Hello, again! I am channeling my inner Princess Bubblegum~ Just kidding! This chapter isn't going to be quite as flowery and boring as the last one, but I hope you can still spot some metaphors! Also, I had to make some changes to Princess Bubblegum's lab…I get that it isn't quite so fancy, and it doesn't have quite so many gadgets and mechanical arms and stuff, but I thought, why can't a princess's lab be pretty as well as kickass? And Bubblegum is a kickass princess, even though she can be quite cold sometimes…

Princess Bubblegum looked down at the grey girl entangled in Lady Rainicorn's net and sighed.

"What are you?" she called.

The girl stared at her through defiant eyes that were like midnight lakes, but made no sound.

"What are you?" she called again, impatiently.

"I'm Marceline, the Vampire Queen," said the girl loudly.

Princess Bubblegum gasped. "A vampire?" she exclaimed.

Lady Rainicorn, who Princess Bubblegum was riding, said something in Korean. "Yes, pull her in, Lady," Princess Bubblegum muttered, though absently. Lady started to retrieve the net, sucking the colorful strands back into her horn.

It just so happened that Princess Bubblegum had always been interested in the properties of the undead. Did they feel emotions? If so, how? How much of their memory from their past life did they retain, if any?

And here was this floating attacker, this vampire who embedded itself in her candy walls.

"Lady, we can go in now," Princess Bubblegum said.

Lady Rainicorn let out a string of Korean, to which Princess Bubblegum said, a little tiredly, "Please try, Lady!"

With a visible effort, Lady Rainicorn pulled, and hoisted both Princess Bubblegum and the undead girl to the highest room in the tower.

"Where is this?" the vampire girl called with no audible tremble in her voice.

"It's my lab," Princess Bubblegum answered, sitting down at her bright desk, on which a number of brightly colored vials and flasks were simmering and fizzing. Multicolored buttons lined the surface, each with its own, sometimes dangerous, function.

"And you are taking me here because?" the vampire said, trying to stand up.

"You're a vampire," said Princess Bubblegum. "Now will you please stop talking so I can figure out a way to get you properly sterilized!"

"I'm clean!"

"Well, I still have to sterilize you. It's lab procedures."

"Why? Am I not good enough for you?" the vampire girl spat. Princess Bubblegum took a note of that. It was a sign of emotion.

"I didn't say that; you just have to be clean," Princess Bubblegum said.

Lady Rainicorn made a comment. "Yeah, you can untangle her now," said the princess, taking out her bubblegum-pink digital notepad.

The rainbow-soft meshes retracted and disappeared. Lady Rainicorn flopped onto her belly, exhausted.

The vampire made for the window, immediately; Princess Bubblegum laid her finger on a blue button. Immediately, panels of glass shot up and around the open windows, shocking the girl so that she fell.

"I wouldn't try, if I were you," said the princess.

The vampire growled. She tried to rise, but was too dizzy to get much beyond a half-squat, so she sat on the floor, watching Princess Bubblegum with clenched fists and intense, dark, unreadable eyes.

"Was that growl you just did a sign of emotion, or of warning?" Princess Bubblegum wondered aloud. This seemed to hit the girl in the stomach like a ton of bricks.

"You think I don't feel?"

"Of course! You're undead! That's why I have to conduct experiments on you. You are undead, right?"

"Yeah, I guess, but that doesn't mean I don't feel!" Her shiny black eyes focussed on Princess Bubblegum with the intensity of midnight lakes. Even the Princess's trained eyes were unable to detect emotion behind that visage, yet her tone spoke so clearly what her eyes could not!

"Hm. Well, we'll let science solve that, and meanwhile, if you just step into that little room on the side over there—" The princess flipped another switch, and a bubblegum-pink door materialized seemingly out of nowhere on the north wall. "We'll get you cleaned up, and see what you can do."

"And what if I don't?" said the undead girl, getting unsteadily to her feet. "What if I just stand here."

Princess Bubblegum merely said, "I have the control panel of this room here on this desk. There are exactly two hundred and forty-eight buttons all within easy reach, and I know the function of each by heart as well as the back of my hand."

The undead girl stood, her eyes boring holes in the back of the Princess's mind.

Princess Bubblegum pressed a third button, and the middle of the lab's floor suddenly split, revealing a pair of robotic arms. A glinting, red light beeped, then stood silent. The mechanical arms swiveled to face Marceline.

"Are you going, or not?" said the Princess.

Marceline, very slowly, picked herself up and floated toward the room.