On one of the northwestern shores of Ooo, little more than two months after Marceline's lightning incident, Princess Bubblegum stands on a sand dune, a denim jacket around her shoulders. Finn stands to one side, while Marceline sits under a parasol on the other. The Vampire Queen wears all black, including sunglasses, and tiredly slouches forwards.
The three watch as Jake and Susan load up the boat, as they prepare to go on a journey to the islands where the humans had retreated to. As Susan tosses one duffel bag onboard, a quiet mechanical voice grunts, "Ouch!" from within, although nobody hears it.
"Thanks for seeing us off, guys," Finn says, turning to the two women next to him.
"Yeah, of course," Bonnibel responds, turning to look at him. "It's my boat."
"And we care about them, ya dingus! Come on!" Marceline harshly shouts, eliciting a scowl from Bonnibel. As soon as she sees this, she bashfully turns away and quickly adds, "Sorry. Marcy is up past her bedtime." She rests her head on her hand once more, looking away from the princess.
"No, it's true," Bubblegum agrees, placing a hand on Finn's shoulder. Looking him in the eye, she states, "I want you to be really careful out there."
"Don't worry. We've got Susan," the human assures, pointing at the tank of a woman just up the coast from them.
"That's not what I mean." Finn looks back towards her. "Finn, I get the feeling that this trip's more important to you that you're letting on. I mean, if you make it to that island, you might find out some pretty heavy stuff. About the humans, where you came from… about yourself." She removes her hand. "All's I'm saying is you have to promise me—promise me—that you'll come home safe."
The blond-haired boy looks at her, surprised at the serious tone of her voice. He opens his mouth and starts to respond, "I—"
"Hi, Bonnie!" a voice like Finn's, although still distinctly different, suddenly interjects, causing them to jump. Marceline glances up in surprise; she's normally the only one who calls the princess by her first name. "I'm Fern." He offers his hand, which Bubblegum shakes with a nervousness and suspicion in equal measure. "I kinda already know you. I have a bunch of… fuzzy half-memories from when I was this guy." He looks to his human counterpart.
"Just keep the ones where she's our boss," Finn states, before sternly adding, "And forget everything else!"
"Finn!" Everyone looks over as Susan calls, walking up to the group.
"Hey, good morning!" Marceline exclaims as she takes off her sunglasses, suddenly intrigued by the woman in front of her. Bonnibel feels a twinge in her chest, but externally shows no reaction.
"Boat's loaded. Ready to go," Susan states simply, gesturing with one massive hand. Finn gives the princess a hug, then goes to high-five Fern, whose eyes widen for a split second before he palms him on the nose, a look of shock appearing on both his grassy face and Bubblegum's. Marceline simply smirks.
"Gah! I flinched!" he cries, bringing his hands up as Finn rubs his nose.
"It's cool," his human counterpart responds. He quickly shakes his head, then walks down towards the dunes by Susan. He waves back at the two, and Marceline simply raises a hand in response.
As he turns his back, a cold sea breeze causes the Vampire Queen to shiver slightly. Bonnibel, seeing this, slides her jacket off of her shoulders and puts it around her friend. "Here," the princess whispers. Marceline grasps it with one hand and smiles gratefully at her.
Before long, Finn and Jake had embarked on their ship. They wave back to the three figures on the shore, while Susan wades through the water and pushes it further out to sea. "We'll be back soon!" Finn calls. "I promise!"
Suddenly, the ship heaves as Susan pulls herself in. As soon as it regains stability, Jake shouts to the shore, "Bye kids! Don't be naughty!"
"Bye! Good luck!" Bonnibel yells back to them, her left hand high above her head as she waves. To one side, Fern waves as well, while Marceline stands to the other side with one hand slightly raised, and the other holding her parasol. She's still wearing her friend's jacket. Quietly, Bonnibel says to herself, "He'll be safe," in an attempt to reassure herself.
Marceline glances to the side and looks at Fern. "Hey, aren't you the dude who totaled Starchy's motorcycle?"
He blushes—a strange sight, considering he's made out of grass—and asks, "Oh, uh, you heard about that?"
"Dude, you rode it for about a hundred feet then ran it up a tree." She leans back in the air and crosses her arms, a smirk on her face. "You're the only person who's had a harder fail on a motorcycle than me."
Fern furrows his brow. "Is… that a compliment? I don't really know what's what anymore."
The Vampire Queen shrugs. "Well, I just hope you can fight better than you can ride. Otherwise we're in some deep trouble."
"Marceline…" Bonnibel warns.
"Alright, alright." Marceline puts a hand on Fern's shoulder. "Hey, you're a grass Finn, I'd say Ooo's in pretty good hands. Besides, Finn would'a crashed that bike just as badly as you." She glances at Bonnibel. "Maybe even worse."
"Probably worse," she agrees.
A couple days later, Marceline sits on a bench in the walled garden of her friend's palace, alone and strumming her bass as she waits for Bonnibel to meet her. She'd sent her friend a text a couple of hours before, simply telling her that she had something she needed to tell her. The Vampire Queen's been planning what she'd say for several weeks, maybe even months in a more indirect sense.
She glances up at one of the clocks dotted around the city; it's five minutes past when she'd wanted to meet. Just when she prepares herself to make a sarcastic comment, the door to the garden opens and the princess strides through. She quickly scans the area, and when she sees Marceline, she beams. "Hey Marcy!" she exclaims excitedly.
"Hi. You're in a good mood," Marceline responds, grinning as she sees how happy her friend is.
"Yeah." She looks at her palm. "Remember how I told you I have candy powers now, and I can shoot candy and stuff from my hands?"
The Vampire Queen nods. "Yeah. You hit me in the nose with licorice."
"Oh, right. Sorry about that," the princess giggles. "Anyways, while I was on the way here, I accidentally shot a hole in my door with a gobstopper."
Marceline, surprised at this, begins laughing. Once she calms down enough to speak, she teasingly asks, "Was it really an accident?"
