Dimension 52

Dimension 52

(View the other chapters here [Chapter 1])

Chapter 2:

Another unexpected terrain... just as he’d predicted. Ford took a cursory glance around. At this point he was at dimension 4, and he still felt no closer to home. In fact, Ford felt like he’d managed to get further away this time. He stood in a forest full of white trees with pink leaves. Though the leaves were more similar to cotton in texture.

Ford scowled at his bad luck. At this point it seemed that with each random jump he made, he only got further and further away from home. He checked his log that he’d been recording the days on. “What! I’ve been gone for an entire YEAR now!”

Thinking back on this, it actually felt like he’d been gone for an even longer period of time than that. And yet despite all this time he spent wandering between dimensions, he was still hopelessly lost. “After all I’ve never seen any biology like this!”

“And it’s been a long time since I’ve seen biology like yours.” A sweet bubbly voice responded.

Ford turned around, he’d figured that he was alone initially, but he’d been so wrapped up in thought that he hadn’t noticed a figure approach him from behind. She was about Ford’s height level, and dressed entirely in pink. In fact she was entirely pink, excluding a golden crown with a bluish spherical gem sitting on her head. She looked fairly regal, with a long fancy pink dress, and long pink hair. If Ford had to guess her age, he’d say somewhere around her early twenties. She seemed to radiate kindness, however Ford knew that appearances could be deceiving. After all, he’d learned that the hard way recently.

“So will you tell me who you are?” She was pointing some kind of scanner at him, or at least that’s what he assumed it was.

“I’m just a traveler who’s a bit lost at the moment.”

“Oh, really?” She said with an icy tone. “Where are you from?”

“Oh it’s a bit far away from here, I doubt you’ve heard of it.”

“Yeah, I don’t think you’re from Ooo, or anywhere nearby.”

Ford didn’t know where this Ooo was, so he felt even more lost than before. He was positive that this lady didn’t trust him, and knew that this wouldn’t end well unless he could turn it around quickly. What was there to talk about that he could use as a diversion. He could ask about the trees, though that might not work, she seemed suspicious about him for his earlier comments. He could try asking about why she is pink, though that might be offensive. Or he could try asking about that device in her ha-

“Are you a human?”

Well that one cut him a quite off guard. Is this one of those dimensions where the sentient lifeforms EAT humans?! This could go real south real fast if it was. Then again, if it was she’d probably already have captured him. He supposed in this situation he could tell the truth without having to worry, at least not quite as much.

“Yes, I’m a human, and my name is Stanford Pines.”

“Greetings Stanford, I am Princess Bubblegum, ruler of the Candy Kingdom. Where do you come from?” Her tone had calmed down for a moment. However, when she asked where he was from the force was back in her voice.

So she was a princess? That would fit with her attire. He wondered if bubblegum was just a surname, if she was actually made of bubblegum, or both. After all, for all he knew these trees could be made of cotton candy. With a name like the Candy Kingdom, that was a fairly valid assumption to make.

Ford was pretty sure that Princess Bubblegum wouldn’t exactly know where he’s from. He’d have to dodge the question somehow.

“As I’m sure you know, I’m not from around here. So out of curiosity, are humans exceedingly rare around here?”

“Well yes, actually. You’re the first human I’ve seen in a long time. I thought that they’d gone extinct.”

“WHAT! REALLY!”

Despite Ford’s shock, he quickly realized that after all his traveling, he’d be bound to hit some kind of world without humans. He just didn’t expect to hit one where they’d died out only recently. He recovered fairly quickly, and followed up with another question.

“So what’s that thing you’re holding?”

She looked down at the device in her hands and then back at him. “Well it’s kind of a weirdness detector. Or at least that’s what I like to call it.”

Well that explained how she managed to find him. He must be setting that thing off like crazy. Of course the study of weirdness and other such similar sciences was Ford’s specialty.

“Oh well, how does it work? Does it detect residual traces of abnormal tachyon frequencies or spacetime ripples?”

From what Ford could tell he’d accomplished his goal of throwing her off her investigative trail. She hopefully wouldn’t push for any more information about where he was from until he was sure she either wouldn’t think he was crazy, or he knew that he could trust her.

