By the time Marceline and her friends returned to the Candy Kingdom, the sky was dark, and she was exhausted. She and Bonnie had traveled the breadth of Wizard City for hours more after finishing with Seer, all while under a glaring sun, and it had worn on her. Why couldn't such places be open at a decent hour like midnight? Or be built underground? She shook her head at the self-centeredness of diurnal people.

It was hard to tell how the princess was doing. She walked a short way behind them, seemingly lost in thought and occasionally muttering to herself, but Finn and Jake were practically bubbling with energy. She narrowed her eyes at the souvenirs they were laden with: foam wizard hats, commemorative t-shirts, and a huge sack of goods slung over Jake's shoulder. At least some people were enjoying themselves while she and Bonnie trudged through the sewers.

The group passed under the great wall of cake and icing that surrounded the city and made their way through the streets to the castle proper. As they neared the entrance, a figure descended from above, ambushing them.

"Hey, you guys!" A flapping white beard, a billowing blue robe, and a gleaming gold crown settled down before them. "You've been gone a while. Not that I stayed here the whole day to wait, but if I did…I would know."

"Simon! What are you doing here?" She flew up next to her old friend.

"Oh, you know, thought you guys might want to jam." The Ice King reached behind him into his robes and pulled a keyboard out of…somewhere.

"Oh. Sorry. We're kind of pressed for time right now." She felt bad sending him off, but this really wasn't the time for that.

"Yeah, dude, we're on super important business," Jake added. "Here's a mug though." He reached into his sack and tossed one to the Ice King. As he turned over the mug and read it, his beard stood up on end.

"What?! You went to Wizard Land without me? But that's like my turf. We've got to go back so I can show you all the cool places, like this shop that gives out free scraps of old bread!"

"Uh, that's alright." Jake backed away as Ice King excitedly approached him.

"Look, we really don't have time for this." Bonnie stepped up to intervene. "Banana guards, escort him home please." The two guards that were beside the castle door saluted and took both of his arms, dragging him away.

"Bye, Simon!" Marceline waved as he disappeared into the distance.

"Now that that distraction is gone, let's get back to work. First order of business though…" Bonnie lifted her arms and looked over the grime on her clothes. "…is taking a bath."

The two of them hadn't emerged from the sewer exactly smelling like roses. The boys, once they learned the story, had found the whole ordeal hilarious.

"Yeah. It's going to be a pain heading back home though," she sighed. The trip to her cabin wasn't short, even with flight, but there was no use putting it off. "I guess I'll see you tomorrow then?" She hesitated a moment. Giving the princess a hug goodbye while covered in cytoplasm probably wasn't the best idea. She settled on a small wave instead as she backed away. The other girl, however, grabbed her wrist to stop her.

"What are you talking about? You can use bath here." Bonnie raised an eyebrow at her surprised look. "You guys are fine spending the night here too, right?" She turned to Finn and Jake.

"Sure."

"Why not?"

"Ooh, I love slumber parties!" An excited voice came from behind them. They turned to see the Ice King standing there, as his former captors raced towards him, out of breath. "Oh, but I forgot to bring my pillow. And who will feed poor Gunter while I'm gone?"

The guards dove for him, but he dodged nimbly away from their uncoordinated attacks. Bonnie sighed at the pitiful display.

"Finn. Jake. Would you mind?"

"You got it, princess," said Finn, and the two of them raced off to join the fray.

Seeming to consider that settled, Bonnie opened the door to the castle and ushered her inside. From the courtyard behind them, Marceline could hear shouts of "Why is he so slippery?" and "What do you mean its penguin milk?", but they were blocked out as the door swung shut. Once the two of them were alone together, Bonnie sighed exhaustedly and seemed to wobble on her feet.

"Woah! You okay?" Marceline caught her elbow and steadied her.

"Yeah, fine." She favored Marceline with a small smile as she stood upright.

"Sorry about Simon. He means well, but listening isn't exactly his strong suit."

"I know," the princess chuckled. "But it's not that, it's just…there's a lot to do. Anyways, you can head to the bath first. You know where it…" She paused for a split second. "I'll show you."

