know what, same." Picking up the passed out dog, he removed the vinyl from the phonograph. Turning to the Jiggler, who simply stared at him with mild confusion, he assured it "We can resume in the morning." And with that, the human boy led the whistler upstairs as he carried the magical dog up the ladder.
Chapter 3: Post-Rave Complications"Mornin' Jake."
"Morning- wait…dude, did I pass out?"
"Yeah. Had to drag your body up here."
"Oh. Off-topic but, do you know where the whistler creature is?"
Looking around the tree fort's bedroom, Finn immediately took notice that the Jiggler, which he previously had on his bed, was absent. He had spent the night sleeping on the floor to make sure the whistling creature wouldn't be uncomfortable, and he would've expected to hear footsteps if it were to wander off. It wasn't long before the sound of faint, notably strained whistling could be heard from downstairs. "That must be it. I should check in on it- it sounds kind of sick.", Finn commented, as he stepped over just behind the ladder down to the living room.
In front of the ladder below lay the Jiggler's collapsed body. Its spherical torso looked partially deflated, and its eyes were glazed over as it continued to whistle weakly. "Woah! I think we might've had him partying too hard.", the human boy remarked, as Jake came up to him and looked down. "Alright, I will admit we did take the rave too far. But still, I can't believe what I'm seeing. We didn't drink or anything!" Stepping downstairs, Finn gently hoisted the whistler onto his shoulders, dropping him off on a chair in the kitchen. "You're going to be ok, bud. You probably just need a pick-me-up. Lemme check what we have…" Searching through the fridge, the human boy took out a half-full gallon of orange juice and poured some into a glass. He also ended up placing a bowl of grapes onto the table. While Finn himself didn't drink, he couldn't say the same about Jake. As a result, they always had at least a couple "anti-hangover foods" on them, such as various types of fruits. While the situation wasn't exactly like that, he assumed maybe it would be similar enough to work.
In response, the whistler wobbly stood up on the chair, grabbing the glass with both hands and drinking about a quarter of it. Placing it back down, it swallowed a single grape whole before shaking and falling on its back. "So, does that hit the spot?" After a minute of unresponsiveness, the Jiggler began violently convulsing, a pink liquid oozing out of the hole on the top of its head. "Oh shoot!" Finn blurted out as Jake darted behind him. "Dude, what- what the junk is it doing?!" the magical dog gasped at the sight of the clearly sicker whistling creature. "Maybe, uh, it's allergic to fruit?", the human boy responded, grabbing a colored pencil and paper. He drew a simplistic drawing of a steak and several fried eggs, handing it to the whistling creature. "So, is any of this catching your fancy?", he added, as the creature stared down at the paper with a blank expression. Reaching over, it shakily grabbed the paper and slurped up the drawings clean off of it, leaving it as blank as it was only seconds prior. "Woah man, that's pretty cool." the magical dog commented, the human boy adding "I know, right. I have more where that came from." Taking the same blank paper, Finn scribbled random crap on it, including more food images, as well as a simplistic rendition of himself and Jake. It slurped up the drawings slightly quicker than previously before practically freezing in place, staring off into space. "You feeling better now, little dude?" Finn asked, before the whistling creature proceeded to convulse once more, rolling off the table and collapsing on the ground in a pool of the pink liquid. "Oh man, that can't be good.", he commented in pure horror. Was his own negligence of the creature just going to get it killed? "Obviously not. Maybe the pink stuff's it's blood, and we should plug up the hole before it bleeds out any further.", Jake suggested, as he proceeded to do just that with his finger. The "bleeding" paused only for a second, before the liquid began gushing out of one of its side holes. "I dunno if I can keep this up for long, man. It pains me to say this, but could you get my eyepatch collection? They're in mint condition, but keeping bud alive is more of a priority right now." Jake sighed heavily as he spoke, adding "Oh yeah, and also get the glass eyes we stored in that room." "Ok, I'm on it.", Finn responded. He briefly left the room, returning with both the eyepatches and glass eyes carried in both arms. The duo got to work quickly, plugging every hole with one of each. The result was a swollen pale mess with the glass balls protruding halfway out of the hole, only barely obscured by the eyepatches. At this point, the Jiggler's whistles sounded more like cries for help than anything.