Bonnibel simply shrugs. "Anyways, what'd you want to tell me."
Suddenly, the humor fades out of the air. Marceline looks to her best friend and takes a deep breath. Everything she'd planned to say suddenly leaves her mind, all of her preparation going out the window as soon as the time came. Slowly, she begins. "Ever since the whole thing with the lightning, I've been thinking. Not just about myself—believe me, I do that more than enough. About everyone… Simon, my dad, Finn and Jake." She glances at Bonnibel. "You."
She notices her friend blush, and she pauses as she thinks about how to continue. "If you hadn't been there to help me, I might've died. And… that's a scary thought." She looks up at the sky, making sure to keep the sunlight off of her skin. "When I was human again, I thought I'd come to terms with dying. I'd given up the chance to live forever so I could live again, and I accepted that, after enough time, I would die."
She sighs, her hair being blown about slightly by a sudden cold breeze. "But when I thought that my time came, I realized I wasn't ready. Or maybe it's more that, since I'm a vampire again, I thought that I'd be able to live forever, and dying when I thought that I was immortal again is scares me. I'm not really sure."
"What are you trying to say?" Bonnibel asks, her face plastered with a combination of empathy, confusion, and worry.
Marceline looks her in the eye. "Something that I've wanted to say for a long time. Something that I've been afraid to say until now. Bonnie, I—"
She loses her train of thought as a powerful gust of wind suddenly buffets her, almost thrusting her across the bench into her friend. Both women look up as a shadow passes over them, and watch as a massive cloud trailing snow and ice slowly parks itself overhead. From its center, a figure drops, bouncing off one of the trees before landing directly in front of the two.
"Hey Bubblegum!" she exclaims, her face a mask of maniacal glee. "Have you decided to reconsider my offer?"
"No!" the princess shouts, clearly recognising the person. "There's nothing you can say or do that'll make me want to join your… crazy cult."
"Who's this wacko?" Marceline asks her friend, gripping her axe tightly. "And what's she talking about?"
Bonnibel grits her teeth, clearly furious at the interloper. "Patience St. Pim. She's been trying to get Slime Princess, Flame Princess, and I to help her with… well, I'm not sure what she's doing, but it's nothing good, and none of us want anything to do with her. At least, Flame Princess and I want nothing to do with her."
"Hey, I'm right here!" Patience cries out exaggeratedly. "Don't you know it's rude to ignore people? I'm trying to be nice here! I came to you personally instead of sending what's-his-face to kidnap you! Why can't you see that I'm trying to help you out? You have all of this power just… sat inside of you and you're not doing anything with it!"
The Vampire Queen turns to her with a look of malice. "Back off, nutcase. If you try to touch her, I'm gonna hurt you." Embers begin licking the edge of her bass' blade. "Badly."
"Hey, who're you? I don't remember there being an emo Elemental!" Patience doubles over with laughter at her own joke, as if it was the funniest thing she'd ever heard. "Whaddaya gonna do? Stare me to death? Cuz if you're one of her lackeys," she points to Bonnibel, "you're not gonna do much more than that!"
Marceline feels her rage building inside of her, but manages to contain it as the flames slowly build, now beginning to spread up her axe's beard and neck. Through gritted fangs, she growls, "You should leave before you find out what I'm gonna do."
Patience snorts. "That wannabe 'Ice King' he scares me more than you, and he's as tough as a wet towel."
The head of Marceline's axe fully ignites in flame as she struggles to keep her fury restrained. "If you want to stay in one piece, you should really shut your mouth and stop insulting people I care about. I've survived a thousand years here, and I've beaten more monsters than you can imagine." Baring her fangs, she snarls, "I'm the Vampire Queen and Princess of Hell! I've killed hundreds of my own subjects because they were threatening my friends, and if you think that I won't do the same to you, then you've got another thing coming."
She prepares to transform into a monstrous form, but a soft hand on her shoulder abates her rage. "She's not worth it," Bonnibel states, seeming to be strangely calm given the current situation. Hearing her friend's voice, her fury subsides and the flames on her bass extinguish, leaving no smoke or scorch marks. "Come on. I'll just sic the Gumball Guardians on her."
With a sigh, she casts a side eyed glance to Pim before conceding behind the princess. "Alright. That sounds good." Both walk into the palace, Marceline keeping a close eye on Pim as she raves behind them, but her shouts are quickly cut off by a scream as both Gumball Guardians reach her.
As soon as they get within the walls, Bonnibel loudly exhales and falls against the wall. "Woah, Peebs. What's up?" Marceline asks, looking down at her friend as she leans against the wall. She sees a layer of sweat over her skin, and her eyes are closed as she breathes heavily; she instantly knows what's up.
"Sorry," Bubblegum says between breaths. "But she freaking scares me."
Marceline sits next to her friend against the wall, surprised to see her so freaked out. "Do you… wanna talk about it?" she asks, the phrase uncomfortable in her mouth.
A small smile appears on the princess' face, pleased to hear those rare words out of the Vampire Queen, but it does little to hide her fear. "No, I'm…" She pauses as she sees the look of concern on her friend's face. "Alright. But not here."
Pulling herself up, Bonnibel quickly glances up and down the corridor before walking to the wall and sliding one of the bricks to the side, revealing a keypad. "Jeez, P-Bubs. How many secret passages do you have in this place?" Marceline jokes, trying to lighten the mood.
"Enough." the princess simply answers as she quickly enters the pad's code. As she finishes, a section of wall slides away to reveal a hidden corridor, which is lit by small electric bulbs suspended along hanging wires.
Brushing some stray hair out of her face, the Vampire Queen follows her friend into the passageway, and jumps slightly as the door automatically closes behind them. They climb several flights of stairs, then come out just outside of Bonnibel's bedroom. They quickly enter, then Bubblegum locks the door behind them, before breathing a sigh of relief.
She begins walking to her bed, and she asks, "Still wanna know why Pim scares me so much?"
"Of course!" Marceline responds, following her. "I care about you Bonnie, and she seems like a certified nutcase."