She turned and strode down the hallway without further comment, piquing Marceline curiosity. Had something run through her head to cause that? A memory perhaps? She flew up next to Bonnie.

"So I've stayed over before, huh?"

"Yeah." Marceline waited as they walked in silence, but the princess didn't offer elaboration.

"Uh, okay. So, where's this bath at? It's not some sort of communal thing I'm going to have to share with the banana guards, is it?"

"No, it's in my bedroom." Bonnie said this naturally, but Marceline could see that her skin had turned a slightly brighter shade of pink. Now she was definitely curious.

"Wonder what happened last time I was here then. Probably something very wholesome."

The princess glared at her out of the corner of her eye but kept walking.

"No, I'm serious. I just want to know a bit more about you. Was it a late-night study session or some aerobic workout? Am I close?" Maybe it was because she was exhausted, or maybe it was because Bonnie was the one being embarrassed for once, but the words flowed easily out of her.

"Sure, enjoy your teasing. Just remember that you were there as well, with…whatever it is you're talking about."

"No, no, that was a different Marceline. I'm just an innocent bystander."

Bonnie was quiet for a moment as they approached a large pink door at the end of the hallway. From the level of security—heavy bolts barred the door and a computer screen sat beside it—Marceline assumed that these were the princess's quarters.

"Give me your hand for a second." Bonnie held her hand and pressed it flat against the screen. A light ran over it from underneath, and the bolts retracted with a hiss, letting the door swing open.

"You may believe that." Bonnie held her hand a moment longer and looked into her eyes. "But you're the same to me."

Her touch and the honesty in her voice made Marceline's heart speed up. Great, was she the one blushing now?

"Heh," the princess snorted as she brushed past Marceline into the room. "See how you like it." She turned back with a cunning smile on her face. "Now go. I don't need you tracking grime all over my carpet."

"What? I'm not even walking."

"Fine, then I don't need you effervescing in my air."

With a push, she sent Marceline into a pink tiled room. The tub and shower stood at one end, ringed with numerous bottles of sweet-smelling liquid.

"I feel kind of bad going first and making you wait." Bonnie was probably as eager for a bath as she was. A wicked thought crossed her mind. "How about you come in as well? I'll turn invisible. You won't even know I'm there." She grinned, baring her fangs.

She could see the other girl freeze for a moment and then step into the room with a serious expression on her face. Wait a minute. She backed up towards the tub, but then Bonnie grabbed a towel from the nearby linen closet and tossed it at her head.

"Careful making offers you're not prepared to keep." She turned and walked out of the room. "Now hurry up, and let me know when you're done."

Heading down the halls to her lab, Bonnie fanned her face to cool down. More and more, Marceline was acting like her old incorrigible self. Things had felt so familiar between them after spending the day together, in fact, that for a moment she had forgotten their situation. Hence the slip up earlier. While that familiarity felt nice, being complacent was a trap. She needed to keep her mind on their goal: recover the memories before time runs out.

She nodded to the pair of banana guards standing outside the laboratory door. "Any disturbances while I was gone?"

"No, ma'am. We heard a real loud noise from inside the lab, but it didn't disturb us at all."

"…Great. Keep up the good work."

"Will do!" They saluted as she headed into the room.

When she had left this room the day before, two memory orbs contained in glass cases had rested upon her workbench. Now, only one remained. It wasn't an unexpected result, not after Finn and Jake had described what they learned from the man at the memory shop, but it was depressing nonetheless.

She approached the bench and looked over her equipment. The cases were still intact, showing no signs of tampering. The spectrometer was still working, occasionally scribbling another measurement down on a long sheet of printouts.

She gathered up the papers, looking over the luminosity values recorded throughout the day. It seemed that between the 3:35 and 3:37 readings, the luminosity of Jake's memory had reached zero, and presumably it had imploded right out of existence, creating the noise the guards heard.

Her own memory orb was still there, and while it had grown dimmer, it was decreasing at a significantly slower rate. A hopeful sign. If the lifetime of a memory was proportional to its strength, they might still have time.

