Hi all! Ready for the next chapter? Not a lot of fluff or junk, unless you count fluffy Batceline, but we gotta get things moving! Where's Bubblegum? Also, I figured that if Marceline got noodles in "What Was Missing" she has some way to get back to her house, like a portal or something. Just roll with it. Feedback is definitely appreciated! Enjoy!

Heroes

"I don't know where she is, dude! Jake, relax, we're not gonna figure anything out if you freak out, man!" Finn shouted. Jake was pacing the treehouse madly, howling angry curses at the air. He was being unreasonable and flying off the handle quite quickly.

"You don't get it, dude! She was right there with me! Lady was right there and then she was gone! She just disappeared into thin air!" Jake flailed his arms around wildly, but in his frustration he was no good at describing anything, let alone shape shift into anything useful.

"Dude, then we gotta go on a quest! Let's go on a quest and find Lady for you, bro." Filled with excitement and determination, Finn stood up and grabbed his backpack and flame sword.

"We don't even know where Lady is, man." Jake protested, although he was the first to reach the door.

"Then we'll just look everywhere. Don't worry, bro. We'll find Lady and bring her home. Finn opened the door and came face to face with a haggard and angry looking vampire. "Woah! Marceline! What the toast?"

"Bubblegum... she's gone." Marceline answered in a raspy breath.

"I don't like this, dude," Jake started, "First Lady, now PB? Something weird is going on. You think Ice King has something to do with this?"

Finn shook his head, "No way, dude. This seems too smart for Ice King. That guy's a total butt, but all he knows how to do is kidnap princesses in the cheesiest ways possible. Remember when he lured Turtle Princess in a basket trap with a stack of books?"

"Oh yeah." Jake agreed. He shook his head and brought his attention back to the situation at hand, "Come on, Marceline. We're gonna go look for Lady and PB. You should come with us."

"Lady's missing too?" Marceline's eyebrows arched in surprise. Usually Princesses go missing, but not ranicorns. "You sure everything's cool with Flame Princess, Finn?"

Finn's face went blank for a moment before his eyes grew incredibly wide. "Oh. My. Glob... I... I don't know. We've gotta go... other Princesses might be in trouble too. Marceline, do you have any ideas?"

Marceline shook her head, "I thought about the Ice King too, but this isn't like him. Simon's still a simpleton under all that white hair, so he's out. Something like this has got to take some serious magic juice. Anything in the Enchiridion?"

Finn's expression dropped again, "No... it was destroyed by the Lich. I don't have even a piece of it."

"Glob it..." Marceline cursed. "Fine, we'll just head out, cause we're lumping not doing any good just by standing here." She stormed out of the tree house with and extra large Jake and Finn riding on his companion's back. She flew beside them, easily keeping pace.

She didn't care where they needed to go, as long as she could find Bubblegum. She was so close to closing the gap between them. The sweet taste of her lips still lingered on Marceline's memory, like cotton candy. Being away from her Princess for so long was already hard enough, but for her disappear like this in the middle of a crucial moment was unacceptable. Hearing the word 'unacceptable' in her head made Marceline think of the Earl Lemongrab, which made her giggle slightly. What a ridiculous thing the Princess created... She needed her back. Marceline needed Bubblegum in front of her where she could feel her presence, become intoxicated with her sweet candy scent and get lost in her colorful embrace. She bolted forward in the air, passing Finn and Jake as they raced beside her.

Looking back at her companions, Marceline registered a surprising look of determination on their faces. For once she connected with the boys. They had all lost something precious. It wasn't like what the Door Lord took... something else took someone from them, a person so valuable that they would go blindly into the wilds of Ooo to search for them.

They had crossed the peaks of the Sugar Mountains, just on the outskirts of the Candy Kingdom, through the blizzards of the Ice Kingdom, barely missing the Ice King's penguin lookouts. They were well past the Hazy Desert and had come across a valley that none of them had encountered before. A gigantic hedge stood as tall as a mountain that loomed so high that Jake felt dizzy just thinking about stretching above it.

"What do you think this is?" Finn wondered.

