AN: You guys who've favorited my story... You know how to make a girl feel loved. :3 Sometimes, I feel like I cram stuff together too much when I write, or that I break the chapters in the wrong places. I'll improve as I age, though, I'm sure. I also feel like Finn is becoming a bit OOC, but I can only imagine what a town like Silent Hill can do to someone's attitude. Same thing with Heather, kinda- sometimes she's (way too) bitchy, other times she's sappy. I try to get in between, but I'm stuck. xDD

Chapter Seven

Finn wandered around aimlessly in the icy room for a bit. He couldn't get Angela off his mind. "She sounded so sad..." He was really concerned and direly wished that he could have helped her in some way.

"Some people in life tend to have bad things happen to them, and sometimes it's too much. Don't worry, I'm sure she's in a happier place," Heather said with that unnaturally nice tone again. In this sinister town, that was all Finn needed.

"Yeah, I guess you're right. But... Ah, c'mon, we need to find the Chamber of Frozen Blades to get that blue gem."

Finn scrunched up his face a bit in concentration. "It was hidden behind some thin ice. It wasn't very noticable, though. Jake and I first discovered it by accident." He used his steel pipe to swing roughly at a random spot on the wall. Nothing. "Here, use the skillet and start hitting the walls until you find a weak spot. It'll be a while, but there's not much else we can do to find it."

He and Heather began hitting the walls. It was a bit more difficult on Heather's side, and Finn ended up being the one to break into the entrance. After Heather returned the skillet to Finn, they both climbed into the room and began thoroughly searching. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, besides the other hole in the room they did not create; it was the same as before, minus the blue gem. "Damn! Maybe the mystery man got the gem, too!" Heather huffed angrily as she stomped towards the other hole. "I bet he came in through here. I'm gonna find him and give him a piece of my mind."

The duo climbed out of the hole and into a hall. There were only two doors. Heather and Finn began walking toward them when a loud, anguished cry followed by horrendous growling was heard from the door at the very end of the hall. They stopped dead in their tracks. "On second thought, let's go double-check the blade room," Finn suggested as he backed up. Before they could get a few steps back, though, four shots were heard from the same room.

"No! I'm sorry! I mean..." an unrecognizable voice shouted. The two began to slowly walk back up to the door. "God, I am so sorry."

'Who's that?' Finn mouthed.

'Maybe it's him,' Heather silently replied.

"I, erm, I got that letter you sent me," the voice sniffled from behind the door. "I'm sorry I never brought you back. I guess I..."

He was cut off by Finn entering the room. There was a man, with blonde hair, a big green jacket, and light blue skin similiar to the Ice King's, kneeling on the ground next to one of the box-footed monsters. This one looked slightly different, though. It appeared to have its arms sewed into its torso, and the tentacle-hairs were a brownish color. The tentacles grew into a strangely ponytail-like shape. For some reason, the man had nearly been crying over the almost-dead monster that had been bleeding everywhere. It was a disturbing sight, but Finn swallowed any feelings of disgust so he could confront the man.

"Where you the one in my house?" Finn calmly asked as Heather kept her gun pointed to the monster the man held in his arms.

The man completely ignored Finn's question. "Where you the one following me?"

"Yeah, but only because you broke into my tree house." Finn groaned. "What's going on here? Do you have any idea?"

"No," the man said, shaking his head. "I wish I could make sense of things. I came to find my wife." He looked back down at the monster and stroked its face.

"That's your wife?" Heather cried out in surprise. "What the ...?" She continued pointing her gun at it.

He snapped his head up and noticed where Heather was pointing her gun. "Hey! Don't shoot! Put that thing down! I..." He never finished, because the grotesquely feminine creature in his arms went limp. "Mary? No, Mary, no!" His voice became shaky again, like it had been before Finn walked into the room.

Finn slowly walked over to the man on the floor and sat down in front of him. "Hey, it's okay... Can you please explain what's going on? How is this your wife?"

The man shook his head. "It was the drugs and the disease. They did this to her." He sighed and continued stroking the dead monster's face before looking up to face Finn. "Sorry I broke into your house. I didn't take anything, I swear. I was just trying to see if I could find anybody..."

"What's your name?" Finn asked.

"James Winterland." He sighed again. "What about you?"

"Finn the Human, and my friend's Heather Confection." Before James had the chance to ask any more questions, he cut him off with his own. "You do know there's another monster like that, right?"

"Oh, Maria. She wasn't Mary, she never could be. Thank glob she's the only imposter. There was only ever one real Mary." He made a light hmph noise before picking "Mary" up and placing her on a nearby chair.