Sitting down on her bed, the princess looks to her friend. "About a month ago, only a bit after your accident, we had hundreds of reports of stolen wire clothes hangers. I suspected it was Ice K— Simon, sorry."
"S'alright."
"Anyways, I suspected it was him. I got Finn and Jake to check it out, and my hunch was right. After they confronted him, they followed him back to his castle and found out that he was tying them together for… some reason. He promised to return them, and I'm still waiting on him to do it. But, what's more important, is what they found. In a chamber underneath his mountain, there was an orb made out of ice that was apparently even stronger than anything the crown could make. Inside, was an old, pre-war sailboat with Patience inside."
"So that's how she knew Simon," Marceline realizes, listening intently to PB's story.
"Patience got Simon to freeze Finn and Jake, then he kidnapped Flame Princess, Slime Princess, and I, and took us to Patience. She told us a story about the Elementals, four people who embody the four elements of the world who are reborn every time they die as a new person. Then she gave us our powers… well, Slime Princess and I. Flame Princess could already do her own fire stuff."
"That's how you got your powers?!" the Vampire Queen gasps, her eyes widening in shock. Bonnibel nods. "You didn't tell me about that? What if you, like, catch her crazy or something?"
"Don't worry, it's fine," Bubblegum assures her friend, putting a hand on her shoulder. "I've run tests, and I can say that there's no signal or energy passing between us." She looks at her palm. "But I still have no idea how it actually works. At this point, magic's the best answer I have. And that's pretty much no answer at all."
She clears her throat. "Sorry, back to my story. After she gave us our powers, we managed to get away, and everything went back to normal for a bit. At least until two weeks ago."
"Wasn't that when the giant crystal origami thing attacked you?" Marceline asks.
The princess nods again. "Yeah. Also, it wasn't crystal; it was an ice construct that Pim made. I managed to destroy it, and I finally learned how to use my powers in the process, but… I caused more damage than it did." She looks at her friend, guilt written all over her face. "I hurt a lot of my own people, Marcy. And they were afraid of me. I don't blame them."
"Hey, don't think like that. You're talking like you're some sort of monster, but if you hadn't stopped that thing, it would've destroyed your whole city! Besides, you only just got your powers under control. There's no way that you could've known how strong they'd be."
"I know… but, if I'd just been a little more careful, then—"
Marceline puts her hands on the sides of Bonnibel's face and forces her to make eye contact. "You can't dwell on your mistakes, Bonnie. Believe me, I know that I should be the last person to tell anyone this, but I know what it's like. When stuff goes bad, it sucks, and you want to blame yourself. But you can't, especially with something like this. She attacked you, and you defended yourself and your people with what you could use at the time. Now all you've got to do is learn and move on so that it doesn't happen again." She feels her friend's cheeks grow warm under her hands, then the princess places one of her own hands overtop of Marceline's.
"Thanks. I needed to hear that."
"No prob," the Vampire Queen responds with a smile, before removing her hands from her friend's face. "And, hey, I'm no psychiatrist, but don't think you're really afraid of Pim. I think that you're afraid of accidentally hurting someone again, and she's the one who made it happen last time."
"I hope you're right." Bubblegum lies back and closes her eyes, a soft smile on her face.
"Well, if it makes you feel any better, I can stay with you in case she comes back. That way she's gotta deal with both of us."
"I'd like that."
She continues relaxing, then hears the sounds of Marceline playing her bass at the foot of her bed. As she listens for a few moments, she remembers the flames that seemed to come out of it earlier. "Hey Marceline?" she asks, sitting up.
"What's up?" the Vampire Queen responds, continuing the play.
"When you were arguing with Pim, I noticed that your bass was… lighting on fire? I haven't seen it do that before."
Marceline chuckles. "I went to visit my dad just before… well, my 'accident,' and he told me about some of the stuff he's done with it. Apparently it's actually one of the strongest weapons in all of everything. Like, I knew that he used it to fight the old rulers of the Nightosphere, but what he says it can do makes it seem like he could've done a lot more than that with it.
"I've been trying to learn more about its magic," she glances at Bonnibel, and is surprisingly not corrected for the last word, "and I found that it can light on fire. The only thing I could do with it until now was make a lightning bolt, like, once a day."
"Wow, that's actually pretty cool!" Bubblegum proclaims. "What else can you do with it?"
"Well, I can already make lightning and fire with it, but my dad says that if I get more 'attuned' to it, whatever that means, then I can actually use it to, like, immobilize people with it, or make a force field around myself. Or even turn it into a different kind of weapon, like a sword or a hammer or something." She giggles. "But I'm not sure that's my style. I mean, I'll fight with it when I need to, but I'd rather just keep it a bass that can do some cool tricks for my shows."
"Hey, speaking of which, when's your next concert gonna be?"
With a shrug, Marceline casually answers, "I've got a solo gig up in Hamburger Hills Cemetery in a few months, but beyond that I don't really know. Keila wants to do another one sometime with me soon, but she hasn't actually said anything more than that. Like, nothing about where it'll be, what songs we'll play, how long it'll be… anything!"
"Well, what songs do you have planned for your solo show?"
"Nothing concrete right now, but I've got a few ideas that I've been toying around with." She continues casually strumming her bass' strings. "The only problem is finding people good enough at the right instruments to do it. Like, I'd do another Scream Queens show, but it's impossible to get the others all here at once and willing to play. Keila's usually down, but we can't do more than jam most times, and I haven't gotten Bongo or Guy to come down since we went on tour."
"That's a shame. Hey, if I find the time to learn, would you mind letting me join you for a show some time?"
Marceline suddenly stops playing and turns around, a grin on her face. "Really? You wanna do a show together?"
"Yeah. It could be fun!"
"Dude, I'd be so down for that!" She pauses, then her grin turns into a smirk. "Wait a second. I thought that you hated my kind of music?"
Bonnibel blushes. "Well, I mean… some of it's alright, I guess."
"Yeah? Like what?"