“No, no, it actually works off of a fairly advanced simulation of realistic behavior using some complex equations I wrote and compares whether or not the simulation and the real world match.”

Ford could tell that he’d be able to have quite the interesting conversation with this woman.

“Why don’t you try using…”

“So you’re from another dimension?” Princess Bubblegum inquired.

They’d left the forest a while ago and were now sitting up in Bubblegum’s lab discussing Ford’s situation over cups of tea.

“Yes, and I’ve been trying to find my way home ever since. Do you know of any possible ways I could possibly try getting back to my dimension? I’d rather not hop randomly around on the offchance I end up in too hostile of a dimension.”

“Would you know how to find your dimension if we could open up a link? I know that in the land of Ooo there exist many powerful objects capable of opening a portal, but they all tend to be one-way.”

Ugh. Of course he can’t just take the simple way. They can potentially control where they open the portal too, but they can’t actually find which one is his.

“Sadly, no. I don’t know which dimension is mine so I’d just be back to square one.”

“Fortunately I’ve got a plan B. You see there’s a special dimensional room known as Prismo’s time room. Anyone who enters there can make a single wish. Of course be warned that his wishes all come with some form of twist or something so be very careful of what you wish for. I’m sure he’ll explain it to you if you just ask nicely.”

“Okay, so all I need to do is to properly phrase a wish to get back to my home dimension, and he’ll do it?”

“Yep. He’ll take care of the rest for you.”

“The challenge now is, how are we going to get there?”

“Leave that to me, I’ve got an idea of where an artifact is that can get you there.”

“When you said it was in a dungeon I thought it meant one of the ones in YOUR castle, NOT someone else’s rotting booby-trapped nightmare!” Ford yelled as he ducked beneath a swinging sword. He and Bubblegum had entered a dungeon hidden in a slightly less sweet forest nearby. He’d entered with pretty much just a stick in his hands, and she’d walked in with some kind of duffel bag. They’d been traveling deeper and deeper into the dungeon when they’d run into yet another group of walking skeletons. These ones had been guarding a hallway leading to a flight of stairs. Bubblegum had already defeated two of the three skeletons and Ford had been distracting the last one while she reloaded. She got in a blast with what she referred to as her “Ball-Blam-Burglerber.” Honestly Ford had no idea what the real name of it was, but he understood that it was basically some kind of grenade launcher.  Whatever it was he ducked out of the way as the ball exploded.

“Can you give me a warning when you’re about to fire that thing in my direction!?”

“Sorry about that. Here take this, it’ll make it easier on both of us if we’re equally armed.”

Ford picked up the weapon she’d tossed to him. It seemed to be some kind of gun but there was a plasma globe right where the barrel would normally be. He picked it up and followed her down the stairs to a new room in the dungeon. They came into a stone lined chamber that was seemingly empty except for a set of locked double doors sitting across the chamber from them. Bubblegum immediately set to work picking the lock.

“What exactly does this do?”

“It’s my electrode gun. I cranked up the charge, it should be able to fry what’s left of those skeletons.”

“Okay, and what about that artifact that we came here for?”

“The Traveler’s Stone? What about it?”

“How does it work?”

“I think you just pick it up or something. I’ve never used it before.”

“Well, I –“

Ford was cut off by the click of the lock. Princess Bubblegum pushed the doors open and in front of them stood about twenty skeletons. Bubblegum whipped out her Ball Blam Whatever, Ford pulled out his weapon and the two of them opened fire. They took down most of the initial skeletons and the few stragglers left behind were either finished off in hand-to-hand against Bubblegum or blasted by Ford.

“Whew- I really wish I knew how to fight like that. Might be useful if I can’t get home right away.” Even if he does then it still might be useful Ford thought. After all he could give his brother a nice right hook for what he did.

“I could teach you if you really wanted to learn. After all we have the Traveler’s Stone now, and we’ve got plenty of time on our hands.”

“I suppose I don’t have to leave quite yet.”

Princess Bubblegum hefted up the stone and threw it in her duffel bag.

“In that case, let’s head back to my castle. I can give you some basic  combat training along with some practice with my other weapons. Perhaps you can even design something of your own.”

As he walked out of the dungeon and back to the castle he had a chance to appreciate that for once in this entire ordeal he’d had a bit of good fortune.

…

[Chapter 3]