Does that mean the only other box-footed monster in existence was the one on the train?, Finn thought. He meant to ask, but was interrupted by Heather.

"Hey, wait..." Heather held up the card she and Finn had found earlier. "You're the Sinner! You have the silver key, and the gem."

"You mean," he paused to pull a small blue gem from his pocket, "this?"

"Yeah. We kinda need that," Finn stated flatly while standing up. "I'm sorry for your loss and all, but we really need to get back to the Candy Kingdom."

"We can't do that without the key and the gem," Heather said while holding out her hand.

James squinted at them momentarily. "Under one condition. Give me back the glasses you stole, and you'll get both the key and the gem."

Finn grumbled. "I didn't steal it! You dropped it while running away from my tree house. Whatever, man, you can have it." He pulled the broken glasses out of his pocket and handed them to James, who snatched them up and shoved them in his pocket. In return, he handed both the silver key and the blue gem to Finn. "Thanks," Finn said.

"No problem. I just... I really need these." He gave the duo a funny look.

"Well, I'd like to stay and chat, but we have a castle to explore and a pepperminty-riddle to solve. Let's get going," Heather said before waving toward the door. "Thank you for your cooperation Mr. Winterland, but we best get going." She flashed him a cheesy smile.

The duo left James in the room with the dead "Mary." They went through the Chamber of Frozen Blades to return to the Ice King's bedroom/throne room. They exited the room expecting to be led right back to the subway station. Instead, they found a fairly normal-looking room. On the wall was a picture of a happy couple. There were a few couches and a fireplace, but nothing of interest.

Why do the buildings always seem to change?, Finn thought. He walked over to a small coffee table pushed up against a wall and took the health drink sitting on it.

"Uh-oh," Heather murmered as she tapped her radio. "It's emitting static again, we better get out of here."

The two walked over to the only door in the room. When Finn put his hand on the door knob, it was immediately frozen in place by a huge lump of ice. "Ah!" He cried out in surprise and attempted to jerk his hand out. He turned his head to the side to see his attacker and was surprised to find a distorted Ice King that had been perverted by the Other Ooo. Navy blue veins throbbed all around his completely sky blue eyes. His robe was clingy and tightly hugged his body unlike what he usually wore. There were patches and tears everywhere in his new robe. His nose was notably shorter and he snarled and growled in a similar fashion to the other monsters. There was a hint of his regular voice in each growl, though.

Finn continued his attempt to pull his arm out of the huge block of ice while Ice King diverted his attention to Heather, who already had her shot gun out and aimed toward Ice King. She let off one shot which hit him in the arm. Ice King merely grimaced, them proceeded to swing his fist at her. Heather strafed to the left just in time to let another shot loose into Ice King's chest. The injury began to bleed profusely. However, she soon saw it sew itself back up in a wispy, thread-like manner that made her shudder in disgust. Her shots were obviously going to have no effect on the Ice King. She lept over to Finn and helped him out of the ice. After using his steel pipe to beat it a few times, the ice shattered and began to melt around their feet. "Thanks," he said quickly and proceeded to pull his skillet out of his pack. Heather was going to use to the steel pipe to see if melee was the way to defeat the Ice King.

The two hastily began circling Ice King in hopes of confusing him. The monster-man began twirling around in a circle in order to keep his eye on him. When the duo got him nice and dizzy, they began to relentlessly swing their weapons at him. No matter how hard they hit him, there was no bleeding or bruises. Ice King proved to be a formidable-maybe even invincible-foe. Heather and Finn exchanged worried looks when the dizzy king stood up again to fight. Guns and melee both proved to be worthless against him. "Wait!" Finn yelled and dashed across the room.

"Don't leave me alone!" Heather yelled, but when she saw where Finn was headed she shut up and continued to distract Ice King. She hit him hard across the head with the steel pipe, but the Ice King continued to swing his curled fists at him with an implacable force. Many purple bruises slowly began to form on Heather's abused cheeks, but she ignored them and continued beating at the Ice King.

Meanwhile, Finn had grabbed one of the tongs hanging above the fire place. He tore some of the material off the couch with his few front teeth and began hastily wrapping around one of the ends of the tongs. Afterwards, he tried to set it on fire by holding it in the fire place. He was disappointed to see that the fabric seemed incombustible. He tried to switch by using the different fabric of the pillow, but he only got the same effects. Finn grunted in frustration.