"Uh… I can't remember the name of the band. But, like, they did a lot of stuff that's really… like, I don't know how to explain it. And their singer also played the flute on a lot of their stuff."
"Ah, you're a Tull gal I see," Marceline teases. "Yeah, I figured you'd like them."
She sighs. "Yeah, you got me; I was wrong about rock music. I guess that not all of it's just mindless noise."
"Dude, we used to argue about this so much!" Floating next to her friend, Marceline wraps one arm around her shoulders. "But I'm glad you've come to see the light."
"Hey, don't go thinking I'm a complete fangirl like you are. From a purely musical standpoint, most of it still sucks. But I can appreciate the energy and passion that goes into it."
"'From a purely musical standpoint'," the Vampire Queen teases, floating above Bonnibel's head and doing a poor imitation or her voice. "Dude, we're talking about music, not a bit of goop in your lab."
Bubblegum sighs and chuckles. "I knew that I shouldn't have let you know I like your stuff."
"Ah, come on. I'm just teasing you." Marceline lowers onto the mattress. "I'm just glad you're willing to give it a shot. And now I'm really looking forward to teaching you how to play it. Are there any instruments that you're thinking about playing?"
"Well, I've always wanted to learn to play guitar. Could you teach me to play that?"
"Yeah. Keila might get jelly, though." She pauses. "Wait, we can have two guitarists!"
"You can do that? Have two of the same instrument?"
"Of course! There's tons of bands that do it! Like, some of the best band ever had two guitars; the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Guns 'n' Roses, Metallica, AC/DC, Aerosmith…"
"You do realize that I don't know half of those bands, right?"
"Well, I've gotta have something to lord over you, don't I?" She scooches to lay beside her friend. "I've got an acoustic that I can teach you to play on, and once you've got that down, then I'll see if I can get Keila to loan me one of her electrics."
"Thanks." Bonnibel lays down next to Marceline. "Ya know, I've actually wanted to do this for a while. Just… never got around to asking."
The weeks pass, during which time Marceline remains in the palace and watches over Bonnibel, making sure that if Pim tries anything, she'd be there. She also regularly talks with Simon, using him to monitor the madwoman. After three weeks without even the slightest hint of the insane Ice Elemental, they decide that she doesn't need to stick around.
She heads back to her home and immediately starts looking for her acoustic guitar. As she opens the door, she immediately flies to the top floor and opens her closet. She crouches down and begins pulling out various boxes and cases; she finds her old Fender, the banjolele that her dad gave her just before tricking her into wearing his amulet, her devil monster bass, and even the four-necked lunatic bass she'd gotten from Jake's son Kim Kil Whan. But not her acoustic.
Stepping back and looking around, she wonders where she'd last put it. She checks under her bed, only to find Schwabl taking a nap. Marceline smiles as she sees her undead poodle, then stands up and quickly glances around the room again. Beneath her recording station, she has one more case. Opening it up, she sighs with relief as she lays eyes on her acoustic guitar.
Taking it out of the case, she looks it over. Once she's confident it isn't visibly damaged, she sits on her bed and begins tuning it to make sure that it plays well. Strumming the strings, she soon falls into one of her favorite instrumentals, Orchid by Black Sabbath, one of the biggest influences on her musical style and bass-love.
Once she finishes running through the song, she pulls out her phone and quickly texts Bonnibel.
M: hey got the guitar.
M: txt me when u r ready 2 play
In a few moments, she receives a response.
B: Alright. I'll come down tomorrow.
B: Got some stuff to finish today.
B: Princess business. Trade deals, meeting with diplomats, the usual. :P
The Vampire Queen snorts and quickly types back to her.
M: laaaame!
M: srsly tho ur gonna love this
B: Sounds good!
B: I can't wait!
M: cya then
B: See you!
Smiling, Marceline puts her phone on her bedside table and stands up, laying the guitar on the bed. "I should probably get some spare strings," she mutters to herself.
The next day, she wakes up early and prepares for Bonnibel's arrival; she gets her guitar and bass ready, cleans up the entire house, and even stocks her fridge and cabinets with snacks, although she can't eat or drink most of it.
By 10AM, her entire home is pristine and ready for a day of teaching. She sends a new text to her friend.
M: hey wen r u comin down?
M: cuz im ready wenever
She doesn't get a response, but assumes that Bonnibel's got some morning work to get done. By noon, however, she begins to worry.
M: u there? did u die or something?
Again, she doesn't get a response. Nervousness rising within her, she calls Finn and Jake's house. When the call is picked up, she immediately asks, "Hey, have you guys seen Peebs? She was gonna come over to my place to hang, but she's not answering any of my texts."
"Nope," an unfamiliar voice answers, making Marceline jump slightly. "Haven't seen her since Finn and Jake left on their trip." She pauses a moment, then remembers Finn's grass-clone, Fern, as well as the brothers leaving with Susan to go to some islands where the humans now live, presumably the ones that she'd helped to save all those years ago.
"Marceline?" Fern asks. "Still there?"
"Oh, sorry. Got distracted," she awkwardly chuckles into the phone. "Well, I'm gonna go up to her place and see if she's there. Can you try to text her or something? I've got a bad feeling about this."
"Yeah, no problem." Fern hangs up the phone, and Marceline stands up, then gets ready to head out. With a sigh, she puts on a jacket and large hat, puts her bass' strap over her shoulders, then flies to the Candy Kingdom. As she quickly glides over the plains, she becomes aware of a growing sense of dread. By the time she passes the mountains that serve as the kingdom's northern border, she is nearing outright panic.
She quickly flies into one of the palace's windows and turns invisible, then systematically looks through each and every room in the palace. Unable to find her friend, she begins scouring the town, looking for any trace of the princess.
In the slums, she finds Peppermint Butler running around anxiously questioning various locals. He soon sighs and slows to a halt; it is then that Marceline appears in front of him. "Hey Pep," she says. "Have you seen PB anywhere? She said she was gonna come down to my place, but she hasn't showed up or responded to any of my texts."