She copied the hourly readings from the spectrometer onto another sheet of paper. The decline appeared to be approximately linear. She scratched out a quick calculation of the rate. A proper regression could be done later, if she had enough time. For now, she estimated this memory would persist for another 80 hours, making its total lifespan around 92 hours based on the fact that it was made the previous evening.

Four days.

Assuming Marceline's memories were similar to her own, that's how long they would last. But it had already been two days since they first discovered her memory loss during that unfortunate encounter at her cabin, and the actual memory loss event must have occurred some time before that.

One day.

That was how much time they probably had left. Perhaps it was already too late. There was no value in thinking that though. All she could do was keep going. She would take a brief break to get clean and then start again.

Analyze the clues left by Seer, review the list of suspects, improve the range on the memdar, create tomorrow's plan of action, perhaps interview Marceline to see if she recalled anything…

Her vision swam for a moment, and she leaned heavily on the workbench. Stress and a lack of sleep were catching up to her. No one else seemed to appreciate the urgency of the situation.

She knew on some level it was stupid. Marceline seemed happy enough as she was now, and she was still the same person. She wasn't dying or leaving or anything for her to be so upset about. In time perhaps, the two of them could even have the same relationship that they used to. Marceline was clearly attracted to her, although attraction was different from…well…love.

But if she could be selfish for once, she really wanted her to remember. There was a part inside of her—the centuries they had spent connected to one another—that other people didn't know or understand. She wanted to be able to share that again and feel that as most things changed, this didn't.

Bonnie straightened up, feeling new resolve in her spine. Another sleepless night was nothing. She wouldn't regret the pain of struggling but the ease of giving up.

She exited the lab, figuring Marceline was surely done by now, when suddenly a voice came over the loudspeaker.

"Woah, this place has a PA system? Neat." Though staticky, the vampire's voice was unmistakable. "Hey, banana guards! This is your supreme leader. I command you to…do the hokey pokey!"

The two guards next to her looked confusedly between her and the speakers and then slowly started to do the hokey pokey.

"Stop. I'm right here, so I clearly didn't order that."

"Oh." They froze in the middle of shaking their right leg all about. "We thought maybe you recorded it."

"Why would I do that? The voice doesn't even sound like me."

"Does it?"

"I kind of think it does," the second one added.

She sighed. This was why the Candy Kingdom kept getting attacked.

"Now it's time for 'Princess Says'," Marceline continued. "Princess says: scream at the top of your lungs."

Bonnie heard the warbling shouts of banana guards echoing down the hallways and slapped a hand to her face. She turned and stared at the guard next to her who was slowly opening his mouth to join in.

"Unbelievable. Just stay here while I go deal with this."

Marceline sat innocently on the edge of the princess's bed with her hands folder in her lap, while Bonnie faced her with her hands on her hips.

"I hope you're having a good time," the princess said.

"Do you mean my announcements? I was only trying to let you know I was done." She blinked up at Bonnie with wide eyes. "And see? You got my message."

"Right. So helpful. Well, try to keep your hands to yourself while I'm in the shower." She rolled her eyes as a grin spread on Marceline's face. "You know what I mean."

Marceline watched her close the door to the bath behind her and heard the water start running. She flopped back onto the bed with a sigh.

It was a bit strange being in this room. It certainly wasn't what she had expected from the tough and logical exterior of the princess. There was a cute cat clock on the wall above the bed, its tail swishing back and forth in time. And while the room was clean, it certainly wasn't perfect. The occasionally shirt or unpaired sock littered the floor. One of them even looked suspiciously like hers.

There was a whole collage of decorations pinned up above her desk as well. Some seemed scientific in nature, but there were also photos of friends, a shot of them at them beach, and even a show card for the Scream Queens, much to her embarrassment.

All in all, it spoke of a side of Bonnie she didn't know yet. That wasn't unreasonable given there was a lot she didn't know right now, but it made her a bit uncertain. What was the right way to act? What was the right thing to do? All she could do was trust in Finn's advice and simply do what she could to help Bonnie. That was something she wouldn't regret.