"Oh good Glob this is hard to watch.", Jake remarked, visibly wincing at the sight. "I know man, I know. This'll be the last time we bring a creature we know nothing of to our home. I dunno what else we could do.", the human boy added in agreement. "Look, I know this might sound cruel, but maybe we could just put it back where we found it, and let nature take course. I mean come on, it looks like it wants to die." "What? Are you-" before Finn could protest further, the whistling creature seemingly burst, glass eyes bouncing around in all directions. What was left of it was a flat, taffy-like body that extended into the nearby rooms. "Oh shoot. I don't think it's healthy for it to just go….everywhere like that.", the magical dog shuddered. "Uh…well….once me and you get all of it together, maybe it's still salvageable.", the human boy stammered, trying his hardest to remain optimistic. Taking the whistler's head and extended neck, they carefully dragged it over to where the rest of its body seemed to be. Its torso rested on the phonograph from the previous night, its legs were stretched out the bathroom window, and one of its arms was halfway up the ladder into the bedroom. Without another word, Finn gathered the ends of its limbs, darting from room to room in order to do so. Once every part of it was in the same room, the duo squeezed it together in an attempt to force the whistler's body into one, semi-coherent mass. The mass that resulted caused the Jiggler to resemble a bloated corpse more than anything, its whistles having died down and been replaced by weak breathing noises. Placing it on the table along with the blank piece of paper, the human boy performed "CPR" by blowing into its holes and. Weakly blinking, it began to make faint kiss-like sounds, which were audibly pained. Crawling over to the blank paper, its pale lips touched it as it began to construct a drawing by kissing at it. The duo could only watch and react to its movement in silence. Was it a written cry for help, or maybe a dying message? Either way, Finn hoped that possibly, despite everything, there was a chance to keep the whistler alive.
Once it seemed to be finished, the whistling creature collapsed onto its side, revealing the finished artwork. The drawing showed an image of what appeared to be its mother, which the whistler cradled onto feebly. Realization hit Finn like a train- the Jiggler was a child. Him and Jake hadn't just taken a wild animal for their own amusement, they'd kidnapped what was essentially an infant from its loving family. Calling it a mistake would be an understatement. They had committed a crime. "Jake, I think criminals now.", Finn declared, the sudden guilt becoming overwhelming in seconds. "Dude, relax. If we just bring the child back to its mother, then we won't be kidnappers anymore. Plus, see that there?" the magical dog pointed to a crudely drawn image of a cave in the background of the picture "It looks like it's home isn't too far from where we dropped off Stanley. I doubt it should take long to just drop it back off where it came from." "Oh right, and we wouldn't be criminals anymore. I honestly just hope we're not too late."
Chapter 4: Fixing the Child Kidnapping ProblemFortunately, Jake's statement hadn't been wrong. It was only about 15 minutes before the duo had returned to the spot they originally discovered the Jiggler. Sticking out of Finn's backpack, the whistling creature didn't seem to look any better or worse for wear than before. "It's going to be ok, bud. Your mother should be close by.", the human boy assured it, as it made a faint half-whistle half-spit noise in response. A louder whistle could be heard in the distance, as if something was responding to the creature's cry. Looking over to the source, a cave near identical to the one from the drawing came into view. "Hey, I think that's the cave. Come on, I don't know how much time we have left.", Finn exclaimed, as the duo proceeded to rush over to the cave without hesitation.
Inside, a fountain was positioned at the edge of the cave. Within the fountain, a larger version of the whistling creature with a wide head, who was assumed to be the mother, sat in the middle, pink liquid oozing out of all of its holes and filling it. Around her, other whistler children splashed and played in the liquid. From the sight alone, it was easy for the previous idea that the liquid pouring out of her was her blood. "Ok little guy, the journey's over. You can go back to your mother now." Finn took the Jiggler out of his backpack, placing him gently onto the ground. Despite its noticeable weakness, it was able to hobble its way just outside of the fountain. By then, its legs buckled and it collapsed onto its knees. After leaning her head down and sniffing at it, she let out a violent hissing noise, grabbing the dying child's siblings and backing away from it. As the whistler attempted to crawl into the fountain, she shrieked, her body shifting to a blue and red as it whimpered and backed down. "Hey man, you can't just reject your child like that." the human boy rushed up to the child whistler, who had begun to pathetically deflate on the floor. At that point, the whistler mother had her back pinned to the fountain's side. Finn was aware that any wrong move would lead to an unnecessary brawl. Holding the whistling creature up to her eye level, he spoke up "It might look a bit deformed, but you should be able to recognize your kid. Don't reject him, damnit!" "Wait dude, I think I know the problem." he heard Jake calling out as the human boy turned to face him, putting down the whistling child. The dog continued "You see the liquid the other Jiggler children are bathing in? It must've leaked out all of its juice at our house, and its scent is unrecognizable to its mom. Throw it in the soup, man." "Ok, got it." Without wasting another second, he tossed the whistling creature's corpse-like body into the pool of liquid. Once inside, the whistler child soaked in the liquid for a moment, before its body quickly restored itself to the state when the duo had first encountered it. Its mother leaned her head over to observe it a second time, grabbing it and holding it against her head. As both made happy chirping noises, Finn knew at that moment that he and Jake were no longer criminals. He noted to himself that he wouldn't accidentally make the same mistake twice. But then again, considering how obvious the moral of the situation was, now that he thought of it, the chance of a repeat were low to none.