Heather, after dizzying the Ice King and left him lying on the ground in confusion, had run over to a corner to take a quick break and drink a health drink to regain some of her lost health. She soon found out that she had none left. She began to panic, then bolted towards Finn's pack which was left on the couch close to him. "Distract Ice King!" Finn yelled as he tried to find a fabric that would succumb to the burning embers of the fire place.

"I need to heal up!" Heather briskly replied as she pulled a health drink out of her pack and chugged it as quick as she could. She soon returned to Ice King, who was already waiting for her arrival. She took a deep breath and ran toward him. He fired some ice at her feet, which she barely dodged. She ended up hitting her knee against the couch, which caused it to buckle and her to stumble. She barely scrambled to her feet, but it left her no time to strafe to safety when Ice King first fired ice at her shoulder. She gripped it as the pain first began to burn, then to numb. Ice King then fired some more ice at her feet. Heather couldn't break the ice around her feet as it continually grew. Ice King stopped the flow of ice when the mound reached her knees. "Finn! Hurry up! I can't move!"

Finn looked back in horror and saw Heather struggling to escape the Ice King's trap. He hadn't found a feasible material to work with, so he tore off some of the cotton from the bottom of his shirt and hastily wrapped it around the end of the tong. Unlike the many other materials, this quickly set on fire. He turned around and held it up to Ice King. "Prepare to go down," Finn growled unhappily toward the malevolent man. He jammed the tong as hard as he could into the Ice King's stomach, and it eventually broke skin. When he shoved it in deep enough, he took his steel pipe back from Heather so he could try to break her out.

When Finn finally helped Heather escape, they both saw that instead of injuring the Ice King, his skin had merely grown back around the deep wound. "...!" Heather yelled in fear. "Even fire won't work! He's unstoppable!" She tried running back to the door, but the ice on the door knob had grown and was now engulfing the entire door way. Finn tried to break the ice, but every time he chipped off even a tiny piece, more ice froze over and made that particular spot thicker. The duo had no means of escape and no way to beat the Ice King.

"Wait!" a voice yelled from within the Chamber of Frozen Blades. All three turned to see James climb out of the hole they made in the wall earlier. He held out the glasses. "You've gotta-" he was cut off by a blast from the Ice King. He collapsed to the ground, and a few chips of broken lens from the glasses scattered around the weak frames. He tried to pick it back up, but the Ice King stomped harshly on his hand, causing a few bones to snap. "AH!" He cried out in pain and agony.

Finn quickly dashed forward and bent over James to protect him from any further attacks. "Put the glasses on him," James ordered. Finn turned around to see that Ice King was about to smash the glasses completely.

"Heather, hold him back!" Finn yelled as he snatched up the glasses.

Heather's fast response saved Finn's hand from a powerful stomp. "I got him!" she called out triumphantly as the king thrashed about in her grasp. Finn quickly stood up and placed the glasses on his face. Ice King immediately stopped moving and softly placed his hands on his face. "Thank you," he softly murmered.

Ice King's skin slowly began turning into stone. He changed into a man with a normal-length nose and short hair, with a jacket and pants instead of the robe. He looked more human than ever, except made out of stone. It was a statue of him as Simon Petrikov, but only Finn understood it. The only thing on his face that wasn't stone was the broken glasses. "Glad I kept them," Finn mumbled and let a small smile replace the frown on his face. He turned to James. "Thank you so much for your help." He pointed at the statue. "Is he the reason you needed those glasses so bad?"

James nodded. "He'd been following me everywhere after I picked them up in the Grasslands. That's why I ran away from you guys-I was afraid that he'd be anywhere where there were lots of people."

Heather held her arms out around her. "I don't know if you haven't noticed, but there aren't a lot of people around here at all. It's frightening."

"Yeah, well now that he's gone, I just need to find a way back home. I don't even know how I got here, or where I came from. The only thing I know is that I was looking for my wife, Mary."

"Just like me, except I didn't remember anything besides the fact that I just don't belong here," Heather said. "Maybe you should come with us. I'm trying to find my way home, too."

"Yeah, we found a room back in the Candy Kingdom that might lead us to some of the answers. Besides, we could really use the help to get around this place," Finn said. "You coming?"

James thought about it for a moment. "I prefer to work alone... However, in view of circumstances, I guess I could join you two."

Finn smiled. "Good. The more, the merrier. A weird saying, but I guess it applies." The ice around the door had melted, so the trio exited the room. They found themselves back in the train station. All three of them boarded to have it depart toward the castle.

AN: It's getting a wee bit difficult to keep up with some things. Not that I mind, though, I always enjoy a good challenge while writing.