She rolled over on the bed and took a deep whiff of the pillow. That was another thing that was driving her crazy. To her heightened sense of smell, this whole room smelled like her, even the white and pink flannel pajamas she was wearing now. Being in the sewer was rough, but there she could stop breathing. With this, it was tough not to. The scent felt familiar and soothing though. Breathing slowly and listening to the drone of the water, she drifted off to sleep.

Marceline awoke to the sound of a pen scratching on paper. She blinked her eyes open blearily to see Bonnie working at her desk, a shawl draped over her shoulders. It still appeared to be night. The windows were dark, and the only illumination in the room was a small lamp atop the desk. Something nagged at her that that wasn't why she had awoken though.

There! Her pointed ears twitched as she heard the faint noise again, something from outside on the balcony. She rose silently from the bed and floated over to the glass door that led from the bedroom to a balcony. Seeing through the stained glass was impossible, but if she pressed her ear to it she could hear…

"Just say, 'Hey, you ladies looking for a good time?'. No, no, that sounds dumb. What about…"

Marceline pulled open the door, no longer on guard.

"Simon, what are you doing?" The Ice King was standing there with a pillow and box under one arm and a penguin under the other.

"Well, I know you guys were worried I wasn't ready for a sleepover, but I'm back and all set!" He dumped his pillow and the penguin—which landed with a 'wenk'—on the ground and held out the box. "I even brought a board game. It's Monopoly." He leaned in to whisper to her as Bonnie rose from her desk and approached. "I thought Candy Land might be too on the nose."

"Aw, thanks. I appreciate the thought, but we're still kind of busy." She grimaced as soon as those words were out of her mouth, seeing as she had fallen asleep and Bonnie was the only one who was actually working.

"Maybe some other time," said Bonnie distractedly. Her mind seemed to be half here and half on what she had been working on. "Honestly, none of the clues from that seer's reading make any sense. They just…" She trailed off as she narrowed her eyes at the Ice King. Looking him up and down, she leaned in closer and started to sniff him. "You smell like fish." She grabbed his arm and held two fingers to his wrist. "Cold as well, obviously."

"Oh ho, I haven't gotten this kind of attention since I spilled chili on myself in the Hot Dog Kingdom!" He squirmed bashfully.

"A gold light, gold crown. The music doesn't fit exactly, unless you count his keyboard, but…" She stepped back and regarded him severely. "Ice King, what do you know about Marceline's memory loss?"

"What? You can think he's responsible," said Marceline. The idea was just absurd.

"Yeah! Wait, what are talking about?" The Ice King scratched his head.

"Marceline lost some of her memories recently. Certain signs currently point towards you being involved. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that would you?"

"Hmm?" He looked between the two of them in confusion. "Wait, are you guys mad at me?"

"No, not at all," she reassured him. "Come on, Bonnie. He wouldn't do anything to hurt me."

"But he could have easily done something without meaning to." Her expression didn't soften.

"Hmph, that's some treatment. I don't get invited to the amusement park or your sleepover. And none of you even responded to my invitation to my karaoke party!"

He fished a small blue card out of his beard and thrust it in front of Bonnie's face. Written in crayon, it said 'Invitation to Karaoke (mark one): [] Yes, [] Definitely, [] No but I love the Ice King'. As he did, a few more cards fell out onto the floor.

"Wha? Gunter you were supposed to mail these."

"Wenk."

"Gunter! I can't believe it."

"Wenk."

"Aw, you were jealous? That's so sweet. Come here, little Gunty!" He scooped up the penguin in his arms and hugged it.

"See? This is what you're suspecting?" Marceline gestured to the Ice King. "Sorry for missing your party, Simon. I'll make it up to you later." She patted him on the back.

"Hmm? You were there."

She blinked at him. "What?"

"At the party a few days ago. You were the only one who showed up since I told you in person."

"Uh…" She wracked her brain, but she had no memory of that. What happened three nights ago was a blur.

"Me and Gunter even took a picture once you fell asleep. See? We crowned you the Karaoke Queen!" He held up a selfie showing them two of them by her side as she floated in the air asleep. The Ice King's crown was place upon her head.

