The code was coming together. It was more revealing, with more details, than PB ever needed to know about Ice King and his crazy loon noggin. Even without getting into gross or disgusting detail, the pure desperation and delusion oozing out of the story told in the code was enough to make her gummy skin crawl. He had the writing skills of a gushy 16-year old teen on hormones, and an imaginary harem the size of half a planet. After this, she would need a long bath.
Meanwhile, Gumball looks out towards where many of the Aaa inhabitants are being pooled after gathering. He had to give it to these Ooo guys, they worked fast. Bubblegum concocted the tracer parameter that allowed them to track the unique Aaa resident makeup within the last hour or so, and then the search teams were off. Combined with Fiona and Marshall's efforts, they were rounding up doubles like mad. He recognized several of his citizens gathered in the courtyard, many looking confused or bewildered.
While he was capable of conducting science like Bubblegum, she didn't trust him to help. Instead, she astutely shooed him out to go be the prince who calms everyone down. He knew she had a point. Candy people, whether in Ooo or Aaa, are simple and easily scared folk. The monarch has to assure them or they'd explode or, in Aaa's case, implode.
So, he steps out into the crowds. A hush falls briefly before the hordes of sweets come to him, seeking his assurance. The doubles who are not candy folk approach nonetheless, having been clueless since they arrived.
Bubblegum sighs and looks to her globular model of Ooo with markers and percentages. The total number of Aaa inhabitants is slowly accruing within the castle, meaning reconnaissance is going well. A good number of them may have already been devoured by nil, which are less problems for them to worry about recouping, honestly. She sighs and refocuses a bit on the Aaa imagination code. While picking Ice King's brain, she had also compiled some data from LSP's brain. All it took was a treat stuffed with somniferous to trick that outsider princess into a docile state to be observed. The lumpy princess had apparently aided the King in this fiasco, after all. Their completely delusional minds seem to jive well together, unsurprisingly.
"Now for a rewrite..."
…
Finn grumbles to himself, still sore over Fionna's immense fangirling over the Ice King. And now he's on roundup duty with her. She conversely sensed his unhappiness with her behavior. The two of them are rather awkward as they round up a handful of princes from Aaa.
For a split second, Fiona feels something like a headache run through her mind. For a while, she had been thinking only of getting back to Ice King, the cutie. But, at that moment, she suddenly thought of how Finn felt. She remembered how they ate together and roughhoused around. She puts a hand to her head.
"You alright up there, Fiona?" Cake calls up.
"Uh, yeah, I'm fine," Fiona steals a glance at Finn as he and Jake round up some more of the Aaa people they found in the area.
"That's about all the signals," Jake lets out a puff of air as he houses their bounty on his body, "We should get back to PB and get the next batch."
"Good Gab, how many did that cutie dream up?" Cake sighs, "He must've been in need of good lovin' to make this all happen!"
"Yeah, you don't wanna think about that," Jake warns.
"... Hey," Fiona calls over to Finn, "Uh, nice job on that last bit."
She said that because she thought it would dispel something in her. It didn't. Something about Finn remained afloat despite the deluge of feelings for Ice King. If anything, saying that kept it floating more.
"Oh, uh, thanks!" He gives a chip-toothed smile and a thumbs-up. He couldn't be too wrapped up in his own turmoil right now, not when the world is ending...
"Huh?" Cake stretches her neck and angles her eyes, "What the buzz?"
"Whaddayou see?" Jake chimes in.
"Looks like... a blue cinnamon bun? And a fire... oh, that's gotta be yours!" The magic cat says.
"FP?" Finn looks up, "What's she … oh no, you don't think the Fire Kingdom..."
The two transport animals carefully haul their riders over to the path Cinnamon Bun is traveling.
The fire horse halts with a wild whinny, nearly throwing off its two riders.
"Heel, heel!" Cinnabun says with authority, finally stilling the spirited steed. Behind him, FP clutches the pastry by his waistband.
"Yo CB, what up?" Finn hops down from Jake, "FP? You okay?"
"The Fire Kingdom was attacked. There were many casualties..." Cinnabun sighs, "We had to scatter from the wreckage."
"Attacked? Don't tell me..." Cake groans, "Those giant black circles?"
"... I'm gonna destroy them!" Phoebe roars suddenly, her flaring hair regaining from its former limp form at the mention of the dark spheres.
"Woah, woah, Princess!" Cinnabun flails his arms a bit, "You saw those things devour yours and Prince Phillip's flames!"
"Yeah, they- wait..." Fiona hops down as well, "Phillip? Where is he?"
Phoebe and Cinnabun both look down a bit.
"... He used all his power to distract it... That dummy..." Phoebe mutters bitterly, simmering a little, "That Glob-darned DUMMY!"
Her form flares up again. Fire of a lower temperature contrasts around her eyes and rise upward into thin streams, almost like tears of flame.
"Prince Phillip gave his life so the majority of Fire Kingdom citizens could get away," Cinnabun nods solemnly.
"Oh no..." Fiona lightly touches a hand to her lips, "But... we can bring him back, right? Cake says I was ripped up and..."
"We can?" Phoebe perks up as her flames die down a bit.
