Have I done it? Are you happy, Betty? I did it... I saved the world!

Look, the world is just nothing now... all ice and snow... the ultimate frost. It's just us now, Betty... Aren't you happy? Look at me... we can be together here in paradise, my princess.

Wait, what's that? No, I can't hear you... what did you say? Betty? Betty? Where... where did you go...

What, no...

No...NONONONONONONONO...

NO!

I... I can't do that... I can't do... as this thing tells me... I won't abandon everything... I won't let you end everything...!

What... What are you trying to show me? A... meteor? A green meteor... A man with a white beard and a green dinosaur. The apprentice was named Gunther... And he... the Ice Wizard, he was...

The Ice King.

…

Mrs. Trunks didn't seem surprised when I came back for my ax. She said in a sweet voice, "Come on back any time now, y'hear?" I walked away without saying goodbye but I didn't hear any disapproval following.

Ooo... it's not much different from when I left if you discount the talking animals and strange magic things all around. The other day, I can swear I saw a pile of rocks moving in the shape of a person. From the woods, I can see a white tower of something being formed where I had seen the cage structure. I'm guessing that something is building something there. If they have the brains to build it, I guess it's worth checking out sometime.

The city is gone now. San Francisco, I mean. Things have either been left to erode or have already been driven into the ground. But from the looks of it, things have been taken as well. There is one thing intact though. A muddy vending machine. It's that Super Porp stuff that I stopped drinking since Simon told me not to. Even if I wanted, the machine's empty now anyway.

Even while looking at the ruin, I can't help but think it's weird where all those monsters could've crawled off to. Looking overhead, there's not a sign of them at all. Did they vanish or just die off?

Simon's on my mind too. All those years we spent in fear of these monsters, all the rescues and chases and scavenging...

Well, it looks like I've gone full circle. Only now I don't have Simon anymore...

And my Dad too. He was never there for me in the first place. I look at the note he'd left me. MALOSO VOBISCUM ET CUM SPIRITUM... those words hold a strange power. Even after I rip up the note, they stick in my head.

I decided when I bid Simon farewell. I'd never see him again. The magic that bound him in his own little delusions couldn't be severed by me. It's better that I save myself the heartbreak of seeing him not himself. Whatever he sees through his iced-up visions, I don't know. All I do know is... I'm not even there to him anymore. He's forgotten me. All traces of our time together lie in those missing photos and...

...Hambo.

Hambo! How could I have forgotten?!

That bear... is the last vestige left. I have to find it. But thirteen years seems to have changed a good deal of the planet. It's not impossible that Hambo was destroyed or eaten by something. Still, I've got so much time to kill now that I'm immortal... and there's nothing else for me here anyway.

…

…

"Unh... Oh, bread balls..."

I pick myself up from the floor of a dark icy room. Looking up, I glimpse the sight of a starry night sky through a translucent ice roof.

"Hey! Marcy! Come loo-" I stop myself from calling excitedly. I remember... Her tearful, pleading voice... and I pushed her away.

But what could I do?! I keep seeing almost eternal visions of a warped world now, there's no telling what I do under that influence. I've changed completely now, into the vision of that wizard I saw... The Ice King, Evergreen.

I don't know what connection I have exactly with the whole thing. The visions are disorienting and horribly fragmented. Makes me wonder what this crown is trying to show me...

A throb. A pulse. A pulsating sound vibrates from my head. The crown, the crown...

I wish I was... Master Evergreen...

I see a green dinosaur, a baby t-rex, I think, standing before a ball of what looks like white nothingness with a crown on his head. I can't hear myself shrieking in agony or my fingertips bleed from scratching at the crown as more visions flash before my eyes. I can only feel myself going away forever, as though I'm an object to be locked in an attic for the rest of eternity. A sudden calm issues, and I am plunged into further madness. The visions grow in intensity, and I no longer feel myself...

You are the Ice King

"Yes... I am."

…

After a few days of dead ends and strangling annoying animals, I find myself at a place called Mountain of Matthews. I heard it from some lopsided goose who annoyed me with rhymes as I was about to butcher him with my ax. I let him go.

Black trees arch over the path into the heart of the mountain. It's pretty dark inside, but my eyes had no difficulty seeing through the pitch blackness. Lumps and lumps of these white mushy marble things sat in globs just outside the mouth of a cave. I swear they twitched when I flew by.

Flitting everywhere has become the new norm for me. No more trudging out my dogs!

After the long tunnel, I come into a large cavern. It just stops here, but I can see a strange three-faceted indent in the wall. It was three tall mirror-like slabs cut into the wall and there was space for a person to stand in the center. As I approach, the center mirror wall shines and reveals a pathway. I walk into the image, thinking I'd be hitting my face on an illusion, but I actually pass through. Now I'm in another part of the cave.

The place practically glows red from heat rising from a pit. Smoke and steam roil from some red stuff sloshing around at the bottom. Judging from the heat, I decide it's not safe to drink, no matter how red.

"Hello."

I look up and find myself staring at a giant white mass of what looks like that gooey white stuff I flew by at the entrance. It has eyes and a thin line for a mouth.

"Hello," It says again in a gravelly voice, "Welcome, Marceline Abadeer to the heart of the mountain."

"How... do you know my name?"

"I am who the flesh named Matthew. I exist to incorporate all into my being as preparation for the coming of the Second Terror. When the time comes, I will become the next force of life to spring from all the junk. I will become the life of everything and all will be incorporated into my essence."

I didn't understand even half of that junk. But it sounded as though he eats other things. I'm reaching for my ax when a deep rumbling issues forth from his lower body.

In one huge BLAAAAARRGH, he throws up a bunch of junk. Car tires, radios, rocks... all sticky from being inside of him.

"Eugh... Stuff that doesn't coalesce to my being..." He mutters.

Amidst the junk, I see the head of a familiar bear sticking out from behind a fishing rod. It couldn't be...

But yes! It was! Hambo!

He still looked like his ol' raggedy self. My old button was still sewed on tightly and the patches were only slightly tearing apart. Despite the gross stickiness, I hug him tightly. I can still smell the familiar scent on him...

"So? Have you come to join with me?"

I twitch at the suggestion. I stand, still holding Hambo, and begin to back away. Matthew makes no move to come any closer. His face and voice are complacent, monotone.

"Very well. Maybe when you are older. All will be one sooner or later. It is inevitable."

His words were foreboding and bore a sinister tone. Even more than my fathers. I rush back through the portal, not looking back, and end up back at the black tree entrance.

My pulse is slightly elevated and my breath was a little labored. But that didn't matter right now. I'd gotten out of that weird mountain,and I have Hambo again.

I look at his scraggly smiling face and feel myself smiling for once in a long time. The sky is covered in a beautiful blue and I'm sure the sun will show through soon as well.