Disclaimer: I don't own AT, if I did then I would like more parent healthy relationships

Chapter 36: Becoming Stronger or Weaker

As Connors body kept feeling the stinging yet all too familiar whip of the belt, his mind though started to feel the pain as if it was coming from somewhere far away. As if he wasn't really the one feeling this painful agony, but rather that it was someone else who looked like him. Connor felt that way even more now as he swore that he was now hovering over his younger self, watching as his father continue to beat him with the belt while this younger Connor whimpered tears of pain. As he continued to watch the scene unfold before him, the ghostlike Connor without even thinking began to reach out to the whimpering helpless boy.

Putting his spectral hands on the young boy's shoulders, the boy temporarily lifted his hung head to look into the eyes of his older self. There was no exchange of words, signs, or anything after that. They instead only continued to look into each other's eyes as everything that needed to be said and understood was passed on through simple eye contact. And once everything was passed on not just to the young boy, but to the present day Connor as well, they both closed their eyes and leaned their foreheads onto one another before the older Connor vanished.

With the defining moment over, Connor opened his eyes to see that he was once again in his younger body and continuing to receive his father's beating. Now though, he no longer continued to cry and whimper to every whip of the belt. Instead he grew silent and turned his head towards his father to show eyes not of anger and sorrow, but of strength and pity.

Seeing that look in his sons eyes briefly caused him to stop his attack and step back in surprise. Yet a few seconds later, he brought his eyebrows together in a sneer and proceeded to whip Connor with ever more force and power than before.

Connor did nothing though in response to his fathers continued beating. Instead he just silently took the blows and waited for his father's next response, which came in the form of even more powerful and physically painful whips of the belt. Connor still did nothing though despite the increase of physical pain he was being given, he just continued to silently take every hit he was given until eventually his father stopped of his own accord.

Nothing was immediately said after that, instead the both of them just quietly stared at one another, neither giving the other any hint of turning away. It stayed that way for a while before Connor decided to break the silence as they both continued to lock eyes with each other.

"I know that whatever this is, that this is not real. That you're… not real father, but even knowing that doesn't stop the pain I feel from this completely. And I wish in a way that you were really here, because maybe then I could finally understand why father you chose to do the things that you did to me."

"But I'll never," he let out in a low tone of voice as small tears streamed down his face, yet he still did not break eye contact with his father nor did he even move to wipe away the tears. "All I can do is guess as to why you chose to beat me day in and day out. Maybe you did do it because you did care about me in your own sick way and were truly obsessed with making me strong as you always preached. Or maybe it was because you just were a truly sick person who enjoyed beating me for the thrill pleasure of it. I'll never know, but dam if I will let those memories haunt me anymore," getting up, Connor then turned his back not just too his father, but to the memoires that had haunted him all his life as well as he walked away. In the distance he could hear the voice of his father shouting out to him in rage and calling him weak, but Connor didn't care about that anymore and just ignored everything that was said.

Connor sprung forth as he opened his eyes to see that he had returned to the real world. Looking around, he saw himself surrounded by the forms of countless other people who had yet to awake from their nightmares unlike him. That easily told him that he had not been the only one to be caught in whatever it was that had happened to him. He knew though that he could not help them, because he didn't understand what had happened to him and while he had a good hunch at why he was able to wake up. He didn't know of any way that he could help everyone else to wake up.

As for now though, Connor knew that he could finally have some real rest away from the nightmares that kept him tormented in his sleep. Lying back down, Connor closed his eyes to receive some real rest for his tired mind.

As Connor slept peacefully, there were many others who were also sleeping peacefully and it wasn't because they had faced their personal nightmares like Connor. It was because they were the lucky ones who hadn't been targeted yet by the one responsible for all this, but that number of people was constantly decreasing as more and more of Lucians followers became trapped in their own personal nightmares.

The one causing all this was not slowing down even as he succeeded in single handedly causing half of Lucians followers to become trapped in their sleep. The more he dealt with and the faster he did it the better he reasoned. He reasoned that it would give the ones he was helping to protect a better chance at defending themselves, which is why he was unable to see the trap that had been laid for him until it was too late. By the time he realized that he had fallen right into his enemies' hands, it was too late to escape the dream world that he was now in with Lilith.

"So you're the one who has been causing all this," said Lilith from beneath her hood, which she still wore even in the dream world. "When I found out that one powerful individual was responsible for all this, I wasn't expecting to encounter a twinkling covered bird," she mocked at Cosmic Owl who hadn't even been given the time to glare at her before a giant shadowy hand came out of nowhere and slammed right into him.