"Well, let's talk about that later," Jake ushers them, "We gots clones to round up and PB isn't gonna be patient forever."
…
Marceline scowls a bit as she scoops up some of the protesting Aaa people into the quarantine that PB had set up on short notice to house their hauls. Marshall is in there, too, seemingly having lost his usual gusto and pep. PB mentioned that he may have been affected since he was the closest to the Shredder. Marceline didn't full listen when she was talking about stuff like radiation and particles or whatever.
"How's it going, Bon Bon?" Marceline sighs as she flies up to the Princess' expanded laboratory, complete with an Ice King code station and Gobl monitor now. Since she had finished extracting the code from the King and LSP, they were moved to the infirmary, still asleep, while she examines the trawled data.
"Oh, hey, Marcy," PB turns and sighs, "I'm about 83% done with the code rewriting. Debugging is going to be a hassle... How's the crowd outside?"
"Mood's about as bad as it gets, even with the Prince Charming out there," Marceline snickers, "Geez, he is so lame."
"...It's not easy. These guys are pretty much like my own citizens... and the other peeps of our world," PB finds herself giving a soft and amused scoff, "And we know how that goes."
"... So, if you can do this, we're gonna be stuck with duplicates until the world blows up sometime?" The vampire queen idly floats, folding her arms behind her head.
"It'd be better to just send them back, honestly. This whole rewrite is to buy us some time, before Ooo gets eaten up," PB scribbles and taps at some stuff on her digital display screen, "They don't belong here. It's all the messed-up noodle of the Ice King and LSP."
"So, we aren't going to be fixing any of the ones who got messed up?"
"No."
Marceline shrugs. She looks over at the Gobl monitor, which shows the areas of the planet being devoured by the Shredder balls as they speak. The newest casualty is where the Fire Kingdom should be. Growing craters in other parts of the battered world spread like eroding lesions.
Bubblegum is cold as always... but even Marceline had to admit she was grateful that someone was taking care of this situation with such cool exactitude.
"...Alright, onto debugging. And..." PB checks the numbers of Aaa signals on the planet, "Great, you guys rounded up a lot... We should be about done once your dad and Finn's group returns."
"I still can't believe my dad is actually helping out," Marceline scoffs with a small smile on the side, "..."
"...What?" Bubblegum glances at the queen, feeling those red eyes on her.
"... Nothing," Marceline flips her dark locks, "I'm just glad we aren't losing our heads over this end of the world."
"Because we're not going to lose," Bubblegum says firmly, "Mit mir nicht."
…
After Finn and Fiona returned on Jake and Cake with their haul, along with CB and Phoebe, they go to relax a bit while Hunson is out getting leftovers. CB and FP go to report to PB about the whole Fire Kingdom collapse.
"Hey, Finn?" Fiona calls out to the other human as he goes to take a break by the castle foyer.
"Hm?" Finn turns around to look to her.
"... You looked a bit sluggish that last catch. You need a nap?"
"Pfft, nah, heroes don't take naps...!" Finn gives that cocky, chipped-tooth grin.
Fiona had been planning on seeing the Ice King when she got back. In the moment Finn smiled at her, she forgot what she was going to do.
"You want any ice cream floats?" Jake offers.
"Nah, we're gonna go make sure the Ice King's not too lonely," Cake smiles smugly.
"Eugh. Well, suit yourself," Jake cringes and goes to pat Finn on the back to leave, "C'mon, bro."
"Was it just me or..." Finn whispers to Jake as they walk out of earshot.
"... Fiona?" Cake looks to her as Finn and Jake go to chill and probably chug some ice cream pints with Manfred, "You coming to see the king or what?"
"Uh..." Fiona stammers and places a hand to her flushed cheeks, "Huh? What?"
"What the- girrrl..." Cake gives a catty grin, "Lookit you getting all red already!"
"Cake... I was thinking of Finn...!" Fiona whispers.
"Okay, you lost me again," The cat gives her a skeptical look, "What's the boy got over someone like a man?"
"... I'm not sure," Fiona sighs, "It's been weird around him."
"Girl, you'll come to your senses once we see that hunk of Ice King again. Come on!" Cake pulls her along to where the Ice King should be. Just as the cat turns, she sees that familiar streak of black fly through the air and land atop one of the Candy Kingdom spires.
"Oh, hey, it's Monochromicorn!" Fiona puts a hand over her brow as she sees a sparkle of something rainbow near the sir, "Uh, and that's..."
"Who's that with the Sir?" Cake hisses slightly at Lady as she seems to greet the dark horse several stories up in the sky.
"Pfft, you sound jealous, Cake," Fiona snickers.
"No, no, no, no, I just don't trust that rainbow worm thing," Cake pouts, "Besides, we're gonna go see a real hottie!"
Cake shoved those strange feelings down. Fiona was still confused, somewhat. She loves Ice King right? He's the real hottie matottie... who she couldn't wait to marry, right? But, then why was she thinking of Finn, too?
She glimpses something like an alternate memory. She was blasted with ice as she ran to protect Finn from the two ice monarchs... When did that happen?
She scratches her head under her hat tentatively. It was strange, as if something that was pre-programmed in their written minds was slowly becoming undone.
