Relaxing in her living room, calmly drifting on the air with her bass in her hands, Marceline was preparing to play a song that she'd learned from a very old friend, a very long time ago. She busily tuned her strings, tightening them beyond the point she normally plays at, as a metronome steadily ticked beside her, its steady, hollow click the only sound in the otherwise empty room.
Making sure the strings were properly tuned, Marceline cleared her throat before she began to sing, a slightly melancholy tone in her voice. "Blackbird singing in the dead of night, take these broken wings and learn to fly. All your life, you were only waiting for this moment to arise."
She strung a few more notes, before starting the next verse. "Blackbird singing in the dead of night, take these sunken eyes and learn to see. All your life, you were only waiting for this moment to be free."
Suddenly, she was taken out of the music by the sound of a door opening in her kitchen, accompanied by a voice she'd thought that she'd never need to hear again: the squeaking, nasally laughter of a Door Lord. She immediately stops her song and gets a tight grip on her bass as it leaps through its door, its eyes set on her axe.
In an instant, it dashed through the doorway and across the room to her, then grabbed her bass around the neck with one hand while blasting her in the jaw with the other. She almost lost her grip, but the Vampire Queen managed to keep her grip on the instrument. Crying out in pain and anger, she wrenched her bass from the would-be thief's hands and brought it around, before bringing violently bringing its blade down in a fury-fueled attempt to cleave it in two. However, the Door Lord dodged the attack, causing Marceline to imbed the blade in the ground.
Behind her, Finn, Jake, BMO, and Bonnibel had entered through the free-floating, magical door and were watching the fight unfold.
As she struggled to pull her axe from the ground, the Door Lord had reached onto its belt and thrown another key, which burst and formed another door. Finally freeing her weapon, Marceline brought it over her head and attempted to attack the yellow-skinned intruder again, only for it to open the door and blast her directly in the face with sunlight.
The Vampire Queen fell to her hands and knees, hissing in pain, although the damage quickly healed. "Marceline!" Finn shouted as he Jake, and BMO rushed to her side as the Door Lord leaped through its newly-made door. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah," she answered with one hand on her head. She looked up, and was surprised to see Bonnibel looking at her with clearly visible concern. Marceline rolled onto her back, only to be immediately blinded by the bright sunlight coming from the door.
As she threw up her arms to protect her face, Finn rose to his feet and determinedly stated, "Don't worry; we'll get him!" He climbed through the door, with the others right behind him, although Bonnibel lingered for a moment and watched as Marceline crawled away from the harsh sunlight, hissing with every burn.
Once she was far enough away, she flew up the ladder and into her bedroom, then pulled out a pair of long, cream-colored gloves and a large sunhat, then followed the rest.
On the other side of the door, she found herself in a red-rock canyon, much like the one where she and her dad had fought little more than a year prior, and Finn had tried to crush him with a boulder. In front of her, a short way down the canyon, everyone was gathered in front of a large bronze door, bordered by crumbling stone brickwork, and ancient runes along its curved frame.
At the top, words began appearing, which Finn was reading. "This door shall yield to no command, save for a song from a… genuine band?" he questioningly read aloud, before throwing his arms up and shouting, "What is this gripagrap?!"
"It's the Door of the Door Lords, Finn," Bonnibel answered. "We used to lock them up, but they kept breaking out." She pounded her fist into her palm. "Because they're Door Lords."
"They broke out because you let them live," Marceline casually corrected, pretending to inspect her nails through her gloves. The princess turned towards her with a look of disdain, angry and bordering on rage from this single comment.
"Hmm… the door said it would open for a genuine band," Finn started, redirecting the situation. "Let's try to music this door open as a quintet!"
In an instant, Jake was onboard with the idea. "Can I be the jerk in the band?" he asked. "'Cuz that's an important part of a band's success!" He proceeded to shrink his face and grunt, with a stereotypical jerky expression.
"I know how to get through this door," Marceline confidently stated, raising her bass and quickly strumming a few notes. "We're gonna lay down a chill jam."
"Hey! Yeah, yeah, yeah!" Finn shouted excitedly, pumping his fist.
"Just… keep it cool. Got that, Princess?" she requested, pointing at Bonnibel. In response, she furrowed her brow, then picked up BMO and pulled off the front of their case.