"Augh," he let out in pain as he was sent soaring across the void like dream world. Quickly he righted himself by using his wings to take control of the momentum of the hit and just in time to dodge another attack from the shadow hand. Yet he wasn't done there as the shadow hand reared itself around to face Cosmic Owl once again and zoomed forward with its knife sharp fingers to impale CO. CO quickly flew upwards to successfully dodge the third attack and instantly spun around to swing his right wing at Lilith and send a storm of razor sharp feathers at her.

Lilith did not move though to defend herself from the attack as she instead chose to summon back her shadow hand and use it as a shield to block the feathers. She grinned in triumph from easily blocking such an easy to counter attack, only for the feeling to vanish as the feathers suddenly exploded. The explosion destroyed her shadow hand and caused her to be the one sent flying this time. Quickly she summoned another shadow hand to catch her and stop her soaring through the dream scape.

Growling out in embarrassment at having been tricked like that, she immediately retaliated by summoning several more shadow hands to attack her opponent from all possible angles, leaving him no hope of escape.

Cosmic Owl managed to save himself though as he let loose a bright flash of light that caused the shadow created hands to fade away into nothingness before they could reach him.

"You're definitely not weak," Lilith complimented in acknowledgement of Cosmic Owls power, with CO responding by simply nodding his head in thanks to her compliment. "So, mind telling me your name then as a sign of respect to one another."

"I am known as Cosmic Owl."

"I had a feeling you were him," she said, revealing that Lilith somehow knew who CO was beforehand.

CO was about to ask how she knew about him, before Lilith unintentionally let her tongue slip.

"Well it has been a pleasure battling you in the dream world, but all good things come to an end sadly," she said as CO instantly picked up on the sense of triumph in her tone of voice. Giving him the time to quickly move out of the way of another shadow hand that had been silently creeping up behind him during the conversation and almost succeeded in impaling him.

"Tssk, thought I had you there," she growled out in frustration at having failed again. "No matter, there's still plenty more I can do in my dream world where I'm the very definition of a God and my power is only limited to my imagination." Instantly, she created a colossal wave of shadow hands that came swarming towards CO like an angry tidal wave.

He tried countering the attack by creating another great flash of light only for the massive wave of darkness proving too much for that little amount of light. He even realized that he couldn't move out of the way of the attack in time either, leaving him no other choice but to try and block the attack to the best of his ability as he surrounded himself in a dome of light.

As the wave slammed right into Cosmic Owls defense, it managed to break through it and continue forth straight towards CO. Thankfully it didn't cause him any fatal harm thanks to the dome absorbing the majority of the attack, but it still didn't leave him in any good condition. While Cosmic Owls physical body wasn't truly getting hurt thanks to it being his dream self that was fighting Lilith, it didn't make the pain he was suffering and the damage he was taking any less real or harmful. And with the energy he had used up in defending himself from that massive attack, he knew he didn't have much fight left in him. He had to find a way to end this and fast.

Looking at Lilith, he saw that she too suffering from fatigue and looked ready to collapse if this fight was dragged out any longer. CO knew that Lilith used the darkness of her void like dream world to attack him with shadows and he knew that the only way to defeat her was to fill this place with light. The only problem was Lilith was in control of her dream world unlike the countless other humans he had dealt with and taking control of it or at least influencing it would be no easy feat. It would take almost all the remaining energy he had left to take temporary control of this place and give him the chance to end this and if he failed, he would be left virtually defenseless. He had no other way of ending this though and couldn't escape either, so he went with it. Quickly Cosmic Owl flew high up into the dark sky of this place and started exerting his remaining power to create a sun that would burn away the darkness of this void.

Seeing what CO intended to do, Lilith tried stopping him by sending massive bolts of shadows at CO to stop him, only for each attack to fade away before anyone of them could reach him, while the light continued to transform her dream world. CO knew that he was achieving his goal as he saw that Lilith could do nothing to stop him as she kept sending one futile attack at him after another and when she finally stopped. That was when he thought that he had won, that was until he started feeling a severe burning sensation all of a sudden.

