Crona awoke to a tickling sensation dancing on his face. He jolted halfway up, grabbing around his head frantically, his vision clouded by something. Within a second or two, he found the cause of the tickling sensation; a piece of notebook paper taped to his forehead. Tearing it off, his tired eyes scanned the paper wearily.

Heading out for a bit. Keep things nice for me.

-You know who.

An easy task, Crona thought. Then why? Why did he have such a tense feeling in his stomach? Maybe it was fear of the consequences, or something else entirely. Crona had no doubts it was Marceline, despite not having seen her handwriting before. The paper smelled like sweater and nail polish, and a few black hairs still lingered on the page. Crona stared at the paper for a long time, processing the same information again and again. Internally groaning, Crona let Ragnarok materialize into his demon-sword mode.

"GUUUPIIIII!" The millisecond his lips became fully formed, Ragnarok let out an ear piercing howl. Crona suddenly remembered why he was able to sleep so easily with Ragnarok at his control."I bet you thought you could get rid of me, didn't you, stupid! But you can't! Because we're stuck together, foreve-" WIthin seconds of releasing him, Crona sealed Ragnarok back up again. Crona tapped his foot on the ground, waiting a few moments. Sighing, he summoned the demon sword once more.

"What the hell was that for?!" Saliva flew from the sword's mouth, landing on Crona's robe. Just for a moment, Crona wondered if there were any shops nearby that sold muzzles, but he dismissed the thought quickly.

"You were being annoying." Crona replied bluntly. He grabbed the blade by the handle, and dragged it outside with him. He crossed his fingers behind his back, waiting for Marceline to return; the less time he spent with Ragnarok, the better. It was kind of pathetic, actually; Crona hardly talked to his own brother. Why does he hate me so much? Crona thought. It hurt whenever he tried to remember, trying to remember what happened before he ended up...Here. But when he did try, all he ended up with was more confusion. Don't think about it. Don't think about it. Don't think about it. Crona repeated the mantra to himself mentally.

"No...Don't tell me...We're going to wait here?" Ragnarok hissed, baring his teeth. Crona looked down at his brother, who was growling like a beast.

I want to feel sorry for you. Crona thought remorsefully. But you're just...Too much. Then came the memories, and Crona winced, bracing himself. They were little snippets, sometimes visual, sometimes auditory, rarely both. Voices whispering to him, yelling at him. Blurry pictures of a time long forgotten, buried deep within his subconscious. His heartbeat quickened, and he covered his eyes with his hands, praying it would just be over. Crona opened his eyes and took a shaken breath. The voices quieted themselves, and the images faded to blackness as Crona phased back into reality. He pushed himself off the wall, and returned to his post with Ragnarok.


"Aw yeah!" Finn whooped as he rode on his adopted brother's back, stretching through the plains. He considered holding on with no hands, but decided against it at the last second, just to keep his hat from falling off, revealing his overly-long golden hair. Although, behind all that laughing and playing, was a recently broken heart. Today, Finn decided to pull a bold move; tell Bubblegum about his feelings for her. The end result was... Not pretty. It ended with Finn and Jake being formally banned from the Candy Kingdom for an indefinite amount of time. And this was his way of coping; hiding it. Denying its existence. Jake played it cool, pretending not to notice his brother's spiraling descent into depression. So in a sense, they were two parts of the same mask. But as for now? They were doing fine.

"Mayday, mayday! F-17 Jake's gonna crash!" Jake shouted, morphing his paw into a bullhorn. He took one final leap off of a hill, crashing and rolling into the breezy plains.

"Woo…!" Finn let out an exhausted gasp. "Man, we should do that again sometime." Finn nudged Jake with his elbow.

"Dude, we do this all the time." Jake furrowed his brow at Finn, giving him an odd look.

"Yeah, I guess…" Finn muttered. "Like that one day when we went in that dungeon with Bubblegum." Finn said, before realizing what just came out of his mouth. "Oh yeah, Bubblegum." Finn muttered, scowling. "Y'know what man? Screw Bubblegum!" Finn yelled, his voice ringing throughout the empty plains.

"Yeah! You tell 'em, Finn! Just...Less loudly." Jake whispered. He wasn't against Finn venting and letting his emotions out, but man, Jake had a reputation to keep up.

"Yeah, sorry. Y'know what? I'm sick, man. Way sick." Finn admitted.

"Lovesick?" Jake regretted those words the moment they came out of his mouth. He firmly held to the belief that Finn was an adventurer, not a lover. Still, his heart ached to see his brother like this. He needed a spark; something to get him back in the spirit again.

"No man," Finn shook his fist. "sick of PB. She thinks she's so high and mighty. I...I dunno. Maybe we should make our own kingdom, you feel me?" He suggested, flicking a tiny ant hill.

"Sure! We can be the tall, indestructible Grass Kingdom!" Jake proposed. Finn shrugged.