"Oh! My face!" the tiny robot exclaimed in surprise. The princess sat down with BMO in-hand, then began pressing various buttons in order to make noise, while bending the circuits to alter their sounds to fit her means.
"Let's see if you hacks can keep up with my raw talent!" Jake shouted, diving headlong into his self-appointed jerk role, striking a pose and running his bow along his viola's strings. A few feet away, Finn began beatboxing.
With everyone else having begun, Marceline floated up into the air and began strumming her bass. "La-da, da-da, daa… I'm gonna bury you in the ground," she started. "La-da, da-da, daa… I'm gonna bury you with my sound."
She turned to the princess and, an arrogant smile on her face, continued. "I'm gonna drink the red from your pretty pink face. I'm gonna—"
"Marceline!" Bonnibel interrupted, looking up at her with a look of scorn. "That's too distasteful!"
"Oh… you don't like that?" Marceline snorted, stopping her song and glaring at the princess, before shouting, "Or do you just not like me?!" She flew to the top of the door, backflipping in the process, then began striking the strings of her bass with increased force, the enchantments within its metal allowing everyone to clearly hear it nearly fifteen feet below, even without an amp.
She began singing again, confidently strutting along the masonry with a cruel smile on her face as everyone look in on shock—or, for Bonnibel, anger.
"Sorry I don't treat you like a goddess. Is that what you want me to do? Sorry I don't treat you like you're perfect—" she shook her head in faux-remorse, "—like all your little, loyal subjects do.
"Sorry I'm not made of sugar, am I not sweet enough for you? Is that why you always avoid me? I must be such an inconvenience to you!" She hopped from the top of the door and began floating in front of it.
"Well, I'm just your problem! I'm just your problem. It's like I'm not even a person… am I? I'm just your problem."
As she sang the last line, she shook her head and the arrogance disappeared, replaced with an expression of sorrow. Beneath her, Finn and Jake had taken seats on the ground and still looked on in confusion, while Bonnibel's anger had abated as well, and now she seemed to watch with a look bordering on guilt, as she only now was beginning to realize Marceline's actual feelings following their falling-out centuries before.
"Well, I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I shouldn't have to justify what I do, and I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I shouldn't have to explain myself to you." On the ground, the princess raised a hand and opened her mouth to say something—to apologize, perhaps—only to clench it into a fist and harden her face.
"It's working! Look at the door!" Finn shouted, and Bonnibel glanced at it, but didn't pay any attention or mind to anything other than Marceline and her song, not noticing the faces on the door's orbs growing into massive open-mouthed grins.
"I'm sorry that I exist, I can't remember what landed me on your blacklist, but I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I shouldn't have to be the one that makes up with you, so…" she pauses, her expression becoming more pained. "Why do I want to? Why do I want… to…?"
A single tear drops from one of the Vampire Queen's eyes, dropping to the ground and spattering against the stones, just a few feet away from Bonnibel, who stared up at Marceline, her face illuminated by the door and her clearly-mixed emotions on full display.
Realizing she was revealing the emotions she'd intentionally kept hidden, buried deep within herself, Marceline falters. "To… bury you in the ground? And… drink the blood from your…"
With her groove completely thrown-off, Marceline lets out an annoyed grunt and stares down at everyone apoplectically. "Stop STARING at me!" she demands, trying to hide her embarrassment, before quickly flying and getting in Bonnibel's face. "You threw me off!"
"Come on everyone! Don't stop now!" Finn pleaded, hopping from foot-to-foot and clapping his hands above his head in excitement. "The door was responding to our music!" Marceline and Bonnibel look at him in confusion, apparently not knowing what the door had been doing during the Vampire Queen's song. "I wonder what it liked! Or what it was missing!"
Looking around at everyone, Jake rudely stated, "Well, I know what was missing! Talent! I'm getting out of here, you hacks! Talentless hacks!" The dog marches off, viola in-hand, as everyone watched him, an amused grin on Marceline's face.
"Yoiks!" she chuckled. Finn, meanwhile, had slung off his backpack and had begun to dig around in it.