"Uh oh…" she said, as it started to dawn on her what had happened. The sound of a gun cocking broke her out of her reverie, and she spun around to see Bonnie with a furious expression on her face.

"Woah! Let's hold on here!" She rushed over to grab Bonnie's arms before she did anything rash.

"All this time, all this work, and there wasn't even a reason for it! You're just an imbecile!" She struggled against Marceline's grip.

"Calm down, Bonnie. Let's talk this over."

"No, let me shoot him once or twice!"

"That's not going to help."

"It'll make me feel better," she grumbled, finally stopping her struggling. She let out an angry breath, seeming to calm down a little bit.

"I-I'm feeling some tension in the room. Maybe I should just…" The Ice King backed towards the edge of the balcony.

"You stay right there. Marceline, wake up Finn and Jake and have them meet me in the lab. And you!" She pulled the Ice King to follow her. "You better hope it's not too late."

The five of them met in Bonnie's lab. Marceline led the still groggy forms of Finn and Jake to a corner where Bonnie was working on hooking up a large machine. A central chamber filled with bubbling pink liquid held the Ice King's crown, and wires ran off it to another machine with various headsets dangling from the ceiling. She had a vague memory of seeing this before, but as with most of her recollections, the parts where Bonnie would have been were torn out. Ice King meanwhile was sitting on a stool with his hands on his knees, looking contrite.

"Ice King is responsible," Bonnie said to Finn and Jake as she continued to boot up the machine.

"Wha? Ice King couldn't responsible his way out of a paper bag," Jake mumbled with his eyes still half closed.

"Well he did this time."

"I'm having a hard time following," said Finn. "Why did he do this?"

"Absolutely no reason. It just happened."

"Oh. Well that's Ooo for you." The two of them seemed to accept this easily.

"Wait, isn't it strange though?" The more Marceline thought of it, the more it didn't seem to add up. "I mean, the crown has never worked on anyone else. It's bound to Simon, right? And it doesn't just steal you mind all at once. It takes…" She thought back to Simon's slow decline. "It takes time."

"I know. I've been thinking of that too." Bonnie plugged in another cord, and the machine hummed to life. "But the crown was corrupted to some degree by Betty, and there's a lot we don't know about it. Anything's possible. We won't know until we head inside."

"Okay. But we can all agree then that Simon's not responsible, right? It was like a freak accident." Regardless of what happened to her, she didn't want her friends blaming Simon for it.

Bonnie looked at Simon like she swallowed something sour, but then she grudgingly admitted, "Fine. It wasn't his fault…entirely." That seemed as good as she was going to get. "Now let's hurry up and get in there."

She handed a headset to everyone except Ice King and then took one for herself.

"Normally this is perfectly safe, but if the crown is acting strangely, who knows what could happen," Bonnie explained as they settled the goggles over their eyes.

"Wait, what does that mean?" she asked quickly.

"It's just, there could be a certain degree of feedback caused by the energy in the crown. Rather than being a standard VR experience, things could be slightly more…real."

"No, no. Hold on. Then just send me. I'm not putting you guys in danger." She reached over to Jake's headset to pull it off, but he pulled it back on.

"Pssh! We risk our lives every week for way less important stuff than this," he said.

"Yeah, and what kind of heroes would we be to leave our friend in trouble?" Finn added.

Bonnie just stared at her. "You can't even think I'm not doing this."

"Guys…" She smiled at each one of them. "Okay, but maybe let me go in first just to check, and then…"

Program initiating in 3…2…

A mechanical voice called out a countdown.

"Oops." The four of them turned towards the Ice King who had leaned against a large red button.

…1…Starting…

The crown erupted with power. Gold and dark purple streaks of lightning coursed out of the chamber and along the wires. Before she could react, the electricity reached their headsets, and Marceline's senses were obliterated in a blast of light and sound. She stumbled to her knees, and when the ringing in her ears stopped and her vision cleared, she saw a different landscape spread out before her.

"Oh. Damn."