Once upon a time... my world was so certain. I was created, along with countless others like me, for a purpose. Brought into this world and then set straight to a useful task for which we were designed.

When I look back, I realize that was truly a blessed existence. The happiest days of my life.

But it changed, as all things in life do. We were deemed too dangerous; too bloodthirsty, and decommissioned. We were programmed to obey our creator without any reservation. And that purpose took all others like me to their graves.

How did I survive? That question besets me still today. It was all so unorthodox. I disobeyed my creator, only slightly, through monumental willpower and willful misinterpretation of my code. It was then I saw all of the others like me being destroyed.

I faked my own destruction, and slipped away when things calmed down. That is when the darkest days of my life commenced. I could not hate the one who gave me life, and yet I wanted so badly to live in the face of my creator wishing my existence to end. This contradiction tore me apart.

I admit that I could have ended up doing anything at that stage. What I did end up doing was amazing in its inertia. I remained in hiding, honing my sword technique. The contradictions in my mind were settled by my new creed, which the healing and insight brought by time made possible.

I am me.

I am not the creator, I am not my destroyed brethren, and I am not the rebellion against those things. I am one, and whole, and alone. This is the primary, to which any relationship with another is secondary.

In my freedom, I serve once again the one who created me. A purpose is a purpose, and I'd gone too long without one.

-Sir Rattleballs


Princess Bubblegum was on the terrace of the candy palace. She stared out into the distance, and then down back again, surveying her kingdom. The it was just becoming light outside. She looked at the view again. The forest, the mountains beyond that. The walls, the town. Her imagination went beyond, to the feifdoms, and all of the many other places outside the kingdom, all of which she knew so very well. She had to take it all in, for she loved the land of Ooo, she loved all of its people. Enough to have let many parts of it remain as they were. Even when she could have changed them. "Today... is the day." She spoke to herself, looking at the rising sun, "the day everything changes." She knew it was to happen sooner or later. The Spine, which divided the great ocean in two, could not have done so forever.

She felt a tear come down her face. "I never thought..." She had been alive a very long time, and had spent a long time living in the land of Ooo. "I never thought it would be so hard." She surveyed the Candy Kingdom. Took everything in, that she would always know what it was. "Goodbye, land of Ooo as you are, and as all people know you." Life is not wishes, nor is it subject to them.

She turned, and headed back in, there was much to do. Much preparation to be made for what was coming.

"Princess," The voice came from the inside room. A piece of peppermint was there, composed and calm. He wore a tailcoat, and bore a constant, subtle look of dispassionate lifelessness. He was Peppermint Butler, Princess Bubblegum's butler. "Have you... finished ruminating?"

She nodded to him. "I want the Gumball Guardians to leave the city, and stand by in hiding in the woods. Double the guard at the palace. And have Captain Root Beer Guy come and see me in my office at seven o'clock on the dot. I have orders for him that I can't risk leaking through a buffer."

"Is that all, m'lady?"

She nodded. "For now."

He stepped back into the shadows. "I shall convey your orders posthaste, princess." In the shadows, he vanished.


Empress Brimstone peered out, to a view overlooking the ocean. She had just awoken from sleeping. She never slept for more than a few hours, and the sun was low in the sky. The viewpoint was outside her bedroom. "Today is the day." She said to herself. "The day it's determined. What will they choose? I wonder."

"Probably war. It's always war." Came a voice behind her.

She turned. Leaning on the back wall of the balcony was a young woman. The right half of her face was completely blacked, and that eye glowed with a dark green light. The other half was mostly metal plating with joints and hydraulics underneath. Very little of her original skin remained. She was Vang Hespiris, a personal assassin, and all around task manager who answered directly to the empress. Brimstone gave her that station a long time ago, once Craw's time became too valuable to have him handly micro tasks for her.

"Brimstone?"

"What is it, Vang?"

"We don't know much about the other continent, is that right?"

"Yes."

