Chapter One

A shrill scream rang through the kingdom and everyone recognised it. As they heard their Princess scream, they began quivering with fear. Being scared was highly dangerous for the people in this kingdom as it could lead to their deaths. One of the downfalls of being part of the Candy Kingdom: if you got too frightened, you'd explode and die.

Finn leapt to his feet, attempting to calm the people nearby him. But they wouldn't stop shaking. They just stared at him, the pace of their shakes quickening with every word he said. He groaned, regretting it immediately. The sound he'd made had been the last straw for an elderly candy woman and she'd exploded with a loud bang, causing three others to explode. Finn looked to Jake who nodded then stepped up to calm the candy people. As he did, Finn ran towards the castle, hoping to find what was wrong with the Princess.

As he approached the castle, he saw the Princess on the draw bridge. Beside her were two of the guards and Peppermint Butler was behind her. She was swinging her fist and cursing in the direction of the whole kingdom. Finn charged towards her, knowing he and Jake would soon have a new adventure. This pleased him. What didn't though was that Princess Bubblegum was upset and that something had happened to her.

"What's the matter, Princess?" Finn asked as he finally reached her.

"Royal possessions have been stolen which could end in disaster." She whispered sadly, directing her eyes upwards. This caused Finn to also look up and he noticed the thing he hadn't before. Princess Bubblegum's head was bare; her beloved crown was no longer perfectly placed on the top of her pink bubblegum hair. He gasped before he was able to stop himself and the Princess almost broke into tears. It was now clear how much it meant to her.

A bright crimson colour flooded Finn's cheeks and he hung his head in slight shame. He'd done something he'd never wanted to do: upset the Princess. "What do you need me to do?" He asked, a lot less enthusiastic than he normally would.

"If I saw the thief, I'd be able to tell you it was them, but I cannot remember their features. I'm sorry I must ask so much of you, but will you catch the thief for me?"

"I'll try my best, Princess!" Finn shouted more enthusiastically. As he did so, he jumped to attention and tried to make himself look ready. "I'll catch this thief and bring them back to rot in jail. Never fear for Finn is here."

"Hey, I finally calmed down those candy people. It took longer than expected because I made them jump again." Jake giggled as he made his way towards them. "I couldn't resist it, it was just too funny-"Princess Bubblegum gasped- "but I finally managed to calm them down completely. Anyway, what was wrong with the Princess?"

"We have a thief to catch and-" Finn started, but he was interrupted.

"You must do what needs to be done, boys." The Princess said solemnly.

Finn looked at Jake and shrugged. He knew that she had probably meant several different things, but the only thing he understood was that they had to return the crown and catch the thief. And one thing he guessed for sure was that she wasn't allowing them to kill the thief. Or was she?

"Good luck, boys."

/

"Who do you think would steal the Princess' crown?" Jake asked as they wandered into the forest opening. "I mean, why would you want to steal it? Yeah, it's a crown, but it's not worth that much. Not to anyone but the actual Princess. So why would someone steal it?"

"Who knows dude? Some people aren't right in the head." Finn replied, shrugging his shoulders. He didn't really care of people intentions anyway, he only cared that someone had stolen it. And he was happy to finally be on an adventure with Jake again. They hadn't been on an adventure for at least a week as the Princess had wanted them to do all sorts of things that weren't as fun as adventures. In a way, he was actually glad that someone had stolen the Princess' crown, no matter how disrespectful it was the think something like that.

"What if this person actually had a valid reason though? Would you ever- No, of course you wouldn't, you love the Princess." Jake laughed, emphasising the word love by dragging out the 'o.'

Finn's cheeks immediately turned bright pink and he hid his face, trying to act as if he didn't care about her. But Jake knew he still did. Jake knew that even after everything that happened with the Flame Princess and his 'depressed' state, which had been almost a year ago, he still cared deeply about her. He'd just learnt not to act on it again and try to hide it from everyone.

"You don't just stop caring about someone, dude. Especially not when you care about someone as much as you cared about-"

"Okay, okay, I still really like the Princess."

"I knew it." Jake chuckled, proud of himself for getting it out of Finn.

"Let's talk about something el- Wait, what was that?"

"Stop trying to change the subject."

"No, listen." Finn said seriously. The look on Finn's face immediately made Jake realise that Finn wasn't trying to change the subject, or distract him. Finn's face told him that he was being deadly serious. Nodding, though he wasn't completely sure why, Jake listened to see if he could hear what Finn had heard. And he did. In the close distance, he heard frantic splashing and worried cries.

"Let's go!" Jake said, tripling his size as dived onto his back. Now taller than the forest, Jake took twenty huge steps to where he guessed the noise was coming from, and shrunk to his normal size. And surely enough, they were now in the part of the forest where the cries were coming from.

In the river before them, the River of Doom, a girl was desperately waving her arms around, trying to keep herself above the water. It was obvious why she would want to too, considering which river she'd been unfortunate enough to fall into. The River of Doom was given its name because if you fell in and couldn't swim, you would fall to your doom. At the bottom of most rivers, especially in Ooh, was just mud or sand, but at the bottom of this river was a black hole. So if you accidently dropped something into this river, it would be gone forever and everyone knew that.

"We need to save her." Finn said loudly, then dived into the river. Jake stared at him for several seconds, trying to figure out why in the world he would try such a thing.

"It would be nice to have your help!" Finn shouted, helping Jake snap from his trance.

"What can I do?" He yelled, running to the edge of the river.

"I'll tell you when the opportunity arises." Finn replied, quickly swimming towards the girl. As he was approaching her from the back, she wouldn't have seen him, so as he got closer, he yelled, "I'm going to help you."

The girl didn't reply, but Finn guessed that it may be from exhausted and proceeded to help her regardless of whether she wanted him to do. As he got closer to her, he noticed a purple shoulder bag that was dragging her down. Taking a deep breath, Finn dived down a little and tugged the bag from her clenched fists. As he did, she began to flail around even more, this time more angrily. And as she did, Finn realised why the bag had been dragging her down; it was really heavy.

"Take this bag, Jake." Finn shouted as his rose above the water. Jake nodded and quickly obeyed his friend's orders, stretching his arm and wrapping it round the bag, quickly realising why it had been such a burden.

As soon as the bag was out of Finn's arms, he managed to keep himself above the water and swim with ease, but he could see that the girl wasn't having the same luck. He swam towards her and wrapped his arm around her waist and dragged her upwards and onto the river bank.

She coughed out a load of water and lay down on the grass, completely exhausted. Now that she was out of the river, Finn could see her properly. He sat down before her and looked her, ignoring the weird look Jake gave him. He'd never seen anyone like her; she wasn't like the rest of the people in Ooh. Just by looking at her, Finn knew she was different, but he didn't know why.

"Where's my bag?" She panted, getting past the part where she'd be afraid of them or thanking them and just hoping they weren't trying to kill her.

"My friend Jake has it. What's even in the bag?" Finn asked curiously.

"Nothing."

"Doesn't seem like nothing." Jake said loudly above a loud clattering noise.

"No, my bag!" She shouted, bolting to her feet and over to the pile. But she was too late; Jake had already emptied the contents on the floor. Finn got to his feet and looked at the contents that had almost killed them both. The first things he spotted were a pile of thick books, ones that were in a trilogy about a wizard that was almost killed several times by another wizard with no nose or something, and a green hoodie with some type of snake on it. Besides that was a miniature blue box with windows and this long silver thing that had a flashy blue thing on the end. Next to that was Princess Bubblegum's crown and next to that was- Wait, Princess Bubblegum's crown.

"You're the thief." Finn gasped, turning to face the girl and pointing an accusing finger at her.