"Maybe we'd be a genuine band is we were nicer to each other," he suggested, looking between the two women in front of him, "and hung out as buds!" Pulling out a noodle block, he proposed, "Let's take a noodle break!" Marceline and Bonnibel looked at each other in confusion, before Finn thrust the block towards them. "Come on! It'll help!"
Wordlessly, Marceline turned around and floated back towards the door. "No, wait!" Finn cried out. "Don't go, too!"
Pausing for a moment, the Vampire Queen explained, "I'm just gonna get stuff to cook that." Finn, meanwhile, had already taken a sizeable bite out of it.
"Cook…?" he thoughtfully asked himself, a look of slight confusion on his face. He and Bonnibel watched as Marceline flew through the door, returning to her own home, while Jake was, presumably, on his way back to the treehouse, if not already there.
Looking back at Finn, the princess smiled. "That was sweet. What you said about 'being buds'."
"Mh, hmm! Thanks!" the human boy replied, then watched as Marceline flew back through the door, holding a burner and a pan of water.
"I'm back, yo!" she'd announced gleefully, planting her cooking supplies on the ground. "Come here, baby," she jokingly told BMO, who lay down in front of her. She plugged the burner into one of its ports, eliciting a small grunt.
As they waited for the coil to heat up and the water to boil, Finn started wandering around, exploring the canyon and looking for any points of interest. Meanwhile, Marceline had lay back, hovering a few inches off the ground and carefully positioning herself to avoid letting any sunlight touch her skin. However, as the sun was setting, this wasn't much of a problem.
Bonnibel watched Finn's antics for a few minutes, mildly amused, but soon voiced the thoughts on her mind to Marceline. "Hey," she started awkwardly.
"Yeah?" the Vampire Queen responded, suspicion in her voice.
"About what you said in your song…" The princess was hesitant to meet Marceline's eyes.
"Oh, sorry about that," she laughed, albeit somewhat forced. "I got a little carried away."
Bringing her hands up, Bonnibel quickly responded, "No no no! I'm not angry. I just… is that how you really feel?"
Marceline sighed and sat up, lowering to the ground and pausing for a moment before answering. "Yeah… it is." She turned and watched Finn as he attempted to climb a boulder in the distance. "I don't like letting people know how I feel… especially if it's something like this. But, yeah. That's how I actually feel about..." She gestures between herself and the princess.
Her feelings of guilt returning, Bonnibel looked at the Vampire Queen, sadness written all over her face. "You should've told me. I assumed that you just… didn't care what I did. That you were fine with it." She looked towards the setting sun. "Even after I'd… pushed you away, I always saw you having fun at all of your shows and goofing off all the time, even more than when we were still together. You always looked so happy, and it made me angry. It seemed like you thought we were a joke.
"I tried to justify it all by telling myself you didn't care, and that if I pushed you away, it wouldn't affect you at all. That you wouldn't be hurt."
Pulling her knees to her chest, Marceline shakes her head. "I know pain—always have—and I can deal with it. I've been doing that for a thousand years. My mom died when I was 6, the first friend I made after she died went crazy and abandoned me, I didn't meet my dad until I was almost 13, and he was a soul-sucking psycho who killed all of my other friends. Then all of the humans I'd spent, like, ten years protecting ended up ditching Ooo and I got vamp'd."
She deeply sighs. "There was a long time where I just disappeared, and when I finally decided to show my face again, you were the first person that I met." Marceline looks at Bubblegum. "And I finally thought that I'd found someone who wouldn't leave. But… I was afraid, and I tried not to get attached to you. Even when I was scared, I couldn't help but fall for you. And just when I'd thought that it could last forever, I lost you, too."
The princess' brow furrowed as her mouth hung open, and she wanted to say something, but couldn't force any sound from her mouth.
"This was a different kind of pain. It wasn't just being abandoned, and it wasn't someone close to me dying. It was being forced away from someone I thought that I'd never lose." She started floating again, uncomfortable against the hard, rocky ground. "For a long time after that, all of my jokes were just cries for help; they were how I coped with the fear and the pain."
"Marcy…" Bonnibel looked at her with pure grief on her face. "I'm so sorry. I wish I knew what you were going through."
