"This … could be very bad…" The princess gazes hard at the screen. Lady had just bought in yet another of these "Replik", as she'd come to call them. Same results as the others. They all had these "rifts" in their structure. Normally, they would be collapsing into miniature dark holes because of those, but they weren't. Somehow, they were walking and talking in one piece. The Princess tries not to let her head jump to magic as the answer.
Whatever the reason behind this anomaly, the point is, they were dangerous. It would be safer to wash her hands of them as quickly as possible and rid Ooo of this weird infestation. She'd checked her lab and sure enough, no one had used her clone machine. The origin had to be those particle bursts her globbzinger picked up from what was registered as a warp portal in her scanners. Wherever these Repliks came from, these unstable forms must be the norm. All she had to do is reverse engineer the particles into her Blitzypolari and voila! A one-way ticket back to clone world, wherever that is. She hadn't had challenges like this in a while, which was nice. Why couldn't it not be a potential catastrophe and just something she could dissect without freaking out?
"Gah!" She jumps slightly when her male counterpart rushes in, slamming the door behind himself. He's breathing hard. Banging on the door follows quick.
"Yo, 'lemme in, Gumball! Y'know I can break this door!" Ugh, it's Marshall.
"Danggum it, Marshall!" The Prince yells back, "I made these doors out of reinforced hard candy! Just try it!"
"Ahem," PB taps the Prince on the shoulder, "I made them."
"Oh, but of course!" He puts up two hands defensively, "I mean, we seem to have made identical castles so … you get what I mean, right?"
"Why are you two making such a Unruhe all the time?" She and Marceline were NOT like that. At all. She takes a dropper and proceeds to do science-y things. "Grow up!"
The Prince brushes off her rebuke and leans curiously over her shoulder.
"Is that the prolithiosizmo model? I haven't finished mine yet, but it's supposed to look just like this!"
"Uh huh…" PB tries to keep her focus. She was never this chatty! "Listen, can you please do something productive? Away from me?"
"I completely understand. Unfortunately, Marshall is still out there, and he won't get out of my hair. I'd much rather be downstairs making cream puffs."
"… You bake?" PB pauses to give him an odd look. She baked the occasional citizen. That was all. Otherwise, she'd make consumables for fun, like Cinnamon Bun's sandwich. Since he'd gone and become adviser to the Fire Kingdom, she'd left culinary arts to Peps.
"Of course! In fact, that and holding dance parties are two of my favorite activities! Science is a bit of a side hobby."
Now Bubblegum was absolutely sure. Whoever made these clones had no idea what the originals were like. At all.
…
"Huh? Marceline?" The two brothers come to a screeching halt, dousing the Queen with some snow, "Heh. Oops."
Marceline wipes the snow off her face with some mild annoyance, "What are you guys doing here?"
"Oh, the usual. We gotta beat the stuffing outta the Ice King until he gives us his fanfiction manuscripts!"
They said it so casually. The vampire laughs and grins, "Count me in!"
What was the harm in a prank? Simon deserved a kick in pants anyway. She hated it when he messed with other people using magic. And to think he made walking time bombs like PB said…
"ICE KING!" The brothers burst in yelling at the top of their lungs. No one was on the first floor.
"…Did he go out or…?" Marceline scratches her head.
"Nah, he's gotta be down in his worship room," Jake pulls aside a bookshelf to reveal the tunnel into the Ice Mountain's bowels, "Let's go!"
The trio jump down and navigate through the rooms of icicles, hibernating Ice Beasts, and more and more weird things.
"Yeesh, when you take it all in, this guy's a real kleptomaniac."
They finally reach the large doors, opened. Inside, they find Ice King atop the welcome flowers, his nose in a book. He begins bawling out of nowhere.
"FIIONNNNAAA!"
"Yo, Ice King!"
"Hunh?" The monarch turns to them with a face of snot and tears. He instantly brightens at the sight of his BFFs, "Yo guys! Welcome back!"
He wipes his face with some littered pages and quickly runs over to them. "So? Did you guys get the stuff on my list?"
"Better! We found someone totally more responsible to bring Fiona back!" Jake puffs his chest out, like he deserved a medal, "We just need a book of your fiction."
"WHAT?! Who- Who could possibly-"
"No time to get jealous, Ice King!" Finn smacks Ice King on the face, his eyes wide and slightly crazed, "We gotta get Fiona back, right?!"
"Finn, woah!" Marceline pulls the boy back, "You okay, man? Chill out!"
Finn plops down, trying to slow his breathing. He was totally freaking out. Fiona … she had him in the palm of her hand. He was all jammed up to see her again. The thought that she might return his feelings … and they could have a normal relationship for once (even if she was his clone), was getting him hyped.
"Dude, you gotta stop being so obviously desperate!" Jake pokes his forehead playfully, "We'll get this done, no sweat!"
He turns to Ice King. "So, you givin' us the stuff or what?"
Ice Kings seems to hesitate. Then, grumbling, he shuffles over to a stack of musty novels and plucks one out. Clutching it tightly, he hobbles back to the group.
"I'm coming with you. This is my newest masterpiece. I was supposed to read it with her…" He tears up again and bawls, "OHH FIOOONNAAAA!"