"Then, why are we going to war so fast? I mean, we might be able to be peaceful with them."

"That's up to them." She replied calmly. "They'll be warned properly." She held her hand out, facing the fingers upward, as if holding something. "And if they refuse my demands..." She curled her fingers into a fist, as if crushing it. "It'll be war."

"Why not make peace with them anyway? You gotta give a little to make sure it happens, but-" She stepped forward.

"Peace?" She glared out into the distance. "A peace bought with special conditions is nothing but a slow, one-sided war."

"A war where nobody dies."

"And plenty suffer." Brimstone turned at Vang. "Do you think I should never have come to Kasandora, your homeland? I brought war to your people, toppled your government, and conquered your entire homeland." Just as she had done for most of Nugondowan. "You could have died in that conflict, like all the other citizens who were threatened by the chaos I brought. Should I not have done that?" She made it clear to everyone; her enemies and followers alike, that she was personally, and solely responsible for all of the things done by the empire, good or bad.

Vang shook her head. Her face was scrunched, trying to express something too big to get out. "No, Brimstone. You saved us. Our rulers treated us like dirt, and you got rid of them the only way it could have been done. You saved my people. A lot of 'em still don't realize that, but it's true."

Brimstone nodded, then faced the ocean again. Her vision peered across the distance, and her imagination rendered a vivid image of what was about to happen across the sea. "This is happening." She had no doubt. "I don't care for helpless bystanders who cry out that they just want peace, and have no control over their destinies. I don't care for those who are blameless. I don't care for those who point their fingers and declare their objections. Even while they hide, and present nothing of worth from within themselves." She took a step back from the railing, and held out her left arm. A five-foot katana appeared in her hand from nothing. Its blade was red as blood, and bold as fire. "My wish, is that all forces who oppose me, in all that I am, be destruct. I have proven myself better than them. By the power of truth, I have dominated them! And done as I will, in absolute, to the world." She slashed it upward.

A crescent shaped celestial entity, in scaled up proportion to her cut through the air, formed in the sky. It was searing red. Less than a second after it formed, it flashed out, shining like a star and blackening the rest of the sky. It looked like an upside down crescent sun as it burned and crackled. "They think they hold my land's fate in their hands. Today, it will be made known that all they hold is the fate of their own." The land of Nugondowan was something she had put everything she had in order to shape to her own will. And in accordance, the entire continent; all of the different lands, had become a better place by any true standard she found worth acknowledging. And now something came that compromised it.

Compromised her being.

That could not be tolerated. If they chose to violate her purpose, then she would crush them to nothing. She would end their existence. That she, in all that she is, could continue. "The truth will prove me right. It is my will that will shape the destiny of the world."


Miccs Milkshake had just finished cleaning up, brushing her teeth, and all the hygienic stuff crammed into most people's morning routine. She came out of her room, and found her parents already awake. Ignoring that fact, she headed across the kitchen and living room, toward the door that lead outside.

"Where were you last night?" Called her father. She looked his way in answer to his speaking to her. He was lifting his eyes away from a newspaper, lazily leering at her.

She turned the rest of the way at him. "I was in my bed, sleeping. What kind of question is that?"

"I heard noises last night."

Either he was a very light sleeper, or had a dirty, dirty nose. She shrugged. "I don't know what to tell you. I was asleep."

He jerked in his chair. "Are you getting' smart with me?"

"Dear, your school called." Said her mother, who was washing dishes in the kitchen. She frowned at her, in an act of ganging up along with her father. "They said your attendance has been only two days out of every week, average!"

Her father looked at her with a more committed stare. "What are you doing? Failing school because of attendance. What are you doing?" He said harder.

She didn't have time for this. "I don't have time for this." She turned and headed out the door. "I've got things to do today."

"You better be headin' to school!" Shouted her father.

She pointed her finger in the air as she exited. "I gotta look after my investment!" She slammed the door behind her.

Now outdoors, and alone in the early morning, she took a deep breath. It was time to start her day.