"I've got no idea where she is," PepBut anxiously responds. "She disappeared in the middle of the night last night, and I've been running around all day trying to say it anyone's seen her." He sighs. "Nobody has anything useful."
"This isn't like her. She wouldn't just… run away," Marceline says, more to reassure herself than anything. "The only thing that I can think is that Pim's done something to her." She clenches her hands into tight fists and looks to the Ice Kingdom. "I swear, if she's done anything to hurt her…"
"But Marceline," Peppermint Butler begins, tugging at her jeans as she floats above him. "We don't even know that she's there. For all we know, she could be somewhere outside the city, maybe hurt."
"Maybe, but I doubt it. I think Pim's gotten her somehow."
"Surely we should at least check a few miles outside the walls, just to make sure?"
Marceline doesn't answer for a moment, before sighing and agreeing to his plan. "Alright. We'll check outside the kingdom, and if she's not there, I'm gonna tear apart Ice Kingdom until I find her, or I make Pim tell me where she is."
Immediately, even before she finishes her sentence, she darts off over the wall and being hunting for any trace of the missing princess. She weaves between the peaks of the rock candy mountains, sometimes even delving into the abandoned mineshafts within, flies through the trees as far as Tree Trunks' house, and even goes so far as to check the bottom of Lake Butterscotch.
She flies to the kingdom's outer wall and sits, staring at the frozen peaks of the Ice Kingdom and wondering if Bonnibel is truly within them. As she looks despondently into the distance, she feels a brief moment where all sound seems to be sucked from the world and the air stands still, before a pulsating burst of energy radiates from the peak of the ice palace. It slams into her, threatening to send her flying back, but she holds onto the edge with one hand, the other on her hat as the shockwaves threaten to throw it from her head.
With her ears ringing, Marceline stands up and looks around in shock, before a burst of light appears in the field directly in front of the city's front gate. It appears for only a brief moment, but burns its image into the Vampire Queen's eyes. She pushes off the wall and quickly flies over to its location, and finds a perfect circle of burned grass with Bonnibel prone in its center.
She immediately rushes to her side and rolls her onto her back, shaking her gently. "Bonnie! Bonnie, are you okay? Can you hear me?"
The princess slowly opens her eyes, and Marceline flinches as she sees them; the irises are a bright pink instead of their normal green, and any sense of compassion is absent, replaced with a sadistic, manic glimmer.
"Marcy?' she asks, before a massive grin overtakes her face. She pulls the Vampire Queen atop her in a deep embrace, surprisingly Marceline. However, she soon reciprocates, but something feels… different. As if all of the normal compassion and intimacy that is normally between them was completely absent, replaced with a single-minded devotion to trying to force caring into her.
She also notes that her skin feels different; smoother and more malleable, yet also somewhat sticky and gooey; like actual gum rather than her normal soft pink skin.
Confusion and conflict written all across her face, the Vampire Queen quickly asks, "What happened to you? Where were you? Are you okay?"
Bubblegum simply laughs as she breaks the embrace and rises to her feet, a smile that doesn't quite reach her eyes plastered across her face. "Nothing 'happened' to me, Marcy," she simply answers. "I just found out what I really am!" She takes Marceline's hand in hers and begins pulling her towards her kingdom. "Come on! I'll show you!"
Marceline hesitantly follows, unnerved and extremely conflicted by the entire situation. One one hand, she is certainly happy that her friend is back, but on the other, she isn't sure that it's really "her" who came back.
As they enter the city, a crowd of citizens and guards alike swarm them, all eagerly asking where the princess had been and what just happened with the blast and light, but she simply shoos them off with the promise that she'll explain everything as she determinedly makes her way to her palace. She makes the entire walk without her mask of joy ever breaking once, for even a single moment. Marceline watches her carefully, and has a strong compulsion to simply accept her behavior as natural, as she's normally a positive and caring person; but the sheer volume of it, combined with the complete lack of emotion in her eyes, makes it seem like heavily exaggerated and forced, even creepy.
When they pass through the front gates of the palace, Bubblegum briefly stops and deeply inhales. "It's good to be back home!" she exclaims, before immediately pressing on once more, Marceline in tow. Before she knows it, they've reached the upper balcony of the palace and are overlooking the entire city, with all of its inhabitants gathered beneath them. "Get ready! This is gonna be big," the princess whispers into Marceline's ear, giddy with excitement.
She clears her throat, then announces to her kingdom, "Citizens of the Candy Kingdom! I have returned with wisdom exceeding everything I had previously!" Beneath her, a murmur runs through the crowd of anxious citizens. "I've learned that we exist not of beings of happiness, not of knowledge, nor of power." She spreads her arms and bellows, "We are beings of love, and I will share my love with everyone!"
Bubblegum's skin begins to glow, then a wave of shimmering pink energy radiates from her skin and washes over the kingdom. All of the candy people get transformed, becoming even more candy-like, and all of the structures begin melting away and being absorbed into the central palace, which in turn, is being absorbed into the princess.
Marceline watches, horrified, and quickly flies away into the air. She feels her body changing, her skin seeming to turn into marshmallow, but her immediate powerful aversion to the transformation forces it away. "What the hell are you doing?!" she cries to her friend.
"I'm reaching my true potential!" Bubblegum responds ecstatically as her form merges with her palace. The Vampire Queen bears witness to the disturbing image of her friend being absorbed into her melting palace as the entire structure turns to an ever-growing spire made out of gum.
She stares at the visual in front of her, paralyzed by shock, and is aware of the energy radiating out from her, warping the land for several miles outwards from the abominable spire and candifying everything it touches. As the transformation finally finishes, the top of the spire seems to shimmer, before Bonnibel's face emerges from its pink, gummy surface.
Looking over the transformed landscape, Bubblegum smiles warmly—although her eyes remain just as cold as ever—as admires her dominion.
The energy touches Marceline, the sensation shaking her out of her shocked stupor. She reels back in aversion as it begins transforming her, with forming white, spongy blotches along her body, and a sensation like an itch beginning to nag in the back of her mind. However, she returns to normal in a matter of moments, and a look of shock arises on Bubblegum's face.
