What Time Is It? (Marcy)

[Finn Mertens]

Finn was sat in the local arcade's bench, having missed playing various games on Beemo, he really did need to unwind after trying to adjust to this crazy new world. Finn was clad in his usual hat, shorts, blue shirt and black sneakers, along with the green packback that had his quarters in. His smaller frame made it harder to see over the crowd but there'd been a small one forming at that 'Deathbattle Slaughterfun' game machine, some super awesome ultra gorey fighting game that'd taken this arcade by storm. It looked amazing, featuring badass barbarians, ninjas and sorcerers fighting against one another with bloody carnage. "Man, this game looks totally math!" Finn muttered as he joined the crowd to watch the seemingly untouchable player decimate another who looked to challenge him. As thought, the guy was toast. He'd picked his character and fell into every attack pitifully. Finn grimaced as he say the killing blow hit. "I'm next." he said loudly, grabbing a quarter and sticking it into the machine.

Finn carefully looked at the characters before settling on a rather savage looking barbarian fighter, looking vicious enough to challenge the scary ninja the other guy was using. The battle started and Finn held back, blocking the shuriken as he hit the attack button, slamming his axe into the ninja's shoulder and cleaving an arm off. He retaliated by flip kicking the barbarian and stunning him for a 20 hit sword combo. Finn's character recovered, blocking the incoming final blow and throwing the ninja into the ground, ending the battle by cleaving him in the head.

"Shmowzow!" Finn yelled as it showed he was the victor on the screen. He'd enjoyed similar games back in the Land of Ooo and was happy to know they exist in this world too. Finn smiled happily to himself, walking away from the arcade machine and going over to the vending machine, sticking in a quarter to get himself a soda, sweating slightly from the hardcore gaming session.

[Marceline Abadeer]

The arcade was cool, Marceline guessed. She hadn't exactly accumulated a lot of the money here yet, mostly on account of not being a big fan of having a regular, steady job. Turned out that people were willing enough to pay her for playing guitar though, so she wasn't completely broke. That was something. Enough something to give her a few coins in her pockets, and the arcade seemed as good a place as any to go chill and hang out for a while.

The lanky ex-vampire had pulled her long black hair into a tail, tossed on a red flannel shirt, and opted for a pair of denim shorts. Yes, shorts, because now that Marceline didn't have to worry about bursting into flame every time she went into the light, she didn't see a problem with showing at least a little skin. That and she'd lost her skinny jeans somewhere. She'd find them later. She still had her ax, which she'd had since coming over, and that was slung nonchalantly over her shoulder.

The first thing Marceline had spent some of those coins on was a soft drink. Soda tasted great, and she was growing steadily addicted to Cherry Coke, though it wasn't quite as red as she would have liked. Still sweet, which was kind of awesome. After that, Marceline took to slinking through the crowds, taking advantage of her slight height advantage to peer over heads and study action. She'd seen a crowd gathering around a game that looked, like, super bloody, and had naturally wandered over a bit that way herself. Weird, but the kid who came up as a challenger totally looked familiar. Like super familiar. Like, who else would wear a hat that stupid familiar.

"Finn?" Marceline wondered, speaking softly. She squinted, took a sip of her cola, and opted to hang back. She emptied out her drink and headed over to fill it up, really glad for free refills. She heard some cheering and stuff, but didn't bother to look. Eventually, the guy who'd done the winning came close, and with the distance closed, Marceline could totally tell who it was. She flicked her eyes to the side, smiled, and offered a low key: "Hey Finn," when he came up next to her, before simply reaching over and capping her drink.

[Finn Mertens]

Finn's eyes squinted a little at seeing the rather pale girl. "Wait, I know your voice. Marcy?" His mouth was wide in a grin. "Oh my freaking glob! When did you get here? Is anybody else around? Oh man, this is totally Algebraic." he said rather excitedly and almost out of breath from speaking in a hurried tone. Finn shook his head a bit to calm down, taking another sip of his soda. Marcy didn't really look all that different aside from the fact her fangs were missing, her skin wasn't chalky toned and well... she looked weird. But hey, Finn looked weird now too. I mean, surely she noticed the fact they have an extra finger and changed proportions.