A sad smile on her face, Marceline simply responded, "Well, now you do." However, her smile soon faded. "But I still don't know how to deal with it. It's been this long, and I still have no idea. I barely even started getting over it before I started hanging with Finn and Jake." With a shrug, she looked at the woman to her side. "I guess… jokes and sass are just how I get through tough times."
The two sat in silence, and the princess started to raise her arms to offer a hug, before a thunderous crack echoed through the canyon, followed by a victorious shout from Finn. Both women jumped, then looked over to see Finn standing over the split remains of the boulder he'd been trying to climb, a large dust cloud formed around it, while the human boy shouts towards them, "Hey! Did you see that?"
Marceline gave him a thumbs up, prompting a second triumphant yell.
Within an hour, Finn returned to the others and sat down, then handed a noodle block to the Vampire Queen, who dropped it into the boiling water. The sun had since dipped down over the horizon, and she removed her large, floppy sun hat.
"Pasta, water. Getting, hotter," Finn said to himself, his own block of noodles still in his hands. "A song about noodles?'
"No!" Bonnibel and Marceline shouted in tandem, before glancing at each other, amused. Finn made a mewl-like noise and clapped his hands over his cheeks, and all three laughed together.
"For our next attempt," the princess started, "I want to be the lead."
"Yeah! Sounds cool my bud!" Finn enthusiastically agreed. Behind the women, Jake reappeared, shifted into a taller, punkier form, and wearing one of Marceline's pairs of ripped jeans.
"Hmph!" he grunted, announcing his arrival, viola in-hand.
"Jake! You're back!"
The magic dog exaggeratedly pointed at his human brother. "Shutchoface! I came back for the music." Meanwhile, the princess and the Vampire Queen were getting ready, the former sitting on her rock once more with BMO on her lap, defaced again.
"BMO, execute song structure alpha," she requested. The small robot began making noises, both vocal and electronic, while she tweaked its inner circuitry to make the desired sounds while also writing an equation in the dirt beside her with a stick. "Marceline, begin playing triplet quavers in the mixolydian mode."
Marceline, floating in the air, jokingly responded, "Alright, fine." She strummed a single note. "Wait… what's a quaver?" She started strumming randomly, trying to jog her memory.
"Finn." Bonnibel raises her index finger. "Vibrate your uvula by dampening and undampening your larynx."
"Wha?" Finn grunted, confused.
"Go-o li-ike thi-is, si-il-ly!" PB demonstrated, vibrating her vocal chords with her finger.
"Oh!" The human began doing as the princess demonstrated. "Wa-a-a-a-a-a-ah!"
Bonnibel continued fine-tuning BMO. "Okay… okay… Jake? Are you gonna join in?" Instead of joining in, Jake elected to smash his viola against the ground with a loud shout, while Marceline grunted in annoyance as she tried to play the mixolydian scale from memory, in triplets, after remembering a quaver to be an alternative name for an eighth note.
"Everyone! Just stick to my blueprints!" the princess ordered, before accidentally putting her hand on BMO's face, causing them to gasp as sparks shot and flames shot from his front.
"Oooohh…!" BMO groaned, their face glitching for a moment.
Finn sighed in disappointment. "One more time?"
Bonnibel blushed as she quickly checked to make sure the robot in her lap wasn't damaged, while erasing her equation with her foot. "I may have, um… miscalculated."
"Ha!" Marceline laughed, floating towards the pink woman. "Looks like you aren't as perfect as you thought! Guess you can't judge me anymore!"
Bubblegum bolted upright in anger. "I never said you had to be perfect!"
"Alright! Time out guys," Finn pleaded, attempting to calm the face-off unfolding in front of him. Marceline had other plans, however. She smirked, before spitting a glob of spit onto Bonnibel's sweatshirt.
Gasping loudly, the princess rigidly squared her shoulders, enraged, before stiffly turning away and marching towards the door, her voice rising in both volume and pitch. "Princess!" Finn cried after her. "Princess, wait!"
Marceline hissed and clenched her bass in her hand, the edges of its metal neck digging in her palm and fingers. "Whatever!" she grunted, tears welling up in her eyes as she immediately regretted her action. "I'm out of here, too!"
