Princess Abadeer and Bonnibel the Vampire Queen
Marceline shot through the air over the Grasslands with an urgency she was usually too cool to show. Her wild mane of jet black hair flapped behind her like a cape.
Just moments ago, Marceline had been in her cottage, trying out new song ideas with Finn, Jake and BMO when, mid-song, Marceline's phone started ringing. A glance at the phone's screen revealed the caller to be Princess Bubblegum. Marceline had found that surprising, since she was expecting PB to be preparing for the Royal Court. More surprising still, was the brief conversation that followed.
"Marceline!" The Princess called out, as soon as Marceline answered the phone. "Come meet me in the palace bedroom as fast as you can! Come in through the window, and wear something without sleeves!" And without another word, she hung up, leaving the bewildered Vampire Queen to make an excuse to Finn and Jake, and then go about following the Princess' instructions.
Having already been wearing a black vest, Marceline just had to grab one of her enormous sun hats before she was ready to leave, and it was only a few minutes after the phone call that she was floating high above the Candy Kingdom, hesitantly outside the princess' window. Wondering whether to knock, as Bubblegum had very sternly instructed her to in the past, or let herself in, as the urgency of her phone call suggested she should. Eventually, Marceline settled on the latter option. She eased the unlocked window open and parted the thick curtains. The room on the other side was unlit.
"Bonnie? You ok?" Marceline called, concern in her voice.
Receiving no answer, and panic beginning to settle in, Marceline lifted the curtain all the way and floated inside. Other than the lack of light, despite PB's invitation, there was nothing amiss. The room was as neat and tidy as the Princess liked it. There was nothing to suggest anything bad had happened there. Marceline was about to call out again, when something stopped her. A light, with no apparent source appeared next to Marceline's bare forearm, and burnt her skin like acid, or more specifically, like sunlight. Instinctively, Marceline shot across the room and scrambled into an upper corner, hissing angrily at the light, as the bubbling, steaming patch of flesh on her arm quickly reverted to normal.
The light vanished with a click, and in its place, Princess Bubblegum swam into view, her cloaking device on her wrist, and a large UV flashlight in her hand.
"Bonnie!? What the math girl?" Marceline cried, feeling hurt in more ways than one by PB's attack.
Before responding to Marceline, Bubblegum closed the windows, locked them, and drew the curtains. She turned the bedroom lights back on with a clap of her hands. Fully illuminated, PB was revealed to be wearing a pair of smart, blue jeans and a pink t-shirt, the last clothes Marceline would have expected to see her in, with the Royal Court so close.
"Sorry about that dude. I just had to be sure." The Princess said to Marceline, with an anxious shudder in her voice.
She walked over to where Marceline still skulked on the ceiling and held a hand out to her, with a smile that warmly requested her trust. Sighing, Marceline took the Princess' hand and floated down to the floor.
"Be sure of what?"
Bubblegum shiftily glanced left and right. "Ok, here's the sitch- my spies have found out that there's an assassin out there, after my guts."
"So? Who is this fool? I'll go kill him." Marceline offered, with nonchalance that Princess Bubblegum clearly didn't approve of, as was made obvious by her glare.
"It's not that simple Marcy. The assassin's a shape changer. That's why I had to fry you, to make sure you're you."
"Ok, so we'll stay here. I'll look after you."
Bubblegum's heart warmed in reaction to Marceline's caring reassurance. She thought about hugging her, but she needed her to take the situation seriously. "No can do, I can't miss the Royal Court."
Marceline frowned, she wasn't sure why Peebles had called her if she wasn't to be an assassin or a bodyguard. It wasn't like she could protect her at the Royal Court if everyone they met was a potential assailant. "So what's the plan, PB?"
The Princess smiled and beckoned Marceline to join her at a small desk opposite her bed. "I whipped these up months ago for something just like this." From one of the desk's draws, she produced two small bottles, each filled with a thick, soupy liquid, one bubblegum pink, the other jet black. She handed the pink one to Marceline. "It's a sample of my DNA, woven into a molecular reconfiguriser and laced with a cellular transmoobulator."