Taking a few gulps he moved his messy blonde locks from his face, the hat concealing the rest of his shaggy, messed up hair. He hadn't seen this person in an incredibly long time. Finn pondered exactly what happened to everyone when they came through here, did they all lose their powers and become normal? Finn hadn't changed a whole lot except in looks, but Marcy wasn't even floating, meaning she MUST have lost the powers.

Finn gazed over again "So, what are you doing for work here? They tried to stick me in school. It's total bunk. I like doing hero stuff better." He said in a more annoyed tone. Finn hadn't ever gone to school in his entire life, having been taught all his life skills by Jake and his foster parents. Being stuck in a cramped room with other kids and made to read books sucked. Finn hated reading, even the Enchiridion bored him senseless, choosing to usually use it as somewhere to sit when the grass was wet.

[Marceline Abadeer]

"Finn, dude, be cool," said Marceline, though she grinned wide. She held both hands out, as though she could literally push back Finn's ebullient attitude. He did seem to calm down a bit, taking a sip of his soda. While Finn managed that, Marceline gave him a quick appraising look. The whole experience didn't seem to have affected Finn all that much. Then again, Finn was, like, the only human in the land of Ooo. If anything, he's probably psyched to be surrounded by people who were just like him.

Marceline realized that Finn was staring at her, so she widened her grin. This meant showing some of her teeth, including a few canines that were just a tad too prominent and noticeable. They also had a slightly red look to them, mostly because Marceline had been sucking down the cherry cola for the past few minutes. Altogether, she looked pretty much like the vampire she used to be, except, you know, not at all like that. More like how people expected a vampire to look (minus the sparkles, which Marceline had already heard about. Weird).

"You're the first person from Ooo I've seen, Finn," offered Marceline, keeping her voice at the steady level. "So I'm guessing that Jake's not around? Man, that's weird." The two were practically joined at the hip, after all. This Shifting thing was definitely weird biz. Marceline took another sip of her drink, looking sort of over Finn's head as he talked about going to school. she had to admit, the idea of the mathematical Finn attending school was pretty funny. She was already grinning.

"I don't," she said, removing the drink and giving Finn a quick look. "Work, that is. I just play my guitar and stuff," she shrugged. "People like to hear people play music. You still jamming?" She couldn't help but wonder if that computer was still inside Finn. That would definitely be.... cool.

[Finn Mertens]

Finn was focused on her grin, the teeth showing fewer signs of her former self. Sure, the canines were pretty large but hell, at least her teeth didn't look totally jagged. Still, it made Finn look at his own teeth that still looked fairly jacked up compared to most other perfect smiles. He'd love to say it wasn't his fault, but getting punched in the face repeatedly along with having less than stellar hygiene made it much harder to look as perfect as the others. Still it'd be fairly hard getting used to the fact Marcy's skin didn't look chalk white and her general change in looks. Sure, everything was similar but it was all just a little strange.

Finn still looked fairly psyched just to see her, however he looked a little more serious when she mentioned she was the only citizen from Ooo she'd seen. He nodded at the mention of Jake not being near. "Yeah, it's just me. I hope he's okay." Finn said with a sigh. Finn really missed his buddy and worried about him constantly. He hoped it was similar to his going into other universes and that when he returned it'd be to his own time so he could keep him from any harm. Granted, Jake knew how to defend himself but Finn always would worry if he wasn't near.

Still, it seemed Marcy wasn't in work, stating she just played guitar still and that people paid for it. "Oh, the computer? I haven't actually checked yet - ahem!" Finn cleared his throat. "Ooooooh, my glooob. It's still here. Maaaaath" Finn said in an autotuned tone, almost robotic in a way. Due to swallowing a small computer, it was the only real special ability Finn had was to sing in autotune or to change his voice to sound like a different person.