She shakes herself out of her shocked stupor, then flies up to the top of the spire and gets in the princess' face. "Bonnibel! What's all of this? Have you lost your mind?!"
A shocked expression appears on the princess' face, but it soon returns to the normal faux-glee. "What this? It seems I missed someone." Arms form out of the gum in an extremely unnerving visual. "Well, no matter. You'll feel our love soon enough." She spreads her arms out, pink energy pulsing from her hands and slowly spreading towards Marceline.
As it reaches her, the Vampire Queen reels in aversion as she begins transforming as well. White, spongy growths appear on her skin, and a sensation like an itch begins nagging in the back of her mind, compelling her to give in to the changes. She cries out as the changes spread up her arm, but they fade just as quickly as they appeared. A look of shock appears on both women's faces, although Marceline's quickly turns to a look of determination.
"I don't want any of your so-called love," she growls. "I'm sick and tired of the people I care about going crazy or disappearing on me, and you know what? You've done both of those to my best friend. You're not fooling me; you aren't sharing your love. You just wanna take over Ooo, and I'm not going to help you with your deception."
Bubblegum's face changes to a mask of betrayal, almost making the Vampire Queen feel bad, but her eyes still glimmer with the cold calculus of a dictator. "How could you say something like that Marcy? I thought that we were friends?"
"You're not my friend," Marceline says, sneering. "You're a bastardization of my best friend, and you're lucky that you're inside of her, otherwise you'd be a puddle of bubbling carmel on the ground." She gives one final scornful glare, then disappears from view as she turns invisible.
The instant she fades from view, she flies straight up and into the clouds, her hat flying off in her speed, and her conviction breaking. Her eyes tear up, and she struggles to keep herself from breaking down. She quickly breaches the clouds and looks down at Ooo; four large blotches mar its landmass, each emanating from a specific area; a pink region from the Candy Kingdom, which she just left, a grey one from the Fire Kingdom, blue from Ice Kingdom, and green from Slime Kingdom. Each one slowly spreads, almost at a crawl from her viewpoint, but still with enough speed that all of Ooo would be covered within a few days.
"Jesus…" she remarks, evoking a long-forgotten name as her eyes dart around to the four elemental zones. For a brief moment, she contemplates running away, potentially heading to one of the random islands dotted around the vast ocean, or even flying off into space—she can survive without air, after all—but quickly abandons the idea; that would be a coward's move.
Her eyes are drawn to the Ice Kingdom, and a sensation of rage overcomes her. Still invisible, she sets her jaw and begins flying towards the frozen peaks, quickly increasing in speed. She swings her axe in front of her, its blade immediately igniting as her hands wrap around its neck. Her fury continuously growing, she struggles to keep her thoughts in order as she blasts through the air fast enough to create a slipstream behind her.
Within a few moments, she reaches the freezing air of the kingdom, and as she passes over the snow, a strong sensation of melancholy buffets her like a wall, threatening to overwhelm her mind with hopelessness, but her unadulterated rage is more than enough to keep her pressing on, the compulsion no more than a minor annoyance. A pair of large, batlike wings sprout from her back, and she feels her body trying to shift more in her fury, but has just enough sense left to keep herself in her normal form.
She streaks over the snow, now visible and ignoring the searing pain every time the sun touches her skin in the absence of her hat, with her eyes trained directly on the main palace. With a ferocious shout, she smashes through one wall and screams, "PIM!" She quickly scans the room, but the entire chamber is devoid of life; there's not even any Gunters wandering around. With a roar of fury, she slams her burning axe into the nearest wall, obliterating it immediately and opening up another room, just as empty as the first.
Fueled solely by her wrath, she tears through the entire palace, destroying walls, icy stalagmites and stalactites, furniture, and anything else that happens to be near her path with reckless abandon until she comes across a large fissure in the ice, with a smooth tunnel nearby. She flies into the tunnel and streaks through it, her axe cutting a long, jagged scar along its edge, and the ice melting around her.
As she nears the tunnel's edge, she sees a perfectly smooth sheet of ice, likely put in place by Pim so nobody can enter her chamber. Marceline, screaming in rage, smashes through it with her axe without difficulty, then stops in the air at the top of the chamber. Her eyes immediately lock onto Pim, who had fallen into her boat in terror, and she glares at the cowering Elemental.
"I don't know what you did that fucked everything up," she growls, not bothering to restrain her tongue in the slightest, "but you're going to undo it."
Patience stares up at her, her fear visible even with her large sunglasses, and stammers, "I-I don't—"
"Don't bother making any excuses!" Marceline screams, cleaving through a stalactite with her axe and making it fall but a few inches from Pim's body. "I know that you caused whatever's happening to Bubblegum, and if you don't fix it, I'm going to hurt you so badly that you're gonna regret crawling out of your lil' ice ball." She spins her axe in her hand, its supernatural flames slowly melting the ice that makes up every surface of the room.
Her eyes terrifiedly trained on the dual-blades of the burning axe, Patience tumbles out of the boat and backs towards the opposite wall, sputtering in fear. "I-I can't undo m-my spell!"
"What?" Flexing her fingers against her axe's handle, Marceline snarls, "Tell me that you didn't say what I think you just said."
Pim takes a breath, but remains rooted to her spot against the wall. "I can't fix this." She gestures to the other side of the room. Marceline risks a glance, taking her focus off of Patience, and sees a block of ice with Betty—Simon's pre-war fiancé—trapped inside. "I tried using her as a battery to power the ritual, but she messed it up. Her magic's too… chaotic."
"Well, it seems that you've got a problem. You screwed up Ooo and drove my best friend crazy, and to top it all off, you can't help to fix it." She waits just long enough for her statement to sink in; after a couple seconds, Pim realizes her intention.