The youngster's stomachs sicken slightly thinking of Fiona and Ice King together. Wouldn't yours? They quickly light out of the worship chamber and make speed back to the Candy Kingdom, Finn riding bat-Jake, Marceline just chill-flying, and a half-bawling Ice King flapping his tear and snot-drenched beard.
"So … who is this big shot magician? 'Bet I could knock the bricks off this guy…" The Ice King grumbles as he recovers.
"Pep But," replies Jake bluntly, "He's always got those weirdo demon friends o' his in his little cave."
"Demon friends? Well that's cheating! If I didn't have to deal with Gunther all day, I'd show him!"
"Heh, sure, Simon."
…
"Pep! Yo, Pep!"
The human boy hops off his brother's back into the hollow of the great candy tree. An eerie red light illuminates the interior. The room has been cleared of what paraphernalia was in here previously, replaced with piles of books, potions and magic formulas scrabbled on the floor. Artifacts, or trinkets, sit scattered in the room, most notably a large thick slab of black rock. Finn jumps a little when he sees Cake standing on all fours in a corner, her hair standing up straight like spikes.
"Cake! What happened?!"
"That darn candy butler happened!" The cat wails, "Wacko put me to sleep then rubbed me across a carpet! Fix this!"
"Finn?" The butler emerges from behind the black slab at the sound of his name, black sunglasses over his empty eyes, "Just in time. I got just enough electricity from Miss Cake over here."
"Pep! Why didn't you just use the princess' power grid?!"
"Not a chance, sirs!" Peppermint puffs out his flat chest, "Such rituals require energy made the old fashioned way!"
"I mean, it's just electricity in the end …" Jake murmurs to Finn on the side, taking care not to let Pep overhear.
"Now! You have the manuscript, I presume? Excellent!" Pep claps his hands.
"Uh huh …" Ice King grumbles and comes forward reluctantly at Finn and Jake's gestures. He clutches the fanfiction close to his beard, "Uhh … What are you gonna do with all this junk anyway?"
"Silly Ice King," Pep beams smugly, "I am well versed in the magics that interweave our very fabrics of existence. Even if they are aliens from another universe, they're here now, and so the same formulae ought to apply."
"Uh huh …" Ice King frowns, looking skeptically at the magic circles and lain artifacts, "This all looks fishy … I'm gonna get this back in one piece or else, y'got that!"
"I promise nothing."
Finn hollers from behind, "Ice King just do it already and give him the stinkin' book!"
Ice King cringes slightly and makes a small, reluctant groan as he hands over the book. The striped candy butler takes the book into his gloved hands. A look, unnoticeable to the rest, passes over his face for a split moment, faster than one can blink.
"Stand back, you lot," He bids them with one hand, "Do not tread upon any of the arcane cores."
"… Y'mean these doodles?" Marceline, floating nonchalantly, points to the circles drawn on the floor.
"They're not doodles! And no floating over them either!" Ugh, like father, like daughter.
After the group stands a safe distance away, against the walls, Pep ventures to the apparent center of all the arcane circles. He places the book on the empty epicenter and sits, cross-legged, on a drawn slot set before it, between a feather of the pillow dragon and the discarded shell from the lungs of the fire dragon. His eyes close and reopen almost immediately, radiating dark energy from the white voids. His lips are seemingly set on a line, yet moving almost imperceptibly as he murmurs and fills the chamber with his words. Literally. Letters of words flow from his lips as the book before him flips page after page at an incredible speed. The party can only watch as the words fall and gather into one of the empty circles. The letter congeal, changing as they amassed, twisting and adding color. In a bright puff of smoke, the letters are all but gone.
Lying in the circle is Fiona.
Finn rubs his eyes once. Twice. There she is. But before he could jump for joy, Ice King swoops past him and picks her up in his arms.
"Oh … my Glob … It's really you!" He practically squeals in delight looking down at her face.
"Uhhn…" Fiona stirs in his arms.
Cake hisses and pounces at Ice King, "GET YOUR HANDS OFF HER!"
Ice King floats up a bit and Cake misses, smacking into Pep But. Luckily the ritual was completed or else his sudden loss of concentration would have evaporated the book and Fiona.
Fiona blinks and shifts, "Huh … Wuh?"
"ICE KIIING!" Finn jumps off with the help of his springy brother to kick Ice King squarely in the back … but not before jumping too high (still in a cavern here!) and smacking his face on a stalactite. His hard head breaks the stone off, which then flies and knocks off Ice King's crown, sending him and Fiona crashing on the cavern floor … and onto Finn, who landed there earlier. The three lay there in a jumble.
"Finn!" Jake runs over, "Oh Glob, Ice King get your big fat bidonks off my buddy!"
Yet he seems reluctant to lift Ice King himself.
Finn groans slightly. Good thing Ice King was so bony and his beard fluffy. Otherwise his weight coupled with Fiona's would have hurt much more. He wriggles out from underneath. Ice King groans, out of it. Finn pulls Fiona out from the tangle of beard.
Fiona groans and looks at Finn blearily, "Uhh… What …who…"
"Fiona, it's me … Finn!" The boy ignores his throbbing forehead, "You're alive!"
The girl sits up and looks at Finn oddly, "… Who?"
Finn can feel his his hope slip and fall down a deep abyss.
Jake and Marceline, behind Finn, stare on at the two.
"You have GOT to be kidding…"
It's been a while and this is hardly a decent bone I know. I'm going to try and shake off the fatigue and get this going.