"SooooOoooo" Finn said, still speaking in the autotune "I mean... So, where are you living now?" He said, blushing a bit with embarrassment at how he forgot to turn off the autotune to his voice.

[Marceline Abadeer]

"He's a pretty tough dude," said Marceline, nodding. "Probably freaking out a bit about you being gone though. Who knows, maybe he'll try to make some gnarly wish or something. Or end up here," she shrugged. It did make sense. Marceline had been pulled here; Finn had obviously come around too. So it was totally possible that Jake might be making his way over any day now. Marceline wouldn't be surprised to see him walking around. Then again, she couldn't quite recall seeing anybody besides humans wandering around. Still, no reason to freak Finn out; that was almost too easy.

Besides, they had the autotune thing to play with. Marceline grinned as she heard Finn's reverberating voice, nodding at the familiar sound. While she sipped at her drink, she already made a mental note to ask Finn to jam with her again sometime. His beat-boxing skills weren't likely to have gone away either, and if there was one thing that Marceline totally dug, it was jamming.

Presently, she giggled at Finn's voice, especially as he kept it going. When he realized it, she raised her brows, giving him a slightly knowing smile. "You're cute when you blush, Finn. It's a bit less red here though. Shame. Not like I'm sucking red out anymore anyway," she took a sip of her Cherry Coke, almost as if to both confirm and deny the statement at the same time. "They set me up with a pad in the adult section of town," she gestured randomly, then shrugged. "It's nice enough. I haven't seen my roommate or anything, so I got space. Not like it matters: just got my axe and some clothes," she gestured at the nearly omnipresent guitar as she mentioned it. "What about you? Bet they set you up in the kiddie dorms, right? Least you'll be around some kids your age. Girls too, I've heard," she gave him a teasing smile and wink at that, even a slightly suggestive hip wiggle. Always fun to see how much she could get Finn to blush.

[Finn Mertens]

Finn's eyes narrowed when Marceline made the comment about his blush "I am not!" he said a little too loudly for his liking, a few teens staring in his direction. It was often said he didn't have what was known as an 'indoor voice' given his constant yelling, loud demeanour and general rowdiness. Given the boy's hobbies consisting of roughhousing, killing monsters and playing video games, it really wasn't much of a surprise he's a little out of touch socially. Marcy's comment about not sucking red here was quite interesting though. She really had lost all of her powers? What a drag. He knew Marcy often loved to suck the red out of anything she could find, well except from people.... Well, that he knew of anyway. Granted, drinking cherry cola was totally Math, red or not. He had something to agree with her there.

Finn took a few more sips of his soda, finally finishing it as he tossed it away into a trashcan. "Aaaand it's in!... Wait, no it's not" he said, ending it with a duller tone as the empty drink missed the trashcan and landed next to. "Uh, someone'll get that." he said, looking away, he looked back once she mentioned having a room in the adult part. Finn HATED the dorms, everyone else living there were total jerkfaces. "Wish I could get an adult room." He muttered to himself, folding arms. Still, her axe was there. "Aw, man. I lost my sword. I need to be getting me a new one."

However, when Marceline mentioned the girls, he blushed a bright red. "Uh.. uhm.. Well, yeah I guess. But s'cool. I'm all about my hero stuff, no time for girls. Hey! Wait, I'm not a kid. I'm 15. But... So, yeah." Finn said rather awkwardly. When it came to talking to girls, or about girls Finn wasn't so great. Sure, Marcy and the Princesses were fine to chat to, but when it came to others he was pretty inept.

Finn gazed around at all the machines. "Anything you wanna play? All the games here look pretty suhweeeeet! Well, except that one. It's lame. I played it, all you do is go around this cutesy world with a bunch of flowers and crud." Finn said with his eyes lidded, pointing to a rather cute looking platformer style game. It didn't even have any weapons, action or violence, meaning it wasn't even worth his time.