Finn tried making a tiny structure out of grass, only to watch it collapse seconds later. "I don't think this is gonna work out. Any ideas?" Finn watched the clouds go by, disappearing beyond the horizon.

"It sounded better in my head! C'mon man, we should just chill out. I'm tired." Jake yawned, having lost the motivation to stand back up.

There was a gap in Finn's speech before he talked again."...What about Marceline? Maybe she can hang out." Finn suggested.

"Marceline? You sure about this, Finn?" He questioned, feeling skeptical.

"Yeah. She's my friend. Not my girl friend. Just my friend...Who happens to be a girl." Finn looked left and right, not looking his brother in the eyes.

"Wait...This doesn't have anything to do with Bubblegum, does it?"

"No!" Finn yelled. "I mean...No. I just wanna hang out. That's it; I swear." Finn asserted.

"Alright, whatever man. All aboard the Jakemobile!" Finn flipped onto Jake's back, hanging tight as he shape-shifted into a larger form. Jake sprinted on all fours in his mega-sized body, traversing several acres in just minutes. Before long, they reached the small, dark corner of the Grass Kingdom that made up Marceline's home. The figure they expected to see on the porch wasn't Marceline. It was a pale, grim-faced, pink-haired teenager, a sword in his hand. Finn immediately retreated behind the cover of a rock, hoping he wasn't seen. Jake peeked his head out to look, before Finn angrily shoved it back down.

"Did Marceline get her hair dyed?" Jake asked, squinting his eyes to make sure he was seeing things right.

"Dude...I don't think that's Marceline." Finn whispered. His face became flushed and his heart rate shot up. He's gonna kill Marcy. No...No, that can't happen! I'll kill him first! Finn shrieked, giving away his location. In a fit of rage, Finn kicked the rock over, and charged at the boy.

"Huh?" Crona flinched. The screech was so loud he could have heard it from a mile away. Thinking quickly, Crona clutched Ragnarok with both hands, his knuckles turning white from the strain. The boy jumped into the air, screaming bloody murder at Crona.

"I've got you covered!" Another assailant entered the battlefield, some kind of animal, presumably a dog. It wrapped itself around the boy, covering his whole body except for the face, like a suit of armor. The boy came crashing down towards Crona, holding a blood-red sword in his hand. Crona instinctively blocked, and bits of the porch scattered everywhere as the boy landed, much to Crona's dismay. Determined to end the fight quickly, Crona lunged forward with a killing intent. The boy weaved to the side and gasped, as if he didn't expect that. Crona hung halfway off the ground in momentary disbelief, turning his head to the boy, barely noticing the blur of red rushing towards the right side of his neck.

"MMMMMM!" The boy grunted in frustration as his sword failed to cut much beyond the skin. Crona waited. In mere moment, the reaction would happen. The boy tried to pull the sword out of his neck, but it wouldn't budge. Within a second's notice, black needles shot out of Crona's neck wound, easily piercing through the boy's squishy armor. The dog yelped in pain and jumped away from the porch, unwrapping himself from the boy. The animal rolled over on his side, clutching his many wounds. "Jake!" He cried, nearly dropping his sword in horror. The boy's head swerved around, giving the Demon Swordsman a ferocious glare.

"I'LL KILL YOU!" The blonde-haired boy screamed. He lifted the sword over his head, about to split Crona in two. Before the blade could hit a hair on his scalp, Crona outstretched his hand, stopping the blade mid-swing. The boy reeled back in shock, unable to comprehend how he managed to block the sword, let alone with one hand. Ragnarok licked his lips, anticipating a kill. Crona drew Ragnarok back, preparing to make a clean cut across Finn's midsection.

"No!" Crona was interrupted by a sudden outburst from the sidelines. He turned to face the direction of the outcry, his sword at the ready. What could only be described as a speeding bullet flew at him, except in this case, the bullet was orange, and at least as tall as Crona. The projectile blew through his defenses (and by extension, his black blood) like paper, forcefully smacking the Demon Swordsman against the cave wall.

Crona moaned no louder than a whisper. He could already tell his consciousness was fading, much to his unease. With his slowly tiring eyes, he looked down at his shaking palms. They were drenched in black blood. Not dried either; it was still flowing in rich, dark streams. The last attack had done some noteworthy internal damage, severely disrupting the black blood's healing factor. The vulnerability of being human terrified Crona many times, and this was no exception. In his last moments of coherency, his vision became muddled until it was all shapes and colors.

"P-Please...Help." He murmured, his eyelids fluttering, before finally giving into the pain.

AN: Aaannnnd I'm back. I apologize on going on a hiatus for a while; I didn't expect this to be so popular. To you readers who have been waiting for this chapter for a while now, thanks for waiting! I'll make sure to have the next chapter out quicker than this time. As always, questions, comments, and criticism are welcome. But before we part, what do you think about the length of the chapters? I'm trying to shoot for the equivalent of a fifteen minute AT episode, but I'm always willing to experiment. Anyways, that's all!