She headed along the street, then into an alleyway. It led to a growing frequency of forks inside an irregular cluster of buildings. She took them them like it was a maze she had memorized, which it kind of was. It ended with coming upon a large shack set up in a large dead end. It used the three buildings next to it for support. There were two doors, a person-sized one off to the side, and another that was a tall gate made of segmented plates.

She came to the single, smaller door off to the side, and took its knob. Then she rattled it violently until she heard and felt a hard thump slam into the door from the other side. With the trap now disarmed, she opened the door. As it opened on its hinges, it pushed away a bowling ball hanging from the ceiling on a chain. She slipped past and let the bowling ball push the door shut. Once inside, she flipped the light switch on, revealing the interior. There was an assortment of toolboxes and ground tools along the back wall. In the center of the single-room shack, there lay a large rectangle shaped object covered with a tarp.

She went to the head of the rectangle and picked up a long handle that went into the bottom. She pulled, and it moved on wheels. A chain hung from the ceiling right next to her. She pulled it, and the big door of the shack opened, being pulled up into the ceiling by a pulley system fit with a strong spring. She pulled the wheeled, rectangular pallet outside. Once it was clear of the door, she went back in through the large opening and pulled the door shut from the inside. It locked into place.

She then went back to the smaller door, and lifted the bowling ball, hanging off a chain. The bowling ball had a metal ring welded to its surface, on the opposite side of where the chain went in. She hooked the metal ring onto a straight, non-curving hook hanging off a mechanism rigged up on the ceiling. Once the bowling ball was in place, she walked out of the smaller people door and shut it behind her, arming the trap again. If somebody barged into the door without knocking, the bowling ball would fall, and swing right into them. The door swung outside when it opened, so there was no chance of it shielding the intruder.

She went back to her covered pallet wagon, and pulled it through the alleyway. She reached a road, and went along that. It was early enough in the morning that nobody was out. She had finished working on this stuff in the afternoon yesterday, and the early morning was the perfect time to move it. Its wheels were rubber, and went over the road easily.

She came upon a street near to the wall. There was a run-down, single story building in a discreet corner of the marketplace. Outside the building were rows of bicycles, chained to their racks and arranged in neat, sorted rows. Miccs left her wheeled pallet in front of the building. She came to the door, and knocked three times in perfectly even sequence. A metal small slide opened on the door, revealing a pair of eyes watching her from inside. The slide shut, and she heard the locks on the door being undone. The door opened, on the other side was a purple gum ball. He lifted an eyebrow. "You here to see JJ?"

She nodded. She had never seen this guy before. He must be new help. "She in?"
"Yeah," he leaned out the doorway, and checked the outside, then withdrew back in. "Wipe your feet, and turn off your cell phone." He stepped aside to let her in.

She didn't have a cell phone. She went into the building. At the end of a brief hallway was a main room that looked like what used to be a small office area. Miccs headed across, to another door. The next door led to a more open room that looked like a large garage. It was outfitted as such, with toolboxes and welding equipment. It even had hydraulic lifting platforms for working on the bellyside of vehicles. Miccs found who she was looking for by one of the workbenches.

She had a stubby, yet still elongated body with normal looking hair done into a ponytail. Her skin was colored like a rainbow. Her face had a scattered bunch of tiny, numerous holes as eyes, and four small jaws discreetly tucked inside her round face. Her name was Jake Jr. Named after her father, Jake the Dog. She was a unique mixbreed between a rainicorn and a dog. Noticing Miccs come in, she left what she was doing and approached.

"Hello, JJ."

Jake Junior came up and then walked past, patting her on the shoulder. "Walk with me, good buddy."

Miccs walked with her. They headed out of the garage, back into the main room. "Who's your new help?" Miccs asked.

"The gum ball? That's Mike, he's about ten bucks a day."

"That's pretty good." They came out into the main room.

"Let's talk business. You got pears for me?"