[Marceline Abadeer]

Marceline chuckled at Finn's protest. Not that she'd expected anything less, really. Why else bother teasing him at all? But now several people were staring at him, and that was sure to start a cycle. Marceline debated giving them all a stink eye; she was pretty confident in her ability to still do that, even without her powers. But this was just so much more fun. Better to let Finn squirm for a while.

She barely paid attention to Finn tossing his own soda. Marceline was more determined to eke out every bit of refill that she could. This stuff was good, and she only had so much in the way of money, though, admittedly, she was pretty sure she was better off than some people. The staff around here really seemed to dig her playing. When Finn sputtered, that earned yet another chuckle from Marceline.

"Nah, adults are boring," insisted Marceline, after having taken yet another sip. "They're all like, responsible and stuff here. You're way better off living with the teenagers and stuff. So much cooler," she nodded before taking another sip. Marceline half believed what she said: there were too many adults here that had their panties in a twist for her liking. Plus, she knew from experience that it was a lot more fun being a teenager. Guess she'd have to stick with being an adult now, what with things being what they were. Cool.

also cool: more Finn sputtering. Marceline had to chuckle at that, her lips parting slightly in a grin that just began to show teeth. "C'mon, Finn, we know all about Flame Princess. Besides," she winked, "we know you've got a thing for the ladies. Save a few princesses. get a few hugs. It's all in the biz, right?"

Another chuckle, and Marceline went to looking around the arcade. She'd half-anticipated Finn's request before it came. They were in an arcade, after all, and the two of them had played games together. Marceline was even tempted to pick some kind of fighting game; kick Finn's butt and continue the cycle of humiliation. Instead, her eyes fell upon one of those side-scrolling beat-em-up type games. It seemed to involve Adolescent Alien Samurai Hamsters.

"Gnarly," she said, before nodding in its direction. "Let's check that one out. It looks sweet," she was already on her way, figuring that Finn would follow suit soon enough. He'd probably faced actual samurai hamsters, come to think.

[Finn Mertens]

Finn was rooting around in his backpack, checking he had sufficient quarters while Marcy spoke. Really, with his backpack he managed to shove anything in there. There wasn't much at all that hadn't gone in at some point. He could even fit his sword in there on occasion! It was just a shame it wasn't in there at the time of passing through, while he was looking for his change it was also a good excuse to avoid Marceline's chuckling at his rather... odd mannerisms. Keeping his eyes fixated on his bag he pulled out a baggy full of quarters and stuck it in his pocket, slinging the bag on his back again.

Although, Marceline decided she thought being an adult wasn't as cool as being a teen. Sure, Finn might like to claim he's a man but he has a lot of growing up to do. Often people told him such similar things, usually Jake. He often relied on Jake to be a fountain of wisdom and in this world without his buddy, he was completely without anyone to dispense such words of truth. Sure, Marcy knew what she was talking about but she didn't give bro advice like Jake did and there were often times where the advice she attempted to give wasn't quite what Finn intended. "Yeah. I guess, but the parties got NOTHIN' on when we were back in Ooo. It's all cruddy boyband music. We oughta crash one, have a jam sesh and all. It'd be math."

Finn blushed again at the mention of Flame Princess. He wasn't quite sure on how their standing was, he didn't even know if she was his girlfriend or not after all that's happened, he hadn't even seen her in a long time since the dungeon crawl they'd been on, she called him her boyfriend then but since then he'd not caught much of a glimpse of her. At any rate, it prompted Finn to attempt to look more mysterious, slitting his eyes and wiping the blush off his face "Oh, you don't know. I'm totes mysterious and junk." However well it worked, is anybody's guess.

Soon, Marcy had pointed towards an arcade machine boasting anthropomorphic rodents with a badass attitude. "Yeah, that looks pretty rad!" Finn looked on, walking in it's direction as he approached the front, grabbing two quarters and slamming them in rather excitedly, wanting to give this game a run for it's money.

[Marceline Abadeer]

Marceline barely noticed Finn digging about for change. She had a pocket full of coins as well. They were definitely on the weird side, and it hadn't taken Marceline long to figure out that this place had its own currency. No mention of country or state or nothing; just some basic stampings about Tenebrae. Not that she expected Finn to notice stuff like that: it wasn't that big of a deal back on Ooo, at least, not during the time they'd actually come from.