"Probably some old overgrown garden or whatever. I don't think..." Marceline's voice trailed off as she whipped her head in the direction of the wind.

"Marceline? What's wrong?" Jake was about to approach the vampire when he caught something in the air. "Lady!" He raced along the hedge, following the scent of Lady Ranicorn, which is to say, the scent of cherry blossoms and rain. Marceline was also racing behind Jake, flying low to the ground at incredible speed. Surprisingly enough, Finn managed to keep up. He wasn't able to pick up on the scent of others, but he knew they could and where they went, he'd need to follow. He wasn't even sure if FP was in trouble, but he'd be globbed if he didn't make the blind attempt to rescue her.

Marceline felt like a crazed animal. The familiar aroma of cotton candy that she knew so well was hanging faintly in the air. Bubblegum was here and she was going to find her. But something about the hedge felt wrong. It made the hairs on the back of Marceline's neck stand and for anything to do that to the Vampire Queen was quite a thing indeed.

They came to a break in the hedge that looked like an archway. The ground within the perimeter was covered in a low thick mist, making the place look incredibly sinister. Marceline felt rather comfortable with it, except for that nagging prickling feeling. There was weird magic at play and she wasn't sure how she should take it. It wasn't anything like what she knew in all of Ooo, the astral plane or the Nightosphere.

"In there?" Jake asked no one in particular.

"Yeah, dude. Totes. Come on, the Princesses need our help." Finn took the first step forward with Marceline hovering above them and Jake at his side. He held his sword out in front of him as a defense mechanism.

The inital entry beyond the hedge was like a long hallway. At first it seemed as if it was a hedge maze, but on closer inspection, the walls were actually made of stone covered in overgrowth. In the distance, beyond the maze, was a towering pyramid. The whole place felt ominous and Marceline wondered if the location was actually older than she was. There weren't many things left after the Mushroom War, but that wasn't to say that everything was gone.

"Hey."

Jake, Finn and Marceline stopped in their tracks and looked at each other. "Was that you, bro?" Finn asked.

Jake shook his head, a look of worry playing across his jowled face. "Now way, dude. I don't think it was Marceline either. The voice was a few octaves too low for her."

"Crabapples, what the junk was it then?" Marceline snapped.

"Hey, down here." The voice said again. The three adventurers looked down to see a large pinkish purple silhouette below their feet. "Hey Jake."

"Woah! Prismo!" Jake answered with glee. "What are you doing here, man?"

"Oh, y'know... just hanging around wherever." The silhouette answered. "Actually, I kinda followed this weird dude over here. He stepped on my face when I asked him what's up. Totally weird green guy in a yellow outfit. He was a jerk."

Finn and Jake turned to each other in surprise, "Magic Man!" they cried in unison.

"Magic Man?" Marceline tilted her head slightly. She knew a lot about Ooo, but she had never encountered this 'Magic Man.'

"Yeah, man, he's a real patoot. One time, he turned me into a foot. Another time he almost killed Jake."

Jake shook his head, "Yeah, it wasn't cool. But Finn was an awesome foot."

"Shut the junk up, man." Finn turned to Prismo on the ground, "Hey Prismo, a bunch our friends are missing. Do you think Magic Man is behind this?"

The silhouette thought quietly for a moment, then answered, "Yeah, probably. I was taking a break from the multiverse gateway 'cause the Cosmic Owl was all 'You spend way too much time here' so I was gonna hang around this ruined maze and explore it. Doesn't take long, though. At least not when I can cover the whole thing. Anyways, after that jerk appeared, I heard other voices around the maze. But you can't see them. Their voices always come from a thick cloud of fog that sits in one place."

"We gotta find those fog places, guys." Marceline announced, her voice full of conviction. Bonnibel was somewhere in this maze and she was determined to find her and restore the balance in her life.

"Any ideas where the first one is, Prismo?" Jake asked, looking down at his buddy.

"Yeah, follow the wall and make a left turn at the first opening, then a right at the next and a left at the next. There's a bank of blue fog sitting there. It's crying, so be careful what you say to it. It's kinda sensitive."