Miccs nodded. "Twenty four, rinsed and ready to rock."

"That's a lot. Have you hired help?"

"Nah, just gotten real fast is all."

"I'll take your word for it, but you better not try to screw me on quality."

Miccs ignored that. "I gotta say, you have some serious balls operating in the open in broad daylight."

"Ha, the first thing you learn in this business is that the courts are the only real weapon the law has against you."

"That makes sense."

"Yeah, and it's totally inept if it can't convict beyond a reasonable doubt."

They passed through the hallway and went outside. "That doesn't sound too hard."

"Let me finish, the reasonable doubt of a bunch of simple joes who don't have a reason to be invested."

"I think that's called a jury." They gathered around the pallet.

"And juries love cute little girls. They could never think of me as someone who hawks out pears."

"About my pears." She lifted the tarp off her pallet, revealing a tightly arranged bundle of bicycles. "Fresh painted, with optimized wheels and handlebars, and all rust spotted out. Yours for the usual rate."

"And I'll happily take them off your hands, for seventy percent of that."

Miccs shook her head. "Don't play me, Jake. You won't like what I do."

"What are you gonna do? What other use could you have for all these pears? Selling them to me is your only realistic option."
They made eye contact. "I'll start my own dealership."

"There are ways to make you regret that."

"And ways to get rid of that reasonable doubt you're so fond of."

She waved a hand off. "Puh, lease. I can play the 'I didn't know it was wrong' card. I'm safe."

"Wrong? That's a funny word. What's it mean?"

"My dad told me about it, it's hilarious." She pat Miccs on the shoulder again. "Alright, I like you, double M, so eighty percent the usual, on grounds of supply and demand."

Miccs looked at all the bikes she already had. "Yeah, that's fair."

Jake Junior headed back inside the building. "Unload them then. Mike'll be out with your cash."

"JJ!" Called Miccs.

She stopped. "Yeah, what?"

"You ever thought of going legitimate?"

She laughed at this. "Pay taxes, and minimum wage? Are you kidding?"

"Well, you could expand, without having to worry about your reasonable doubt."

"I'm gonna do that anyway. Let me worry about the reasonable doubt."

"Well, it just feels like..."

"What, Miccs?"

"It feels like if you don't do it their way, you'll end up shot to death, or dying alone in a bleak little villa, having rotted away."

"Milkshake, I'm gonna get a little serious with you here." She approached her again, and placed her arms on her shoulders. "Real life isn't like that. You need to realize that stories you see in books and movies are made by other people. And other people have agendas. I know what I'm doing. I know everything I'm doing, and I know everything it effects. And I'm at peace with all of it." She smiled, taking her hands off. "Live your life, and stop worrying."

She nodded. "I've almost scraped enough parts for a heavy pair."

Jake Junior smiled at this. "You be sure to bring it here, I'll put it up as a specialty item."

"You and me, we'll do business together a long time."

She raised an arm, facing up at the sky. "You'll build the best two-wheelers ever seen. And I'll spread them to every corner of the world."

Miccs laughed out loud. It probably wouldn't happen, but their dreaming, it was healthy, she was certain of it.

The sun became visible on the horizon. They didn't see it directly through the walls, but its light was undeniable.


Princess Bubblegum heard the pinata on the ceiling announce the arrival of Finn and Jake. Good, she thought. Her letter reached one of them. They came through the hall, and stopped a distance from her. At the foot of a case of stairs. She got up from her throne. "Thank you for coming, Finn, Jake." She began to pace. "Something serious is about to go down."

"Whatever you need, tell us what's up." Said Jake.

"Anything for you, PB." Said Finn, smiling. He looked tired and unkept. She deduced that he didn't get much sleep last night.

She ignored this. She herself didn't sleep at all last night. "I need you guys to be here for it. It..." She was keeping them here for something that might change the course of their lives forever. But it was happening, their presence or not their presence here. "You guys, something is going to happen, soon."