She flew off after the princess, leaving Finn behind her. "Marceline?" he asked, watching them both leave, followed by a backpedaling Jake, who pretended to cry as he shouted back to Finn, although the women didn't hear what he'd said.
"Bonnie!" Marceline shouted as she closed the distance between herself and the princess. "Bonnie!" I'm sorry."
"Yeah, right," Bonnibel grunted, not even glancing at the half-demon behind her. The Vampire Queen shook her head, then grabbed her shoulder and turned her around to face her.
"Bonnie," she started, staring her in the eye. "I'm sorry that I spit on you, and that I made fun of you." She sighs, then quietly adds, "All the times I made fun of you."
As Bubblegum saw the tears in her eyes, and the clear regret written all over her face, her gaze softened. "It's fine Marcy. Besides, I shouldn't have yelled at you." She turned back to the free-floating door that leads back to Marceline's house. "But it's clear we're not getting through this door. Not right now, at least." She continued walking, and Marceline floated just behind her, Jake a few yards behind and to the side.
Suddenly, with a slow clap setting his beat, Finn began to sing. "Everyone—Bubblegum—I'm so dumb. I should've told you, what I lost… was a piece of your hair."
Bonnibel stopped dead in her tracks, blushing, while Marceline and Jake continued for a few steps before they turned around, the former doing so with a combination of amusement and chagrin at this revelation.
"Now it's gone, gone forever. But I guess, what did it even matter when I just… just had all of you there? Oh, just had all of you there with me. My friends, if you're even my friends…"
The door's faces began smiling once more, their mouths opening and emitting light once more. "You like this?" Finn asked, looking up at them. Behind him, everyone had once more began walking away, but he had come to a sudden realization. "This is what was missing… the truth!" He turned around once more and continued singing, now much more upbeat and confident, prompting everyone to turn around and look at him again.
"What am I to you?" he started. Marceline began strumming her bass, and quickly matched it up with his lyrics. "Am I a joke, your knight, or you brother? What am I to you?
"Do you look down on me 'cause I'm younger? Do you think that I don't understand, I just wanted us together and to play as a band. Last night was the most fun I've ever had, I even liked it when the two of you would get mad… at each other."
Bonnibel sat down once more and popped of BMO's face, then quickly joined in the music, while Jake began playing his now-taped-up viola, harmonizing with the rest.
"Oh, you a-a-a-a-are my best friends in the world. You a-a-a-a-are my best friends in the world." He turned to Bonnibel and Marceline. "That's ri-i-i-i-ight, I'm talking about the two of you girls."
Turning to Jake, Finn continued. "And you, Jake; I wanna sing a song to you and I refuse to make it fake. What am I to you?"
Marceline flew next to him and joined in singing the next couple lines. "Am I a joke, your knight, or your brother? What am I to you?"
"Do you look down on my 'cause I'm younger? Do you think that I don't understand, I just wanted us together and to play as a band. I'll forget that I lost a piece of your hair. I'll remember the pasta that we shared… over there…"
Flying down next to him again, Marceline sang once more, but only pitching in for the last part of the first two lines. "Ah-ah, you a-a-a-a-are my best friends in the world. You a-a-a-a-are my best friends in the world. That's ri-i-i-i-ight, I'm talking about the two of you girls."
Now flying next to Bonnibel, the two women began harmonizing in the background of Finn's lyrics, doing so in almost perfect tandem.
"And you, Jake; I wanna sing a song to you and I refuse to make it fake. Make no mistake, I'm gonna sing a song that feels so real it'll make this do-o-o-o-o-or break!"
As he sang the last word, Finn struck a pose as the door was overtaken by blinding light and disappeared, leaving him standing in front of the open doorway as Bonnibel and Marceline deeply smiled at one-another.
Within the room, the Door Lord was eating a sandwich while sitting amongst an uncountable number of drawers, almost like a room of infinite filing cabinets, each housing stolen items. He stood up as the quintet walked into the room, nervously squeaking to himself.
Finn walked a few steps into the room and stated, "It's over Door Lord!" before Jake leapt in behind him, pointing exaggeratedly.
"So hand over our stuff!"
In response, the yellow-skinned creature simply shook its head and nasally vocalized in what could be assumed was meant to be a sentence, while gesturing with its hands for emphasis on its squeaks. However, it did little more than confuse Finn. "What's he tryna say?"