In an instant, she's on the neurotic Elemental and viciously swinging her axe, aiming straight for her head. Patience desperately shoots a beam of ice at the blade, and although it has no effect where freezing is concerned, it knocks off the Vampire Queen's swing just enough that it slashes through the ice a few inches from of its intended point of impact, the arcane flames licking Patience's hair.
She capitalizes on this brief moment to put some space between herself and the enraged vampire, then attempts to freeze her. Marceline feels the numbing cold of Patience's ice rays as they slam into her side, but bellows in fury as she rips her axe from the wall and shatters the ice without difficulty. Fueled by her rage, she dashes across the room and attempts to slash Pim again, but swings wide in her hysteria.
Marceline continues to chase Pim, a frenzy of cleaving swings raining down against her, but the Elemental's magic and madness keep her just out of the way of the Vampire Queen's reckless barrage. She keeps on the assault in spite of this, every time she thinks she has an opening, the madwoman finds a way to avoid her attacks.
Eventually tiring of this, Marceline changes up her attack with a strong kick the Pim's stomach, catching her off-guard and staggering her. She follows this up with a clubbing blow with the flat of her axe's blades to her face, knocking the blue-skinned Elemental back and throwing her shades across the room, revealing a pair of cold, icy eyes.
With a desperate cry, Patience releases a final blast at Marceline, who swings her axe and slashes through the cone of cold with the burning blades, then turns it around in her hands and plays a single discordant chord. A bolt of lightning streaks from the headstock of her bass and strikes Patience in the chest, blasting her backwards into a wall and imbedding her body in it. Marceline marches across the room to her and brings her axe back, ready to swing it into Pim's exposed body.
"Wait," the elemental croaks, bringing her head up to look at Marceline. "There's one way that you might be able to stop this."
"Why didn't you say anything SOONER?!" the Vampire Queen fumes, slamming her axe into the ice directly above Pim's head.
"I—" she roughly coughs, a small amount of dark blue fluid spurting from her mouth. "I thought I could take you." After a moment's pause, she explains, "I overrode their personalities and minds with pure elemental energy. They're completely—" she falls into another coughing fit, more of her icy blood being thrown from her mouth, "—completely bent of spreading their elements. But if you can draw them out, there might be a way of returning them to normal."
"And if I can't make them stop acting like psychopaths?"
Pim smirks in spite of the pain she's in. "Then they're stuck like this."
The Vampire Queen snorts, then slings her bass' strap over her shoulders once more. She turns to leave, but glances at Pim in the wall, then quickly delivers a final punch to her jaw, knocking her out cold. She leaps into the air and tears through the tunnel, then back to what was once the Candy Kingdom.
As soon as she can see the gum spire, Marceline stops and is once more besieged with the compulsion to accept the change—accept her love. She also notices that the face is gone, leaving only a sleek pink surface; she's not sure if it makes her more or less uncomfortable. From this distance, she doubts if she'll be able to draw out the real Bonnibel. What if she's not even there anymore?
She forces the thoughts out of her head and prepares herself to do whatever needs to be done—to reveal anything, no matter how personal—in order to bring her friend back. Continuing her flight, albeit far slower, she tries to plan what she'll say, but eventually decides to just wing it. Beneath her, many candy people mill about, mindlessly wandering around and being sickeningly sweet to one-another; kindness for the sake of kindness, with no compassion to speak of. Above her, the sky begins growing darker as the sun sets, making it easier for her to avoid being burned without her hat.
Marceline stops in front of the tower, with nervousness, fear, and anger all fighting within her, and any confidence she had built up on the flight over gone. "Bonnie?" she quietly says, her voice barely louder than a whisper.
There is no response.
Clearing her throat, she tries again, louder this time. "Bonnibel!"
The front of the tower begins to shift, and soon the mask of Bonnibel's face rises through its surface. "Oh, Marcy!" she exclaims, beaming her crocodile smile. "You're back! Have you decided that you need our love after all?"
"I don't want any of your 'love', and I sure as Hell don't need it" Marceline sneers. She looks into the bright, cold pink eyes, desperate to see even the faintest streak of green. "Please Bonnie! You've gotta fight this!"
"What are you talking about? You don't need to fight me; I'm spreading love!"
The Vampire Queen furrows her brow. "I don't care what you say you're doing. You're just a manipulative blob of gum wearing her face." She pauses, taking a long breath. "Please. I just want her back."
Bubblegum looks somewhat concerned, but Marceline doesn't acknowledge her. Looking down to the ground far below, she continues. "After how long we've known each other, after everything we've done—first building your kingdom, then fighting for centuries, finally being friends again—I didn't think that it would lead to this!" She glances up at the face and sees a mask imitating sympathy, but also a complete lack of memory regarding the stretches of time she mentioned.
Noticing this, she grows angry. "Do you even remember anything from before now?!" she demands.
"Of course I do! Earlier you were being very—"
"Before the elemental stuff!" Marceline interrupts, before pretending to suddenly remember an example. "Like when I tricked Finn into putting wolves in your bedroom?"
"Yes! I remember that!"
"Really? What did you do after that?"
This throws Bubblegum off. "I…" she begins, furrowing her brow as she tries to access the memories of pre-Elemental Bonnibel. "I, uh…"
"You exiled him… for all of about a week," the Vampire Queen responds scornfully. "How about we try something easier? Do you remember when the Door Lord stole a bunch of our stuff? What did he take from you? Or me? Or anyone, for that matter?"
Again, Bubblegum fails the answer.
"He took the shirt I gave you—the real you—when some dill weed spilled soda on your other one at a concert I took you to when we first started hanging out. And he tried to steal my bass, but I was actually good enough to fight him off." She glares at the tower-face. "How about a super easy one? One that you'd be able to get if you were even the tiniest shred of the person that you stole from me."
"I didn't steal anything!" Bubblegum cries, but her complaints fall on deaf ears.
"What is my last name?" She watches as the face on the tower desperately tries to dredge up any memories of her real self, and she's sure that she sees some tiny vestiges of green peeking through the pink in her eyes. Seeing this, her anger takes a backseat. "Could you at least just let me talk to Bonnie one more time?"