"GAHHHH," he screeched out in agony as his wings started to burn and before he knew it. He was caught in the searing rays of his own sun. Looking down, he saw that Lilith was indeed no longer fighting the light. Rather she was now sending her power into his sun to cause it to burn so bright that he had been caught in its heat due to him being in close proximity to it. He tried to quickly fly away from the sun once he realized that his attack had been turned around on him, only for a new hand made of light to stop him dead in his tracks.

"You flew too high for your own good Cosmic Owl," gloated Lilith. "And like Icarus, you let your arrogance cause your own downfall when you kept recklessly attacking one human after another until you fell right into my trap because of it.

Once that was said, she threw Cosmic Owl straight into the ground where his crash left him in a crater. "And since you won't be going anywhere," she said walking to Cosmic Owls broken and battered body. "I think I'll take a look inside that head of yours and learn anything I can about Finn from you." She then closed her eyes and put her hand onto Cosmic Owls forehead and began to look inside his memories to any that related to Finn and to one special memory in particular.

It was difficult at first due to the vast store of memoires that CO possessed from his long life span, but Lilith was a gifted user in mind powers that she was quickly able to find the exact memories she was looking for. Had it been anyone else trying to do this, then it would have taken them a while just to find any memory relating to Finn in Cosmic Owls vast store of memories.

"There it is," she said having found the one memory she was looking for. It was the memory of the day CO set the chain of events that would break up Finn and Phoebe. "Hmm," she let out as she went through the memory and saw his reasoning for doing what he did and the things he did that both Finn and Phoebe were both unaware of. "So you broke up Finn and Flame Princess purposely, believing it was for the good of the world to do it. A pretty heartless think to do even if you believed it was for the greater good. I can even see that you feel some guilt at what you did there, but what's this," having caught one incident in particular.

"Now this is an even more heartless thing to do," she said feeling disgusted at Cosmic Owls actions when he secretly ruined Finns apology and explanation to Phoebe after he confessed to forging the letters by making her hear everything he said as coming out as "Wahh wahh wahh."

"Playing with people's lives like that is a very arrogant and heartless thing to do. If Finn ever found out about this, I'm sure he would go ballistic. So thanks for the information, but now it is time for you to be trapped in a nightmare of your own." She was about to trap him in a guilt crushing nightmare of what he did to Finn, until she heard CO whisper something that she couldn't quite make out. Curiosity getting the better of her, she leaned in close to fully hear what he was saying.

"L-looking into pe-people's minds… works both ways," he said as Lilith suddenly became overwhelmed with painful memories of her past. Lilith staggered back as she relived the pain of years of neglect, pretending to be someone she wasn't, being treated differently from other people, and finally getting the one person who treated her normally taken from her. It all proved too much for her that she started screaming in emotional pain.

As that was going on, CO picked himself up and hurried to escape this place while Lilith was temporarily in incapacitated by the memories. Sensing that the psychic barrier that Lilith put up to prevent him from escaping her dream world had been weakened by his recent attack, he used ever last ounce of power he had left to shoot a ball of purely concentrated psychic energy that broke through her weakened barrier. Not even bothering to look back, he immediately went and escaped through the hole he created back to the world of the waking.

Things in the Candy Kingdom weren't going very well. As of now, it had without warning, become a place for refugees that had already lost their homes in the war and was currently inhabited by citizens of the Nightosphere and Fire Kingdom. It was made difficult by the fact that many of the refugees weren't making things easy for anyone. And while you would think it was the demons of the Nightosphere who were causing the trouble due to their inherent chaotic nature, they were actually the easier to work with group.

It was the citizens of the Fire Kingdom who were difficult to work with for multiple reasons. It wasn't just due to the fact that many of them had grown to have sour feelings over the years towards the CK and especially it's Princess Bonnibel Bubblegum who they discovered had been secretly spying on them and been the one to cause the disaster that lead to the death of several Fire Elementals by weakening their homelands volcano that made them uncooperative. It was also due to the fact that as of right now, they had nobody to lead them who could give them guidance and unity. Ignis who they had come to view as their leader was unaccounted for, Phoebe was still unconscious with Finn, and her older brother was also still MIA. They definitely weren't about to view someone like Phoebe's still too young brother Randy, brainless Auntie Agnes, nor disgraced Father Flame King as their leader either. Thus, they were all left leaderless and confused at what they should all be doing while many of them only agreed on their refusal to cooperate with the distrusted Princess Bubblegum.

