MMH: Blahhh look at me finally posting. Yeah I'm not going to bore you with my life so just enjoy this chapter! Favorite if you like it and review no matter what!


We had decided to search for Ashleigh in the caves along the beach first. The sun was blazing brightly in the sky and I stood a couple yards away from the entrance. Strong memories flashed through my mind and I took in a cautious breath. It felt surreal to be there despite that this was the third time I was there. PG, Flint, and Marshall had gone in minutes earlier and it took me till just then to realize that I was alone. I had to motivate myself before heading in after them.

"Guys?" I called out. It was dark and there were a handful trails that they could have gone down. The cave was just as maze-like as I remembered.

"Over here!" Flint called out and I looked over to see a faint glow down one of the paths. I quickly caught up to the light and saw my three friends. Flame Prince had boldly taken the front of the line as the group's human torch with PG and then Marshall following behind.

"Found anything yet?" I asked. All shook their heads.

"Nope." Marshall said and frowned slightly. Smiling in reassurance I took his hand. Flint flinched as he glanced down to see our hands intertwined.

"It will take weeks to search this place by ourselves. It was a miracle you found the Ice Queen last time." He whined. PG sighed as he slung off the giant bag he brought and began to shuffle through its contents.

"I had figured that would be an issue. I'll call my banana guards." Gumball said and began to head back to the mouth of the cave. Marshall and Flint followed, but something pulled me to stay behind for a moment. I closed my eyes and listened to the vast void, waiting for any sort of hint that Ashleigh would have left. There was none. Something told me, even if it was just intuition that she was not there. I dragged my hand against the wall for guidance and cautiously followed Flint's glowing frame to the exit.

"What a gorgeous day!" Flame Prince beamed as he stood in the mouth of the cave. His mood was clearly better than moments earlier. In a way his constantly shifting temper was somewhat unsettling, but I pushed that thought away before I let it fester anymore. Gumball, who had been talking on his portable phone with his guards, came back to us and slung his bag on to the ground.

"It'll be about two hours before they can get here. Apparently some of them thought it would be a good idea to have a day off while I went out searching with you guys. What mushbrains." He grumbled.

"What'll we do till then?" I asked and flopped on to the ground. PG smiled and began to pull various toys and items out of his bag. It seemed that there was an infinite amount of items in there. "Geez is that some magic bag or something?" my pink friend huffed before responding.

"Hardly. I invented this. It's a mass-expansion containment unit. It contains anything I need while weighing no more than a couple pounds."

"Cool! I need to get me one of those." I smiled and peeked into the bag, but saw nothing but darkness.

"Psh. It's not that great." Flint mumbled.


Marshall Lee sat under a giant red and white parasol arms folded as he watched the Flame jerk and Prince Gummy flirt with his girl. He hated the beach. Why had he even agreed to go to the beach in the first place? It's not like Ashleigh would be out during the day anyway so they wouldn't need to search for her. The only place they would need to search was the caves that decorated the coast. Correction, he was searching for her. Fionna, Gumball, and the Flame Prince searched the caves for four minutes and then ran out to the beach to play in the sun. This was not supposed to be a fun day out! This was a mission, damn it!

He should have just gone out on his own. Cake was practically a ticking time-bomb now that she was pregnant and Sun and Gunter had graciously decided to care for her while everyone else went out to "search".

Marshall looked to his side and saw the beach bag that Gumball had brought. It was filled to the brim with toys like plastic shovels and buckets. Grumpily, he knocked the bag over and continued to watch the trio as he hid in the shade and sulked.


I looked to Marshall, who was sulking under a giant umbrella that PG brought, and thought of what Cake had said before we left. "Once you reach tier fifteen with him things will never be the same, baby." Was getting that close with Marshall such a big deal? Would it really change my life that much?

"Do you want to learn to swim?" My pink friend's question had pulled me from my thought as he stuck out a hand in my direction and held a giant floaty tube with the other. I was caught off-guard that he had something like that when we were supposed to be searching, not having fun. Had he planned this?

"I dunno, PG. Perhaps that isn't the best idea. Aren't we supposed to be looking for Ashleigh?" I was very hesitant about staying here longer than necessary. First of all, I hated the beach because I hated ocean. Second of all, this was where I almost died. "Not the best idea"was an understatement. Not to mention that Marshall was all by himself underneath the beach umbrella and I felt really guilty about leaving him there with no one to talk to. I had just gotten him back and I wanted to spend some time with him.

"The banana guards will be here soon, but until then there isn't much we can do. Now come along and I shall teach you to swim." PG said determinately as he pulled off his dark pink shirt and began to unbutton his pants, leaving him only in his underwear. Now I was uncomfortable about swimming and that my friend was almost naked. What Gumball said had been somewhat true; we had searched all the caves, but it hadn't been as thorough as I would've liked. I'm pretty sure there was a crevice in the fourth cave that we missed…

"But what about Ashleigh?" I persisted.