Jake chuckled a little, "Sounds like Ghost Princess. Cool, man. We gotta hurry, you coming?"

"I'll catch up when I can. Cosmic Owl told me to hang out here and wait for him. He wanted to split a pizza."

"Glob, that sounds good right now..." Marceline muttered. She hadn't eaten in quite some time, the tomato sauce and pepperoni would've done great to tide her over, even if it gave her weird dreams. She wasn't planning on sleeping anytime soon, at least not until Bubblegum was safe in her arms again. The night was ending soon and if she didn't find something to eat she wouldn't have the energy to shapeshift or open a portal to her home to get something to cover herself with from the sun. "Finn, you got an apple or anything in your bag?"

Finn took off his backpack and rummaged through it. "Um…sandwich… can of beans.. gems… here's a cursed necklace… oh!" Finn produced a handful of strawberries in a cardboard box. "All yours, Marceline."

"Thank glob…" Marceline sighed as she took the box from Finn. She promptly drained every trace of red from the berries, feeling her hunger subside. "All right, I'll be back, I promise. The sun's gonna be up and I need my hat or an umbrella. Otherwise I'm toast."

"No can do, yo." Prismo piped in. He was still there on the ground. He moved around along the walls until he was towering above them. "The place has got a spell on it. No portals out, no portals in. I actually had to walk here."

Finn raised an eyebrow, "You can walk?"

"Ugh, that's not important right now, Finn. The sun's going to be up soon and I need to make sure I don't become charcoal. I'm not leaving this place without Bonni." Marceline snapped. She clenched her fists in frustration. Usually her vampire abilities and nature were totally awesome, but it was during times like that that she felt it was nothing more than a hindrance.

As if it weren't a thing, Jake shrugged, "Why don't you just make yourself small and ride in Finn's backpack until the sun goes down again? If we find shady places, you can come out and stretch. My bro won't mind carrying you."

"Yeah!" Finn agreed excitedly. He opened up his backpack and kneeled beside it in front of Marceline, "Your chariot awaits, milady."

The vampire hesitated, considering the option for several reasons. One, she would be in their care, leaving her relatively vulnerable. She hated that. Two, it meant that these two dimwits had come up with an idea that she hadn't. They had good hearts and good intentions, but it did hurt her pride a little to think that they were thinking clearly and she wasn't. Third, Finn's offer just sounded too weird. Marceline wasn't a dainty princess to be addressed with words like 'milady.' She was the Supreme Ruler of Terror, the Queen of Vampires, Mistress of the Night and all that junk. Definitely too cool to be referred to as 'milady' and escorted around in a backpack. But she sighed defeatedly. If she couldn't get out of the maze with a portal, then the human boy's offer was probably the best solution at this time.

She quickly shifted her body until it shrank, leaving her in the form of a fluffy black bat. Marceline flapped her little wings and buried herself in Finn's backpack, then poked her head out. "Fine, don't shake me too much, though...and if you ever call me 'milady' again, I'm going to break my rule and drink your blood instead of a strawberry next time." The threat was empty, but she made it convincing enough that Jake cringed in evident fear.

Finn only chuckled. He knew that Marceline was mostly bark, not so much bite, especially when she was in tiny, cute bat form. "Hahaha, sure thing, Marceline. Ready to go, Jake?"

"Yeah, dude. See you later, Prismo. Holla if you see us down the road again, man." Jake said to the silhouette.

"Totes." Prismo answered. He was still waving at them as the continued down the pathway, before they turned in the direction he had instructed them in earlier. At that moment, the Cosmic Owl landed beside Prismo on the ground, setting down a box of pizza. "Oh, hey dude."

The Owl made some ruffling and hoot noises before glancing down the pathway. Prismo took a piece of pizza and was already munching away on it. "Oh yeah, it was that kid Finn again and the dog. They got a vampire with them too." More hoots came from the Cosmic Owl. "Hahaha, for sure, man. They totally have what it takes. That Magic Man's game is gonna bust when they get through with this maze."