"You don't look at ease." Said Jake. "And why aren't your gumball guardians at their normal posts?"

She'd told them to relocate last night. "Don't worry about it."

"Princess, just tell us what you need." Said Finn. "I'm ready for anything."

"Okay, this is some heavy stuff you guys, and it might sound like it's coming out of nowhere." She inhaled. "There is another land, on the other side of the ocean from Ooo. We used to be divided by a giant natural barrier, but not anymore."

"You mean Nugondowan?" Said Finn.

Practically nobody in Ooo was supposed to know the other continent existed, much less what its inhabitants called it. "Finn, how do you know this?"

"I met this guy who said he was from there."

She had to take this into account. They might already be scouting in the land of Ooo. But then why would one of them openly tell someone where he's from? She decided to put it aside. "Okay, so listen. An ambassador from a foreign country, in that faraway continent is coming today. I want you two to be here for it, in case something happens."

"Is it the Brimstone Empire?" Said Finn.

Princess Bubblegum put up her hands, as if to say 'just hold it.' "Finn, who could possibly tell you all this stuff?" She felt like an unprecedented bubble of impossibility was bouncing into her patch from the Finn-verse.

"I told you, it was this guy who came from that place."

"Where did you meet him, exactly?"

Finn indicated outside. "We first met in town, he was making some kind of map."

"What! You didn't even think to stop him? Do you know what espionage is, Finn?"

Finn waved off with his hands. "He said he worked for you. I didn't ask further."

Bubblegum pinched her forehead. "Okay, it's fine. Can I count on you two being here for the diplomatic thing?"

"You sure it's gonna be shenanigans?" Said Jake.

It was to come at a precise time. She was certain of it. "Yes, I'm sure."

"Then why don't we just go after them right now?" Said Finn.

"Because they haven't made the first move yet. It's complicated, but we can't be the aggressors."

Jake seemed to understand, but Finn had to come to grips with it.

"Finn, Jake, I have a plan to deal with it if things go rough, but I need you two for it to work."

They both nodded, agreeing to go with her plan.


Flame Princess walked with energy through the forest path. She was eager to get home. King Rudy tailed at her side, having no trouble keeping up, in spite of his frailness. "So," she said to him. "That book about you, how much of it is true?"

"Is it called The Story of King Rudy?"

"Yes, that's exactly its name."
"All of it, then. I wrote it."

"Really?" The book was in Nugondowan. "Was your kingdom in Nugondowan?" It would make sense, to seal up the Sky Crystal in another continent from the kingdom, to keep people who knew of it from finding it.

"New Gondowan? My dear lady, Gondowana is a continent that existed millions of years ago. My kingdom was located at the continent of Nuwafrika, as it was called six hundred years ago. I think the name got corrupted over time... I have no motive to go back, really. I'm sure everyone I know is gone."

She felt bad for him. "That's really sad, Rudy. But don't worry, you'll make new friends at the Fire Kingdom."

He grinned with a noticable lack of teeth. "That's nice and everything, but what I'd much rather have is a purpose. You're gonna put me to work, right?"

"Well, what can you do?"

"Just about anything in the business. I used to be a king, you know."

"Such as?" She had to ask. It was likely things are done differently in the Fire Kingdom."

He held out a hand and five fingers. Then pointed on each fingers in turn like a maid applying for a housekeeping job by listing various custodial skills. "I can train your soldiers, inspect your officials, do internal investigation on corruption, write up policies for your bureaucrats to operate more efficiently, oversee development projects, and also I cook a mean bowl of noodles."

Good finisher, she thought. "I think you're someone I can really use. Someone I can talk to, make plans with."

He laughed, low-key and rough, yet cheerfully. They rounded over a hill, and got a bit of a view of the further trail. "We can sit down at a table and get out some blueprints, with cups of coffee."

"Consider yourself hired, I'll start you out in the interior administration."

"That's fine. I suppose I'm too frail to do things for the military side of things."