"Eh, you just have to know where to look," was what Marceline said, her gaze drifting to Finn for a moment. She hadn't hit any of the major parties yet. She'd heard something about this gnarly event that had gone down a while ago, something about killer desserts and strange rays and all that junk. It definitely sounded more like Finn's type of gig than Marceline's.

As for mysterious, well, Marceline just laughed at that, leaving Finn to his weird looks. There was a line with the teasing; they were buds, after all. Plus, Marceline kind of thought that Finn and Flame Princess were adorable together. Better that than have him mooning after Bonnibel. That wouldn't work out well. Not that Marceline would feel the slightest tinge of jealousy; she was so beyond that.

She followed Finn over to the game, studying it now that they were closer. Standard beat-em-up side scroller. Totally within their wheelhouse. She let Finn insert the coins before going through the character selection screen. "I'm gonna be the red dude," she told him, her eyes focused more on the screen. She hit the select button without thinking further about it, staring at the "cool, but rude" hamster character her cursor had landed on. There were the standards for the foursome: blue leader, purple dork, orange party animal. "You should totally be the party dude," she said, chuckling and pointing. She knew they'd be playing the game within moments, and she was already psyched and ready for some fun. Be nice to take her mind off things for a bit. Plus, she and Finn were totally rad at this; they'd have onlookers in no time.

[Finn Mertens]

Finn smirked at the game graphics. They sure as heck looked cheesy and the characters almost looked like something from the 80's. Finn nodded at Marcie's idea of him choosing the party one. "Well, duh. I'm all 'bout partying! That and kickin' buns. I get to combine them here though!" he said rather excitedly. Finn always did get overexcited at even the slightest thing, due to his overly hyper personality and unusual energy he seemed even more happy about things than he actually was. Finn grabbed two coins inbetween his fingers, holding them up like it was some epic item he was raising above his head before he slammed them into the slot "Yeah!" he said, selecting the orange rodent wielding a nunchaku. Finn remembered he actually owned a set of nunchucks back home, some totally math looking ones he got from an ogre after defeating him.

Soon after Finn and Marcy had chosen their characters an evil looking shogun came on screen, proclaiming himself to be the Slicer and head of the Hand Clan. "Oh, he's gonna get jacked up! Right, Marcy?" Finn said rather excitedly, starting the game and automatically finding themselves plunged into a brawl full of random looking purple ninjas wielding claws and various Japanese themed weaponry.

Finn made his character swing a nunchaku into the face of one of the ninjas, emitting a "Shmow-zow!" battlecry from his obviously overexcited self. It didn't help he'd been guzzling soda most of today along with sampling the various junk food around the arcade. Due to his strangeness, he had trouble with making many friends around this place and even in his own world he was really only liked due to the fact everyone was weird, compared to them he was pretty normal. Still, within this area he was happy to have found another friend from his past, especially one as epic as Marcy was.

[Marceline Abadeer]

Marceline chuckled at Finn's exuberance. While she wasn't showing it on the outside nearly as much as her younger friend, she couldn't help but feel more than a little excited herself. She'd done okay with getting to know people, mostly because her chill attitude made her fairly easy to get on with. You know, when she wasn't tormenting people or pulling pranks just for kicks and giggles. But still, definitely much more awesome to have someone from Ooo around. Double-points for it being Finn. Glob, it would've been awkward if she'd run into LSP.

"So jacked up," agreed Marceline. Her expression sharpened from its usual lackadaisical nonchalance, hardening into something very nearly scary. You could see the flashing lights reflected in her dark eyes, and for a few seconds there, it wasn't hard to believe that this girl used to be a half-vampire, half-demon at all. Of course, it all faded in an instant as Finn let out his cry. Marceline nearly burped a laugh at that, before letting out a "check this out." Her hands jiggled the controls with practiced skill, and her hamster flipped across the screen, knocking into a few Hand Clan ninjas that were creeping up on Finn.