"Huh...?" Marceline asked, staring at the bottle. Normally, she would just phase out when Bonnibel started talking science, but she usually tried her best to keep up when she was to be her guinea pig.
"It'll make you look like me." PB explained. "And this one's you!" She added, holding up the black bottle. "This way, I can still go to the Royal Court, and any bum who tries to croak me will get a face full of Vampire Queen instead!"
Marceline looked between the bottle in her hand, and the Princess. Of course she had no problem with fighting an assassin who could take any appearance, in fact, that was a normal day for her, but what the Candy Princess knew full well, was that the real challenge was asking Marceline to act like a well-mannered Princess for an entire day. This was evident by the pleading look in Bubblegum's eyes.
While she was thinking it over, Marceline noticed something. "Hey, how come that bottle isn't full?"
Unlike the bottle of pink liquid, which was full to the brim, the bottle which turned the drinker into Marceline had clearly already had a few sips taken from it. Bubblegum looked at it and blushed faintly.
"B... because of testing... For science..." She answered, without making eye contact with Marceline.
Marceline looked at the pink bottle again. "Then why isn't..."
"IT'S SCIENCE MARCELINE, YOU WOULDN'T UNDERSTAND!" PB snapped, interrupting the Vampire Queen.
The two of them stood in silence for a few moments, which was eventually broken when Marceline doubled over and started laughing hysterically. Hey eyes watered with mirth at the thought of PB pretending to be her when she was alone. Bubblegum stood with her arms folded and a steely glare on her face until several minutes later when Marceline had calmed down.
"Well?" Bubblegum asked, testily. "Will you help me out? I'll totes owe you one."
Marceline sighed and rested her head on her shoulder in contemplation.
"So you want me to be you for a whole day?" Marceline confirmed.
"All my speeches are written down, you just need to sound fancy when royal peeps say hello to you and junk."
"And I'll have to wear a dress?" Marceline cringed.
Bubblegum groaned to herself, she was hoping to ease that in after Marceline had agreed to do it. Reluctantly, she opened a nearby cupboard and produced an elaborate, frilly purple gown. Marceline's reaction was one of pure horror. Had Bubblegum ever awoken in the middle of the night to find the Lich in her bedroom, then she would have had a good idea of how Marceline was feeling. Marceline stared at PB, her eyes said, "You have got to be kidding me..."
"Pleeeeeaaase Marceline?" Bubblegum pleaded. "I need you."
Marceline scowled, Bubblegum knew full well that those were three words she could never resist. With one last glance at the purple monstrosity in Bubblegum's hands, Marceline reluctantly flicked the cap off her bottle with her thumb and raised it to the Princess.
"Cheers, I guess..."
Dreading the worst, Marceline cringed and downed the liquid inside as fast as she could, but to her surprise, the pink fluid had a rich, sweet flavour, just like Bonnie had, on the one occasion she had gotten away with draining the colour from her. As soon as Marceline had finished the formula, she felt a faint shiver run across her body, from her scalp downwards. She stumbled backwards slightly as her hair got considerably heavier. Looking down at her hands, Marceline saw that the effect had been instantaneous. As she moved her fingers, she instead saw Bubblegum's soft, pink hands moving in front of her. It was bizarre. She looked up and jumped, Bubblegum had drunk the contents of her bottle too, and Marceline was faced with an image of herself standing before her, in clean jeans, a pink t-shirt and Bonnie's crown. This was going to take some getting used to...
"So..." Bubblegum began, in Marceline's voice. "Have you ever worn anything like this before?" She held the dress out to Marceline. Bubblegum's new voice, although the same depth as Marceline's, had none of its drawl. She still enunciated every word.
Marceline took the dress. "The last time I wore a dress, I was nine... It was denim and had buttons." She didn't care to add that even then, she struggled to put it on without Simon's help.
Not being one to stray away from a challenge, however, Marceline lifted up into the air and floated over to a screen in the corner of the room. She noted that PB's serum didn't hinder her vampiric powers, and then she took a moment to consider how strange she must look using them.