"She won't be out during the day. Swimming is important tool for life and you need to overcome your fear." I looked back to my boyfriend who was currently drawing doodles in the sand and I was tempted to say something, but my talk with Cake reappeared in my mind and I grimaced. Facing my fear or hanging with my boyfriend after the most awkward conversation in the world? Perhaps it was best if I kept away from Marshall for a little bit. Reluctantly I nodded my head and peeled off all my clothes except my mismatched white bra and blue polka dotted underwear. Feeling very exposed, I pulled off my hat and dropped it with the rest of my clothes. I begrudgingly let Gumball take my hand as he led me to my death— I mean the ocean.

"Hey where are you going Lady Fionna?" Flint's voice reached my ear and I pulled against PG's grip to look back at him. The Flame Prince had been shell searching. A concerned pout was on his face as he held a small periwinkle shell in his hand, like he was worried that I would never come back. The shell blackened as he held it firmly in his hand. However he quickly realized that I was semi-naked and began to blush furiously.

"I'm going to teach Fi how to swim. You can go hang out with Marshall until we're done." Gumball answered for me cheerily. I knew PG really was being sincere, but I could tell from the look on the Flame Prince's face that he certainly didn't take it that way.


Marshall looked up from his doodling in the sand since his sharp hearing caught footsteps heading towards him. Flint was skulking towards him as Fionna and Gummybutt began to walk towards the ocean in their underwear. Marshall blinked and shook his head in disbelief at that sight. What was his girlfriend doing in just her underwear?! He hadn't seen her in her underwear the whole time they were together due to Fi's bashfulness. How was it that PG could undress her in the couple seconds Marshall had looked away?

"That Gumball douche is trying to keep me away from Lady Fionna by dragging her into the ocean. Can you believe it?" The Flame Prince whined as he plopped down next to Marshall under the umbrella, careful to keep far enough away to not burn him. Marshall could believe it. Of course he doesn't trust you. You burned her freaking face. The vampire thought bitterly. "I mean, you never stood a chance when we decided to go to the beach, but I thought I could just keep distracting her from getting in the water." The Flame Prince was totally unaware the Gumball wasn't in the running for Fionna's heart. In fact technically it was just Marshall who had a chance being Fionna's boyfriend and all, but in Flint's eyes it was him against the world.

"You ain't got anything to worry about, Fireball. She hates the ocean; she can't even swim." Marshall sighed and looked up to see the umbrella start to blacken from the heat above where FP sat.

"Well why is that dick trying to make her get in the water then?" The Flame Prince asked heatedly. Marshall looked towards the pair and he quickly realized that PG was just teaching Fi to swim. It was sweet that he was helping her overcome her fear. However, the irritation in FP's question question gave Marshall a rather wonderfully awful idea and a devious smirk appeared on his face. Why not make sure that hot-head knew he was out of the running for his girlfriend's heart as well as get back at Gumball for suggesting that they go to the beach? Perfect.

I dunno… I think you should go over there and straighten him out. You and I would never do something like that make Fi uncomfortable. Why should he?" Marshall said coolly and monitored Flame Princes' response.

"You're right." Flint agreed. In the background Marshall heard his girl and PG talking about being embarrassed. What would they be embarrassed about? FP stood up and stomped over to the shoreline and folded his arms. "Hey! PINKY!"


"Hey PG can I ask you something?" I asked carefully as I leaned into my inflatable tube. Gumball had managed to get me to wade into the water little by little until my feet were no longer touching the bottom. My talk with Cake had left me feeling really awkward. Surely I wasn't the only person in Ooo to not know about tier fifteen, right?

"Sure. Fire away." He smiled as he waded beside me. I took a deep cautious breath.

"Do you know what tier fifteen is?" I whispered, cautious that my boyfriend couldn't hear.

"WHAT?!" Gumball screamed, his face growing bright red in panic and embarrassment. I looked back to the beach to see Marshall and Flint looking at us confused. I turned back to PG and ushered for him to lower his voice.

"Please tell me I'm not the only person who was out of the loop. You didn't know about it, right?" I continued to whisper, only this time I heard a bit of humiliation in my tone. PG finally found his voice after a couple seconds of speechlessness.

"Well…" he started and I groaned.

"Oh my glob, you do! It's just that Cake talked to me about it earlier and up till now I had no idea that was what happened. My mom said that they found me as a baby so I automatically thought that when two people were in love the Cosmic Owl just kinda dropped a baby into their lives, not that they'd get naked and—"

"Dear glob, Fi, just shut up for a second." PG pleaded cutting me off and turned away from me. I heard him take in a deep breath before turning back around. "Your parents never told you about… about tier fifteen?" he whispered the last part.