"that's how you kick butt," she said, her lip curling into a confident smirk. "Hey watch out for the orange ones. I think they're flaming dudes or something."

They were demolishing most of the easy enemies, with only a few dints in their red and orange health bars. Pretty darn math for two complete n00bs.

[Finn Mertens]

Finn eagerly mashed the buttons, making his own rodent smack a couple of enemies with nunchucks, slamming them across the screen as he noticed Marcy's character take out some thugs sneaking up on his back. "Much appreciated!" he chirped, pressing both buttons together to remove a circle of enemies and depleting a tiny amount of his health. Still, no matter. He'd get it all back soon enough considering you had health boosts under almost every trash can.

"That was freaking math" he said with a chuckle at her skills on the game. Being totally honest, Marcy was far better at gaming than him as evidenced by her skills playing on B-mo's many games and often kicking his and Jake's butts. Gotta give it to her though, she's had almost a thousand years more experience with video games than they had, so it was to be expected she could wipe the floor with almost anyone. Finn was almost ecstatic that they picked a game where they didn't have to go head to head.

Soon, they'd reached almost the end of the first stage until Finn noticed the samurai shown at the start. However, in true bad guy fashion he jumped away and unleashed one of his cronies, a strange looking alligator... thing. "He's DEAD!" he said in his usual tone, pushing the stick forward and charging his rodent towards the enemy.

[Marceline Abadeer]

Marceline nodded. "You're not half bad yourself, hero," she replied, flashing Finn a toothy smile. The enthusiasm was definitely catching; Marceline hadn't felt this vibrant since she'd arrived here. She almost looked physically brighter too, as though she'd literally drained some of the energy from Finn. Not that she'd done that in some time; their relationship had moved beyond that point a while back. Still.

It definitely helped with the video games. The two of them were moving like a practiced team, their hamsters hopping and skipping over the screen. Marceline played the hero less than Finn, or at least, she wasn't the type to thrust even her video game character into someone's way. Leave that to the guy who liked to save princesses on a daily basis. Marceline was having more fun listening to the explosions as their enemies went up in flames.

The villain appeared, and Marceline had to chuckle. These things were so predictable. Alligator first boss was a little different; you'd think they'd start with something lighter. Still, it gave Marceline an idea. Her eyes flicked to the various controls, which showed animated hamsters performing various moves, hinting toward "secret combos" that they could unlock. She studied an image, possibly looking a little too long, as her hamster was getting chewed by the gator like a squeaky toy. Marceline jiggled her controller till her avatar broke free, dealing the gator a quick blow for good measure.

"Hey, I think we can pull one of those combos," she said, jerking her head toward the screen. "Get your orange butt over to my character and press right, attack, jump." Which, if she could time things right, should cause the two characters to hook by Finn's nunchunks and spin around the enemy for a bit, doing some impressive damage. Marceline trusted her reflexes, and she knew Finn was down, especially when he was hyped up on sugar and not distracted by princesses.

[Finn Mertens]

Finn smiled at the compliment, usually Marcy enjoyed a little trash talk with her co op partners but perhaps his enthusiasm rubbed off enough on her, he performed a wall jump, hoping to hit the creepy gator dude. Still, it seemed that did barely any damage and he had to do more combos than just spamming the attack button. Finn's main form of attack was simply finding one button and sticking with it, pressing it nonstop until he's gotten the effect he wants. It worked more on the 8 bit games B-Mo used, but not so much on these newer 16 bit arcade ones.

Finn watched as Marcy's character was getting totally jacked up by the 'gator dude, as much as he tried attacking it to get him to drop her it was impossible, meaning she had to get out herself. When she finally did, she had figured out a way to REALLY harm the guy with a special combo

"You got it!" he said running over to her character, pressing the commands she said "Right" he pressed on the right "Attack" he hit the attack button next and finalllly "JUMP" he said, mashing onto the jump button so they could pull off a super badass move on the boss.