A/N Hello everyone! I hope you had a good Christmas, and a happy new year in advance! Enjoy!

Chapter 4: Ashes to ashes

"Ok... lets see if I remember how to do this..." Fin said to himself. "Happy face..." He drew a simple smiling man on the ground. "Bug milk..." He doused the face in milk gained from a nearby beetle. "Incantation..." Fin cleared his throat and spoke. "Maloso vobiscum et cum spiritum!" At his words, an eerie blue portal opened on the ground.

"Evil be with you and with your spirit? Cool." Mike said. Jake raised an eyebrow at Mike.

"You know what that means?" He asked. Mike shrugged.

"It's old world latin. I'm kind of a history buff."

"Hmm..." Jake looked into the portal. "Ugh... not looking forward to going in there.

"Same bro, last time I was in there, I wore that weird necklace and..." Fin shivered. "Lets just get this over with. Last I heard, Marceline was down there trying to reconnect with her dad. So at least there will be a friendly face." Fin said as he hopped in.

"Easy for you to say..." Jake mumbled as he followed Fin. Mike was last to jump in, but jump in he did. They all landed feet-first into the dark, firy world of the nightosphere. They looked around and saw that they were already in Hudson Abadeer's house already. "Whew. At least we don't have to wait in that glob awful line."

"No kidding, man. Hmm..." Fin looked around the semi-familiar house. He stroked his chin. "C'mon. Let's go find Hudson, or Marceline. I'm sure one will lead us to the other." Jake and Mike nodded as they began to search the house.

"Hmm... Dude, Hudson's probably in his court room judging peoples." Jake said.

"Yea, you're right. That's probably the first place we should look." Fin replied as they started walking in that direction. However, they halted their journey as they realized Mike had stopped following them.

"Uh...Whatcha doing dude? Hudson's this way." Jake said as he tugged on Mike's arm a bit, however, Mike's gaze was fixed on a hallway.

"I heard something from down there. Maybe it's your Marceline friend?"

"I didn't hear anything... but I guess it wouldn't hurt to look." Fin said as he started down the hallway. It wasn't long before he heard what Mike heard. It was soft and barely audible, but it was definatly there. It was the sound of soft, weak whimpering. "What the...?" The sound was coming from a room at the far side of the hallway. They slowly and quietly inched their way towards the room and slowly creaked the door open once they reached it. It was dark as coal in the room, but the whimpering was definatly coming from in there. "You got a light, Jake?"

"Yea man. One sec." Jake pulled out a torch from his body and lit it then handed it to Fin.

"Thank." He replied as the trio stepped into the room. Fin waived the torch from side to side, trying to illuminate the room as to find the source of the noise.

"F-fin..." A weak, feminine voice came from a dark corner. Fin strained his eyes to see, but could only make out a silhouette. He'd need to physically go into the room to make out who it was. And that's exactly what he did. He, and the others, entered and approached the dark corner and the mystery female. He slowly approached and squinted as he rose the torch up to shine light on the girl. However, the sudden difference in light slightly blinded him as his eyes dilated.

"Hello? Who's there? Don't worry, We're not gonna hurt you."

"Fin... Get... Get out of here..." As soon as these words were uttered, Fin's blood ran cold. At that moment, his eyes adjusted fully to see the sad, pitiful figure in front of him. It was none other than marceline. Except... she was so pale. Paler than usual at least. She was skin and bone and from the looks of it, she was starving. It was bad enough that she passed feral mode long enough ago that the starvation adrenaline wasn't keeping her up anymore. She was at the verge of true death at that moment. "Oh my glob! Marceline!" Fin dropped the torch and scooped her up. She was so... small. So fragile in his hands. It hurt his heart to see her like that. He laid her on the bed and and searched his pack for anything red.

"Guys.. you need... to run..." She said slowly.

"Dang girl, what happened to you?" Jake asked with concern. He was downright terrified of Marceline, but decency won out over fear. "Was it Hudson?! It was Hudson wasn't it?!" Jake growled in anger. What monster would do this to his own daughter. "When I get my hands on him-" His threat was interupted by Mike, who was searching the room amd closets for red stuff, by Fin's command.

"Uh... I found a dude in his boxers and a muscle shirt. Anyone you know?" He said as he pulled out an unconscious man from a closet. Fin and Jake looked in shock. It was Hudson Abadeer himself.

"Wait... If it wasn't Hudson, then-" Suddenly, their whole world, as well as the house, got turned upside down. Two dark masses burst into the windows and wrapped themselves around Fin, Jake, and the unconscious Hudson, and Mike and Marceline. The gang was slowly brought forward to a familiar, demonic sight. It was the avatar of whomever wire the dark necklace. Except... there was one discerning feature that gave away the true identity of the wielder. It was a set of iconic silver locks of hair going down his forehead and shoulders.

"Ash! You monster!" Fin shouted in a fit of rage so powerful his face was turning red. His spiteful comment only earned him a laugh from the deranged Ash. "Grr! Why are you even doing this?!" Again, the only thing Ash did was laugh but this time, he tossed the gang on opposite sides of the judgment room with Mike and marceline on one side, and Fin, Jake, and still-asleep Hudson on the other.

"Why?!" the distorted and demonic voice of Ash bellowed. "I'll tell ya why. See, I knew I could never trick Marceline into loving me again, so I decided to make a plan forcing her to love me! All it took was a bit of unconsciousness magic and her unrealized thirst to connect with her dad and she was my puppet!" He laughed again, his soul sack jiggling as he bellowed. "She even gave up eating entirely just because I said so! And after she was weakened enough, I took Hudson's amulet to insure I maintained my power over her." Fin growled and stood up, readying his sword.

"I'll kill you!" Fin shouted.

"I am immortal, boy, even without the amulet. You don't stand a chance against me!" Ignoring this, Fin lunged at Ash and battled with him. Meanwhile, Mike, once be was thrown, grabbed Marceline and used himself as a shield against the blow of being thrown on the floor by Ash. This left Marceline unharmed, but gave Mike a petty bad cut. Mike looked at his bloody band, then to Ash and Fin, then to Marceline. Mike didn't know a whole lot about the situation he was in, but he knew they didn't stand a snowballs chance against Ash with that necklace on. Mike saw that Ash was smart enough to shield the amulet from harm. Mike watched as Fin tried desperately to get at the amulet, but his sword just wasn't doing it for him. Mike took one more look at his bloody hand as a plan formed in his head. Meanwhile, Fin was hacking and slashing at Ash, trying to get at the amulet, but just as soon as he made a cut, his clothes repaired right over the amulet. He realized he was locked in an endless battle that he wasn't sure he was gonna win. But then, in just mere moments, someone lept off of his shoulders and right at Ash. Fin recognized the glint of a weapon as Mike's scythe. Mike, wielding his weapon. drove it deep into Ash's head and his weight allowed him to glide downward, slicing Ash open in the process. Like scissor going through paper, Mike slid down all the way until Ash was properly cut in half with the amulet exposed. Fin wondered how this was possible, until he realized the curve of the scythe prevented the blade from being pushed out as easily by Ash's magic, causing the added damage to take longer to repair. However, Mike wouldn't he fast enough to grab the amulet in time for Ash's wounds to heal... but someone else was. In the blink of an eye, a flash of black lunged at Ash and tore the amulet free from his body. The dark magic followed the amulet and rendered Ash back to his normal self, albeit unconscious. The battle was over, they had won. Fin, in total shock, slowly looked around and was shocked at what he saw.