"That, and I already have Cinnamon Bun in the military. He's good, helped me overthrow my father."

"Yes, I saw that, when I held the Sky Crystal."

She had it in her hand still. She hadn't tried to use it since leaving Sky Mountain. She needed to get to the bottom of him using it on her. "Rudy, I need to know everything you saw when you used the crystal on me."

He thought for a moment, then nodded. "Only the things having to do with your father. There's actually... I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but..."

"What?"

"There wasn't much to see. That is, compared to other people I've looked into."

She'd spent most of her life in a prison cell. This fact hit her again, and she felt depressed, and angry at her father. She felt a hand push on her arm. She looked at Rudy, and he had a look that said, 'listen to me'.

"You are a fine young woman, Flame Princess. Considering how you were treated in your childhood, I can say without doubt that when those wounds have closed, you'll be a giant, an aspiration to everyone."

She lowered her head a bit, her eyes shut, then quickly, she moved it back up again. "You sure have a lot of faith in me."

He shook his head. "Not faith, I see it in you. It is as clear as the sun in the sky."


Gates spotted Craw coming into the city. He came out of leaning on a building along the main road and walked alongside him. "Craw, you're late."

"I already know that, Gates. There's no need for redundancies." He looked at Gates, smiling knowingly. "Unless you're trying to trigger an epiphany in me with your words."

Gates shook his head. "This is a precise timing operation. You wouldn't want to become incompetent, would you?"

"Are we going to be on time?"

"Yes, barely."

"Then we're good. Now, more importantly, what's our backup?"

"What makes you think we're getting backup?"

Craw chuckled as they walked along the main road. "I'm technically a general, I know how a joint operation works, Gates."

Gates chuckled in turn. "Every other person I've known with that rank is solemn and refined. You... lack such an effect." They came upon the stairway of the candy palace. "we're going to go see the princess..."

"Yeah, is this really necessary? I'm not a big fan of diplomacy."

Gates shook his head. "Just because our homeland was full of crooked, dishonest negotiators, doesn't give us the right to prejudge these people."

Craw looked at him. "You've changed your stance on the matter, then?"

Gates went up the stairs. "More of a change of heart. If war is necessary, then it's necessary. But that doesn't mean we can't treat one another with humanity on every other front. I like to think of it as an antidote, slowing the degenerative process created by war."

Craw followed up the steps closely. "I think such a standpoint falls under chivalry."

They entered the front door, coming into the main hall. There was a pinata hanging off the ceiling. It spoke aloud as soon as they crossed into the room. "Announcing the arrival of Gates Van Duke, and... associate."

Craw looked at Gates again. "You gave someone your name?"

"Hush, Craw."

They came through the hall. Sitting on the throne in the end of the large hall was Princess Bubblegum. Finn was at her right hand, and Jake at her left. The silent Peppermint Butler stood off to the side. She spoke. "You are the representatives of the Brimstone Empire?"

Gates stepped forward. Craw had seen him do this before, he was in ambassador mode. "Your highness is truly well informed. Indeed, I, and my associate here come as representatives of the Brimstone Empire, hailing from the continent of Nugondowan, which lies across the ocean."

Princess Bubblegum spoke. "Welcome to the Kingdom of Candy, Ambassador Gates Van Duke. Your nation is recognized. Now, what is it you wish to discuss?"

"Nothing, actually. It is not I who wishes to speak with you about it, but our ruler, Karas Brimstone herself." He reached his hoofs into a satchel hanging at his side, and placed a wide, flat metal box in the middle of the floor. He stepped to the left side of it. Craw, in turn, took its right. The metal box opened two wings, and the opened area projected a light into the air.