"What am I going to do?" Princess Bubblegum asked herself as she tried thinking of a way to gain the cooperation of the Fire Elementals. Something that she was at a total loss at and couldn't think of any solution. She knew talking to any leader was out, she couldn't use Cinnamon Bun as a trusted representative either after what happened to him, nor could she just kick them out when she needed all the help she could get in this war.

"What can I do to fix this," she asked herself again, but still unable to come up with anything. Needing time to think, she walked off to try and find a peaceful place to think. Remembering the familiar comfortable feeling of her lab, she went there hoping that she would come up with something.

"Hello again Princess Bubblegum," greeted Solaris who had set up shop in her lab and was carefully working on further improving her barrier device.

"Hello Solaris," she politely returned as she went and sat at her desk.

"I can see that something new is bothering you," he said, sensing her distress. "What's wrong?"

"It's my past decisions returning to haunt me," she blurted out, not bothering to hide things like usual.

"Sounds like whatever it is. That it's pretty bad from the sound of things."

"It is and it's making things very difficult right now."

"Hmm, I'm open to talking about this and helping you if want. I won't force you."

"Thanks Solaris and I could use your advice. I need to be more open with others as well after all."

With that she began telling him of the event that she caused with tricking Phoebe and causing the disaster in the Flame Kingdom. He listened quietly most of the time and only interrupted when he needed some clarification on certain parts and to ask some questions. Other than that, it went by mostly uninterrupted. Once it was finished, Solaris told of his opinion on the matter.

"That is quite a bad thing you did there Princess Bubblegum. While I can understand your reasoning for doing it, it still doesn't make what you did right by any means."

"I know," she agreed with him. "But I did what I thought was right at the time."

"Yes you did, but now you are dealing with the consequences of what you did and before we begin trying to fix this. I need to know one thing."

"What is that?"

"Is there anything else you have done in the past that could come back and cause trouble like what has happening now? If there is, then you must tell me so we can address it before it eventually reveals itself on its own and most likely in a form that will hurt us."

"I did reactive my hidden cameras that were placed in certain areas around OOO recently and I did this because I believe it can help to give us valuable information on our enemies," was her answer.

"Ok and is there anything else I should need to know."

"No," she simply answered, not telling him about the other unpleasant things that she had done in the past that she believed had no chance of ever being brought back into the spotlight. Solaris though did not fail to see through her lie and see that she was still hiding something. He decided to give her a warning in advance.

"If you ever remember anything else Bubblegum, then you should come and tell me. Even the most tightly kept and smallest of secrets have a way of digging themselves up when we least expect it and causing us far greater trouble than we anticipated."

"I will, I swear it."

"Flame Princess," Finn said as he finally found her inside this dream world. "I'm so happy to see you," he said walking towards her. Yet as soon as he got close to her, a flame sword came between them.

"I wish I could say the same Finn," she responded as she got up and started moving towards him with the sword still pointed at him, causing him to step back so that he didn't get the sword stuck through him. "But I can't feel any happiness at seeing a traitor like you once again." Flame Princess then swung at Finn as she tried to cut him down in front of her, with Finn jumping back and bringing out his own sword to block the flurry of sword blows she was sending his way.

"Flame Princess Stop," he shouted to her in surprise of the attacks. Instead of stopping, she continued to attack Finn with increased vigor that his sword started glowing red hot. "Flame Princess please, talk to me. I don't want to fight you," he said desperate to reach her.

"What's there to talk about Finn," she yelled at him less as a question and more as a statement that there was nothing to talk about.

"About fixing this and getting out of this nightmare," he answered as he ducked under another sword blow and tried to punch her in the stomach to knock the wind out of her. Only for his fist to retract in pain as it came in contact with white hot heat rather than the coolness her skin usually held.

"Nghn," he muffled out as he shook his burnt hand. He learnt the hard way that Flame Princess was not her usual pleasant to feel self in here.

"There nothing to fix Finn," she said ignoring his failed attempt at stopping her. "Because there is nothing wrong."

"Flame Princess you know that is not true."

"Liar," she shot back at him in denial as she swung her flame sword at his red hot melting blade that her attack shattered his blade and sliced into him.

"Grgh," shouted out Finn in pain as the searing hot blade left a scorch mark on his chest and it was only thanks to the blades searing heat that it didn't leave a gushing wound on him that he would have bleed out from. Discarding the shattered weapon, Finn could do nothing at this point but try and dodge every attack that came his way as he continued to try and reason with Flame Princess.

"Come on FP, you know all this is wrong. That this world and everything around us is one big lie."