The candy Elemental refocuses on Marceline once more. "What do you mean?" she asks with a Cheshire Cat grin. "I am Bonnibel!"
"No," the Vampire Queen states, "you're not. You're a lying, fascist caricature of my best friend. You're just all of her worst aspects driven crazy with magic, with enough of a parody of her real self to hide your rotten core."
"Marcy…?" the tower starts in a tone so seemingly full of genuine pain that it makes Marceline wince. She looks into her eyes, and is sure that there's more green than before, although it is still vastly overpowered by the pink. "Why are you acting like this?"
"Excuse me?" Marceline spits. "Why am I acting like this? You're the one who's all hopped-up on elemental magic and acting like a damn dictator!"
Bubblegum flinches as the Vampire Queen curses. "There's no need to be so vulgar!" she exclaims, looking absolutely shocked.
"What's wrong?" she mocks. "Does it offend you? Is a one-syllable word that upsetting to your virgin ears?" Marceline crosses her arms. "But I guess I'm just in your way. Isn't that right? If I'm not willing to submit to your magic sugar sparkles, then that means I'm just your… problem…" She trails off as she remembers how much that insinuation had hurt Bonnibel before.
In the Elemental's eyes, the green continues growing, with the balance almost equal between the two colors.
Silence remains for almost a full minute before Marceline's emotions finally break. Tears begin falling down her face, and she starts legitimately sobbing, and legitimate worry rises on Bubblegum's face for the first time since she became a slave to her powers.
"Bonnie… why does this always happen to us?" she cries. "Please, I love you. I always have, even when we weren't talking. But every time I think we have a chance, something always happens." She continues to shed large, heavy tears, her emotionally pained sobs the only sound between the two. Suddenly, the energy in the air and the itch in the back of her mind fades, and Marceline looks up at the tower.
Through her tears, she sees her pupils dilate before the face fades, and the entire spire begins the shudder. Her eyes widen, tears still falling from them, as she watches a bulge form directly in front of her. It presses outwards, then splits as Bonnibel's body falls forwards and immediately begins to plummet down the height of the tower.
"Bonnie!" Marceline cries, diving after her. Halfway down the height of the tower—about thirty feet from the ground—she manages to get beneath her friend and catch her with a loud grunt. With teary eyes, she whispers, "Bonnie! Is it you? Are you…?"
The princess opens her eyes, and her friend smiles with relief as she sees them to be entirely green. "Marcy! You…" She glances back up at the gum tower, which seems to be in the process of being drained of color. Making eye contact with the Vampire Queen once more, she matches her grin and then embraces her. "Please. Let's get as far away from here as we can."
"Sounds good," she responds, still crying, although now the tears of those of joy rather than sorrow. She begins to carry her friend away from the tower—with almost all of the candy people watching on in confusion—but Bonnibel stops her.
"Wait, before we go," she starts, blushing and smiling. Marceline looks at her, confused, but gasps as Bonnibel wraps her arms around her neck and pulls her in for a deep kiss. She initially is stunned, unable to react, but soon reciprocates. While their lips remain locked, she slowly floats away from the source of the candy elemental corruption. "I love you too," Bonnibel finishes once they finally break their kiss.
The two stare into one-another's eyes, but when they're barely a hundred feet from the spire, it pulses with energy and immediately begins pulling the princess back towards it. "Marcy!" she cries in shock and desperation, wrapping her arms around the Vampire Queen as soon as she begins getting pulled away.
Marceline turns around, keeping herself between Bonnibel and the spire as she tries to continue moving away. "I won't let you go!" she shouts, keeping a tight grip on the woman in her arms. However, the more she pulls against the force, the harder it pulls. Soon, she's being slowly pulled towards it, in spite of her best efforts.
As she is pulled closer and closer to the spire, she looks at Bonnibel with alarm, who returns her look of panic. "I can't… get away…" she cries, sweating and grunting with exertion.
Just after she says that, the force grows exponentially, yanking both women towards the spire. Marceline slaps against its soft, gummy surface, trying her hardest not to let Bonnibel touch it, but the princess is pulled off by suddenly-animate tendrils of gum.
"No!" both women cry out at once. They clasp their hands and pull as hard as they can, desperately trying to get free of the tower's grasp. Their grips slip, and the princess is pulled under the surface of the spire, and the vibrance returns to it almost immediately. With a shudder, it releases a final burst of energy, propelling Marceline almost ten feet backwards.
"Give her back!" she screams, trying to rush back to it, only to be stopped by a wall of force. "I just saved her! You can't take her again!" She repeatedly slams her body into the invisible barrier, her eyes cascading tears. In her mind, every time you hits the barrier, a sensation best described as being forcefully alienated repeatedly overtakes her, only further fueling her anger.
She finally tires after nearly an hour of slamming herself, as well as her axe, and even candy people, into the barrier. "Why did you have to take her away again?" she moans, weakly pounding her first against it. "What do I need to do? Why can't we just be together?"
Marceline pauses and looks at the tower, then down to the candy people below, milling around in ignorant bliss. "Would you let us be together if I gave in?" she desperately pleads. "Is that what it'll take?!" She tries to hit it again, only to find that the barrier has vanished. Hesitantly moving towards the spire again, she discovers that she is no longer being repelled.
Bonnibel's face appears on the spire once more, smiling again, but this time with genuine happiness in her eyes—although it could simply be her despair masking the reality. "You're ready to feel my love?" she asks.
Marceline hesitates, but her hopelessness and longing is too strong. She slowly nods, and then the Elemental beams. "I'm so happy that you've finally decided to join me and stop…" she averts her eyes, "being problematic." After an awkward moment of silence, she perks up again. "Come on! I've been waiting for you to help me spread my love all day!" Her arms grow out of the gum once more, and again begin emitting their elemental energy. This time, as it touches Marceline, she allows the change to occur, staring despondent off at the horizon.
The final thought in her head before she loses herself are five simple words.
"We didn't do your lesson."