"No. I guess they thought Cake would deal with it when I was old enough."

"So I take it you and Marshall haven't…?"PG drifted off before finishing his sentence, but I knew exactly what he was talking about. Cake couldn't stop talking about it.

"Oh glob, no!" I squeaked. "Does Marshall know about it too?"

"I'd assume so since he's been around for thousands of years." PG shrugged and cleared his throat, obviously uncomfortable talking about my and my boyfriend's personal life.

"This is so embarrassing." I said and nuzzled my head against the plastic tube, hiding my shame. Gumball placed a comforting hand on my arm and sighed.

"You have no reason to be embarrassed. It's just… glob, this is awkward." PG confessed. At first he said nothing and I knew he had no idea where to start. He was like a brother to me and the only thing more embarrassing than hearing "the talk" from a real sibling was hearing it from an honorary one. "Now Fi, you shouldn't feel pressured—"

"I don't feel pressured." I looked up quickly to see his surprised face. I had no idea why he would think I would be pressured. Why would I have been? Marshall was one of the sweetest, most patient people I've ever met. After all, he was crazy old so he had plenty of time to learn patience.

"Good! Listen, you should talk to Marshall about this when you're ready. Don't worry about it now." Gumball gave me a warm smile and I gave a small one back. I was pleased he didn't go as in depth as Cake did about tier fifteen. I don't want to relieve that nightmare.

"Hey! PINKY!" Gumball and I turned towards the shout to see Flint standing on the beach looking very angry.


Flint's shouts quickly made us realize that something was wrong. Gumball took one of the handles of inner tube and dragged me to shore.

"Is something wrong, friend?" PG asked warmly as we reached the shore. I dropped the tube and stepped out of it before quickly pulling my shirt and skirt back on. Even though one of my friends was upset I was still pretty shy.

"Yeah something's wrong! How dare you try to force Lady Fionna into something she doesn't want to do?!" Flint's flames flared around him and started towards my pink friend, but Gumball stepped back into the ocean to stop FP from getting any closer. I had to do something before things got out of hand.

"Flint! Stop it!" I screamed and threw the tube at him and it popped from the heat before it could reach him. Before things could escalate any further we heard movement and turned to see several dozen banana guards coming towards us.

"I'm sorry Fionna, but I need to command the banana guards. Perhaps we can finish your lesson when hindrances aren't in the way." PG snapped as he glared at Flint before picking up his clothes and heading towards the yellow mass of guards.


"What the glob is wrong with you?!" Fionna screamed at the Flame Prince who flinched back. He rubbed his arm apologetically.

"Lady Fionna, I'm sorry—"

"I don't want to hear it. Why don't you just…" Fionna stopped herself when she heard how harsh she sounded. "… take a moment alone?" she finished. Marshall felt this deep ache in his cold chest as he saw the hurt look on the boy's face. Up until now Marshall only saw him as an opponent, but that's what he was: a boy. He watched him slowly turn around and head down the shoreline. FP plopped down on the sand and was looking towards the ocean. Could Marshall be feeling guilty about tricking the Flame Prince? It must have been difficult to not be able to even touch Fi without burning her. There was no way they could ever be together without a ton of effort. But of course he could hang out with her in the day without covering every inch of his skin, unlike Marshall. The vampire decided that the Flame Prince had it worse.

"Can you believe him? How could he attack Gumball like that?"

"He thought PG was making you uncomfortable." The girl turned to Marshall quickly and eyed him suspiciously.

"Why would he think that?" Fionna interrogated. The vampire had to cover his butt fast in order to stay on her good side.


"Fi, it wasn't that hard to tell you were scared about going into the ocean. Sparky was just trying to protect you." Marshall shrugged smoothly and I felt a wave of guilt wash over me. Of course that's what happened. Poor Flint was just trying to help.

"I was fine about going into the ocean, really!" I started.

"Then what was bothering you?" He asked and I froze.

"Uh…"

"Is there something wrong?" Marshall looked at me concerned and rubbed my biceps in comfort. I could not tell him that I hadn't known about tier fifteen until early this morning.

"Cake's pregnant." I rushed out, trying to cover my ass.

"Well duh."

"Well I didn't know until this morning. I… I was upset that I was the last to know." I lied. While it was more of a half-truth, it did not bother me that much. Cake was just looking out for me. I looked towards Flint, who was still sulking near the shore. "I need to apologize, huh?"

"C'mon. Let's go." Marshall smirked and took my hand before we started towards Flint. I guess I'll just have to deal with tier fifteen when I'm ready.


Yayayay! Look at me go. For those who were confused, in this chapter the point of view switched from Marshall to Fionna. Hopefully this means I'll be posting more often? Honestly I have no idea. Anywho... favorite and review, yo!