"When will you stop lying to me Finn?" FP then threw a fireball at Finn as he jumped backwards again to dodge another one of her sword blows and having no sword anymore. Finn could only block the attack in midair by raising his left arm to take the attack by the fireball. Ignoring the scorching pain, he continued on.

"Then is it also a lie that you are now the tyrannical ruler of the Fire Kingdom who mentally enslaves those that don't agree with her."

"What…no," she said thinking that claim was ridicules at first until memories started flooding her mind that showed her doing that very act. At the same time though, she knew that she never would perform something so evil. So why was she seeing these memories that were proving her wrong.

"Ergh," FP muffled as she started getting assaulted by a massive headache. Dropping to her knees and letting her flame sword disperse as she put her hands to both sides of her head. She started fighting too try and find out what was a lie and what was true.

"Flame Princess," Finn shouted in worry as he came running to her. "Let me help you," he said putting his hands on her shoulders in assurance even as the act caused him great pain.

"Just leave me alone Finn," she strained to say thanks to her splitting headache.

"You know I'll never do that Flame Princess, not again."

"Just leave," she yelled as she momentarily recreated her flame sword and swung at Finn before letting it disperse again after he dodged it.

"Flame Princess," he whispered in a sad tone as he walked back towards her thinking of a way that he could reach her, but finding nothing. It was then that he remembered something important that her brother in this dream world had said that he had missed before. He then knew what to say as he bent down near her shaking form once again.

"Phoebe," he said calling her by her real name.

"How do you know my name?" surprise filling her voice. "I never told you it."

"No, you didn't. But I overheard your brother here say it and I can say that it's a beautiful name. Phoebe. That's a name I will cherish and never forget," he said as he looked into her pain filled eyes.

"Finn," she sobbed as lava tears began to form in her eyes.

"Don't cry Phoebe," he said as he wiped away the lava tears. "There is no reason for you to feel bad."

"But," she was about to disagree before she was cut off by Finn placing her lips to hers, causing her tears to recede as she closed her eyes and let herself fall into the warmth of their kiss.

"There's no reason to keep saying what you were going to say. You know already know what you did and are sorry for it. There's no reason to keep hurting yourself over it, not when you can work towards making up for it and earning your peoples forgiveness instead. Just as I earned yours."

"Your right," she smiled at him.

"Hehe," he chuckled all of a sudden.

"What so funny Finn?"

"Oh, I was just thinking of the look on your face when I gave you that surprise kiss. It was funny and cute."

She blushed from hearing that and gave Finn a small punch for embarrassing her like that before finally chuckling a bit herself.

"A little payback for the surprise kiss you gave me in front of everyone in the Fire Kingdom not too long ago. Remember Phoebe."

"Yeah" she said recalling that moment in the Fire Kingdom.

"Glad to hear," he smiled at her as the dream world began to crumble around them and the way back to the real world opened up for them. "That's our ticket home Phoebe. Let's go," he said getting up.

"It's time to go help our friends."

Sorry for the long wait everyone. I just have a lot of work these days with college. I also kind of lost some motivation to write, don't know why. I mean if anything, I should have a lot of motivation. After all, the Episode the Mountain showed Finns greatest desire is to be with FP and I was extremely happy about that. So that should have pumped me up, but I don't know. Either way, I am happy that Flinn looks like it has real chance at returning and here's the long overdue update.

Ventus Uzumaki: Yeah, very true.

Fiery Crusader: Indeed, I bet you were shocked and a bit horrified at the darkness Lucian showed last chapter.

Attackme: Nice, thanks man. Hope you enjoy this.

dfinkel70: It doesn't make you sound that way, so no worries.

gamelover41592: Great to hear.

Rolirit: You were pretty much on the mark with your prediction for this chapter. Nice work.

Ooobserver: Yeah, it was. As for Finn, there's nothing true love can't overcome.

Legionary Prime: He wasn't forced or anything like that. He was just thrust into a unforeseen situation. Things worked out in the end though.

Cronos Cabrera: Finn and Phoebe will return. Of that I have no doubt. I am glad you like my story so much and will continue reading it. I hope you enjoyed this chapter as well.

felipe666: Maybe, who knows if we will ever find out. I hope you liked this chapter as well.

Broken In7: Great hear man. Glad your all got up and I hope you enjoyed this latest chapter.

Well, I'm back after so long and like always. I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please review. It helps to keep my motivation up.