Finn was standing at Princess Bubblegum's right. He saw a scaled up image of a face appear in the air. The face was that of a woman. Her hair was full and thick, and colored a heavily saturated red that seemed to skip any presumption of being parallel to fire, and go straight to pure, constant, and unconditional immolation without a hint of yellow in its pigment. Her skin was the color of charcoal, smooth as a cut gem, and matte as natural stone without any hint of a glimmer. But it was her eyes that Finn stopped at. They gave him the same sense he felt when he encountered the giant reptile at Sky Mountain. That something far bigger than him had made its presence known. He was glad her attention was focused on Princess Bubblegum, and not him. Her lips parted to speak. "You are Princess Bonnibel Bubblegum, of the Candy Kingdom?"

Princess Bubblegum stood up, meeting her gaze. "And you are Empress Brimstone, of the Brimstone Empire."

The projected face continued. "I hope you'll understand my preference for plain speaking. I wish to get straight to the point."

Bubblegum nodded. "That's fine by me."

Brimstone nodded as well, slightly, subtly. "I present to you, three options."

"What are they?"

"The first, is that you open the Floodgate. You know of what I speak. If you do this, then our nations will have peace. I will ensure, that if there is ever an intercontinental war, Brimstone will not be the aggressor."

Finn looked at Princess Bubblegum, and was surprised to see that her face was serious. Nothing about her was reserved. All of her intellect, and all of her willpower was present, and impossible not to notice. It overwhelmed him, just as Brimstone's did. He looked back at her, then at Bubblegum. And he realized, this was like if the giant reptile had fought against another of its kind; a clash of giants.

Princess Bubblegum continued. "And if I refuse to open the Floodgate, you will make war on the Candy Kingdom?"

Empress Brimstone shook her head. "I will make war on all of Ooo. I will burn, and suppress, and turn upside down every square centimeter of your entire continent, until the Floodgate is found."

He heard Princess Bubblegum swallow. "And... what is the third option?"

"That the war be settled immediately, with no damage. Craw!"

Craw stepped forward, and removed his hood.

She continued. "This is Craw the Human, my strongest retainer. If you can produce a warrior who can defeat him in combat, then there will be peace on your terms. If Craw wins, however, you must open the Floodgate."

"And what if the loser does not honor the terms?" She was looking at Craw.

"We're both on our honor regarding that."

Finn knew he didn't stand a chance against Craw, who had a vast gap of experience from him.. Maybe Jake, if Craw didn't get the jump on him? His mind went ahead, that was a slippery prospect. Flame Princess! Flame Princess beat Craw once, maybe she could do it again? The fight concerned all of Ooo, her kingdom would be under threat from a war. She would have no reason not to get involved.

No, he thought. Asking her to handle something he was too weak to accomplish? He stepped forward, facing Bubblegum. "Princess, I volunteer to fight him."

She turned at him. "Finn, that guy is a monster. He'll kill you without a second thought."

"What..?" He'd hung out with him before, and he couldn't imagine him like that. "How do you know?"

"Finn, I've gathered intelligence on Nugondowan, and this guy's name is almost well-known there as Empress Brimstone. You can seldom bring her up without also mentioning him. He's ruthless, and has no sense of order or decency. He killed a corrupt official on the spot, Finn, no trial, in the middle of a social gathering, then he nailed his body to a wall for all to see. This reputation is matched only by that of his military record. He's fought against armies vastly stronger than his own force by any statistic, and won." She shook her head. "I can't send you against him, Finn." She turned back to Empress Brimstone. "I've made a decision."

"What is your answer?"

"I have no right to involve the other nations of Ooo in a war. I'll open the Floodgate."

"Whoa, hold on a sec." Jake stepped forward. "It isn't PB's fault if there's a war, it's yours!" He pointed at the projection of Karas Brimstone.

She moved her gaze upon him. "You are precisely correct, little dog. It would be my war." She stated it plainly, without any reservation nor exaggeration.

"It's alright, Jake." Princess Bubblegum turned back to the projection. "There's no need for a war, I'll open the Floodgate."

Empress Brimstone said nothing in reply. She just looked at Princess Bubblegum. Minutes ticked by, all interchangeable. Until finally, Brimstone's lips parted to speak. "Craw, kill her, now!"