"I totally get it!" Marceline interjected, stepping forwards. "He may have stolen our treasures…"
"...but in doing so," Bonnibel continued, taking her place at Marceline's side, "he showed us…"
"...that the real treasure, was friendship!" Jake finished, completing the line-up. Both he and the Vampire Queen were trying their hardest not to laugh at how lame they sounded.
The Door Lord's face lit up with joy as he squeaked yet again, waving his hands gleefully. This soon ended, however, as everyone set on him and pounded him into a pulp, knocking out a few teeth and giving him a black eye, before tying him up with rope. Within a few moments, he was groaning in pain as Jake dug through its sack of stolen loot.
"Alright, here's that lock of Bubblegum's hair you love so much," he teased as he handed his brother the blob of gummy hair he cherished.
"Oh, you," the princess laughed, finding it cute. Marceline floated behind her with an amused grin, as Finn deeply blushed.
"Ah, yeesh," he groaned, embarrassed.
Jake continued digging through the loot sack. "Here's Jakey's blankey!" he announced, pulling out his blue blanket and touching it to his cheek. "Here's your controller, BMO."
BMO's face lit up with an emoticon happy face as they took their controller out of Jake's hands, then swung it like a lasso while calling, "Yippee ki-yi yeee!"
"Marceline," the magic dog continued. "Here's your… rock shirt."
A confused expression came over the Vampire Queen's face. "Hey, that's not—!"
"It's mine!" Bonnibel interrupted, darting in and quickly grabbing the shirt, a blush quickly rising on her face. As she turned around, Marceline got to see the image on the front, and a look of surprise came over her face.
"You… kept the shirt I gave you?" she asked, herself blushing as well.
"Yeah," PB bashfully responded, chuckling. "It, uh… it means a lot to me."
"But you never wore it?" Marceline asked, confused.
"Dude! I wear it all the time!" Bonnibel declared, putting the shirt on over her dress and sweatshirt. "As pajamas!"
Pleased to see them finally getting along, although now wondering as to the length of their history together, Finn asked, "Wait… if that's Bubblegum's shirt, what're you missing, Marceline?" As all eyes were drawn to her, a look of defeat appeared on the Vampire Queen's face, while one of realization rose on Finn's. "Wait a second, wait a second! You don't have a thing!" Spreading his arms and failing to hold back his laughter, he concluded, "You just wanted to hang out with us!"
"N-no I didn't!" Marceline stammered.
"No way! You're caught! I've figured you out!" He laughed, then PB and Jake walked to his side and joined in. Grimacing, Marceline's body began to grow and shifted into a monstrous form of her normal body, with large, demonic eyes, clawed hands and feet connected to thin yet incredibly muscular arms and legs, and a face almost like a fiendish skull.
Everyone scattered and fled the room, laughing gleefully as she gave chase, bellowing after them, "I'll kill you!"
They all leapt through the door and landed in Marceline's house, then watched as she struggled to fit her enlarged form through the frame. "That's not gonna work Marcy!" Jake laughed, before plopping down on her couch.
In response, she returned to her normal form and flew through the door, and in the blink of an eye she was looming over Jake. "You wanna keep laughing?" she growled, her eyes ablaze. In an instant, the magic dog went silent as the blood drained from his face, and he began shrinking away from her—both literally and idiomatically.
"No. I'm good," he whimpered. Immediately after, Marceline burst into a massive bout of laughter, doubling over while floating in the air. Finn and Bonnibel joined in the laughter, while Jake grew back to his normal size with a cross expression.
"You guys suck!" he shoute, throwing his arms into the air and beginning to march back to the treehouse. However, this only caused the other three to laugh even harder.
Once everyone calmed down, Finn began following his brother. "Hey, Imma head back and see if I can score some of Jake's angry-spaghetti."
"Have fun!" Marceline laughed.
As Finn crossed through the door's threshold, Bonnibel called after him, "Hey, can you shut the door? I'm gonna stay here a bit." A surprised expression came over both the face of the human boy and the Vampire Queen. Seeing this, she added, "I wanna catch up with Marcy. It's been way too long since we've had time to talk."