Chapter One
In Which Marceline Is Bargained With
Marceline was having fun, Finn and Jake were at her house and they were trying out her new guitar that she got from the music Wizard's shop in an inpromptu jam session. She couldn't remember the last time she'd been happy so many days in a row. Before she met Finn, her only friends were three idiot ghosts who only wanted to do stupid stuff like kill people, and before then there was Ash who she tried to think about as little as possible. She knew it couldn't last though, nothing in her life ever did.
"I'm done for today guys."
"But" said Finn with a frown."I was just starting to get mah groooove on."
"Maybe tomorrow, alright?" Marceline told Finn.
"All right, I guess we'll see you later." Finn said. "C'mon Jake, I heard Ice King kidnapped Hot Dog princess' hot dog knights anyway.
"Aww, do we have to? They're just so stupid." replied Jake as they left, their voices trailing away.
Marceline was not sure why she sent the two away, she felt like she could play for hours, but it always happened this way. When she got too attached to something, she always started backing away. She decided it probably had something to do with her fry eating father, but she didn't like to dwell.
Marceline suddenly noticed a presence in the room. A corner of the wall was just a little too bright she looked right at it and said, "Get out of my house, or I will math you up." A bit of the wall peeled off revealing a creature she had not seen before, which was pretty rare for her since she had been the entire length of Ooo and beyond. It had a bird's head but with a furry, bipedal body. A long tuft of brown hair grew along it's neck and almost reached all the way to it's waist.
"You are Marceline, the Vampire Queen, I take it." It didn't speak as a normal person would, the beak prevented that, but used telepathy powerful enough to pierce the mental barriers she had set on her mind. That fact unsettled her.
"If you know that much, then you know not to mess with me." She wasn't feeling brave, but she knew how to play the part well. Living on your own in a destroyed world did that to you.
"Now now, I did not come to fight. I have come to make you a deal that you most certainly will want to hear." As it said this, it began licking it's paw in a disturbingly animal gesture.
"I'm sure you don't have anything to offer me that would be worth my time." Marceline was not sure what to make of the creature, but she did know one thing. This creature had the unmistakable stench of evil all over it.
"But my dear, I am offering you the one thing that you want more than anything in the world. I'm offering you Simon Petrikov returned to you in full."
Marceline was stunned, she didn't know how this creature knew her deepest darkest hope. She didn't trust it but it didn't matter. If the creature thought it could bring Simon back it was worth watching just in case. Even though she knew it could mean the end of her and Finn as friends, she only hesitated a second before saying; "I'm listening."