"Try not to do that at the Royal Court, ok?" The Princess called out, proving she was thinking the same thing.
Behind the screen, Marceline pulled off her old clothes and, with some trepidation, pulled the dress over her head. While she struggled gracelessly to get her head and arms out of the other end, Marceline called out, "So where's your Me disguise?"
"Huh? You didn't notice?" Came PB's reply. "Why do you think I'm dressed like this?"
A moment later, once Marceline managed to get her head through the dress, she looked over the screen to take another look at PB's clothes. Her jeans, while hardly formal enough to blend in at the Royal Court, were hardly to Marceline's taste either, and the Princess' t-shirt was a shade of pink which Marceline wouldn't even drink, never mind wear. Seeing what appeared to be herself wearing them was almost disturbing.
"Haha, what!? Dude, do you even know me?" Marceline laughed.
"And just what's wrong with these clothes?" Bubblegum demanded.
"Asides from the fact I wouldn't be seen dead in them?" Marceline replied. "You know... As opposed to undead."
"Well whatevs, these are the most rebel clothes I have..." Bubblegum pouted defensively.
With one of her arms through the dress' sleeve, Marceline picked up her own clothes, bundled on the floor, and threw them over the screen. "There, put those on. If I have to dress like a princess, you have to dress like a rebel."
Marceline floated out from the screen. She had put the dress on remarkably well, asides from being bunched up and creased in several places, and one other thing,
"Marcy, you're wearing it backwards..." Bubblegum sighed.
Marceline looked down at the dress and rolled her eyes. As she shrugged her arms out of their sleeves and eased the dress around, she looked down at the clothes she had thrown to Bonnie.
"Well? Aren't you gonna change?"
Cringing slightly, Bubblegum bent down and picked up Marceline's vest between two fingers. She treated it like it might burst into flames at any moment.
"You have washed these, right?" Bubblegum sounded almost afraid to ask.
Marceline paused. "... Yeah."
"Recently?" The Princess asked, accusation in her voice.
Marceline looked like she was about to avoid the question again, when instead, she decided to match the Princess' defensiveness. "Dude, I'm wearing a freaking dress for you! Don't be double standard-y!"
Marceline had a point, Bubblegum realised. Matching Marceline's level of enthusiasm, she picked up her jeans and boots and took her turn behind the screen.
"So, you're sure you can do this?" Bubblegum asked, a little late, she had to admit. Marceline was the one person the Princess trusted above all others, but the fact was that their friendship and romance stemmed from their personalities being polar opposites.
Marceline looked at Bubblegum's mirror, and saw what appeared to be the Princess, uncomfortably patting down a royal gown. Bubblegum's mirror was the product of weeks of research into restoring vampire reflections.
"Sure, I mean, I see you all the time. I'm pretty sure I can do a good You impression." A sinister smile crept across Marceline's face. "I'm Princess Bubblegum! I take secret guitar lessons, but I say guitar playing is stupid because I'm no good at it!"
"What!?" Bubblegum sounded horrified. She stormed from behind the screen, in Marceline's clothes. "Well I'm Marceline the Vampire Queen! I always put on a tough guy act! Which is why I hope no one ever finds out that I donate all my concert money to kitten sanctuaries!"
"Th... the kittens tricked me!" Marceline snapped.
Rolling her eyes, Bubblegum took her crown off, replaced it with Marceline's sun hat, and walked towards her. "How about we do this later? We're running late."
Smiling reluctantly, Marceline took the crown and rested it on the soft, gelatinous mass her hair had become. "You got it Bonnie. Let's go do some royal stuff."
As Marceline walked towards the bedroom door, Bubblegum hesitated for a moment, rubbing her arm awkwardly. "Hey Marceline?" She managed to call out, prompting the Vampire Queen to turn and face her. "Thanks for doing this..."
"No probs Bonnie." Marceline smiled.
She held her hand out for the Princess to take, and together, they headed out the door, and towards the carriage awaiting them in the courtyard.